{"id":30748,"date":"2018-11-14T10:16:55","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T15:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=30748"},"modified":"2018-11-14T18:02:19","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T23:02:19","slug":"exclusive-interview-impact-ref-the-kid-kris-levin-on-concrete-jungle-deathmatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/11\/14\/exclusive-interview-impact-ref-the-kid-kris-levin-on-concrete-jungle-deathmatch\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive Interview: IMPACT&#8217;s &#8220;Kid Ref&#8221; Kris Levin On Concrete Jungle Deathmatch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Referees in the wrestling business often go without acclaim, credit, or even basic recognition. In some cases, wrestling fans only notice referees when they make a perceived mistake. However, there is a lot to the craft which goes without being noticed.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Things Get EXTREME in Death Match Between LAX &amp; OGz at Bound for Glory 2018!\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-fIibMVahTo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Fans of <strong>IMPACT Wrestling<\/strong> who watched the recent <em><strong>Bound For Glory<\/strong><\/em> Pay Per View may have missed how important a referee was during the Concrete Jungle Deathmatch between the <strong>OGz<\/strong> (Homicide, Hernandez, and King) against <strong>LAX<\/strong> (Santana, Ortiz, &amp; Konnan).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30792\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30792\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30792\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/11\/23032641_10215019123421080_7880848029350421234_n-e1542174220233.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"500\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30792\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Chris Grasso<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The referee of the Concrete Jungle Deathmatch was &#8220;Kid Ref&#8221; Kris Levin, and his outstanding work was able to keep the entertainers safe during a unique deathmatch concept, which saw the canvas removed exposing the boards underneath. We recently spoke with Levin about his career and the risks of being involved in such a match.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>When did you become a wrestling fan, how did that transfer into you becoming a referee?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some of my earliest memories are of watching professional wrestling with my dad and older brother in the mid-nineties. Playing with WWF Hasbros and Jakks, my favorites were <strong>Andre the Giant<\/strong> and the<strong> Undertaker<\/strong>, whose name I always mixed up with the Terminator. I rediscovered professional wrestling circa 2002, as my two best friends from elementary school were enamoured with it. At first, I was reintroduced via N64 and PlayStation games, which gradually led to me watching the product with them. Before long, I became obsessed with it. Event results, biographies, books, magazines, toys, shoot interviews, you name it and I absorbed it.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30796\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30796\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30796\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/11\/664956_4871616477821_498870707_o-e1542174653700.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"331\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30796\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kris with WWE Hall of Famer &#8220;Wild Samoan&#8221; Afa Anoa&#8217;i (Photo: Johnny Gee)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A few years later, as a know-it-all teenager, I viewed all things independent as inherently superior to what was being distributed in the mainstream. I subsisted on a steady diet of <strong>Ring of Honor<\/strong> DVDs and ECW VHS tapes. In October of 2007, my mother saw a flyer for a local promotion called <strong>Force One Pro Wrestling<\/strong>\u00a0that was running twenty minutes from my home. I was ecstatic. On October 27th, 2007, I attended my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q%3Dhttps:\/\/www.cagematch.net\/?id%253D1%2526nr%253D37942%26amp;sa%3DD%26amp;ust%3D1542165567892000&amp;sa=D&amp;ust=1542165567900000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEMVWC330CtXCYALr8c1VFLqZaD-g\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first<\/a>\u00a0live independent event.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Riding off of a high from what I experienced, I went home and scoured their Myspace page and WordPress website, eager to soak up anything and everything Force One. Eventually, I discovered a post calling for ring crew and street team members. By November I started helping out at their hole-in-the-wall training center in Egg Harbor City, New Jersey. I showed up early and stayed late. I would often be pulled into the ring and taught a thing or two. Before long, the students required a referee to officiate their practice matches. <strong>Tommy Force<\/strong> and <strong>Jaden<\/strong> in particular really took me under their wing during this time. On June 21st, 2008, at the age of fifteen, I officiated my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q%3Dhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v%253Dijasju531WI%26amp;sa%3DD%26amp;ust%3D1542165567893000&amp;sa=D&amp;ust=1542165567901000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGdCQUzHS7MQ0GQUusAu-r_0SEHSw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first<\/a>\u00a0live match.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30795\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30795\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30795\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/11\/19420887_10213804140967278_6562909845764828743_n-e1542174524831.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30795\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Burning Hammer Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>What was your first deathmatch or hardcore match?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I officiated a handful of hardcore matches as a teenager throughout New Jersey, including a barnburner of a first blood match between <strong>Niles Young<\/strong> and <strong>Sami Callihan<\/strong> that saw me on the receiving end of a chair shot. My most memorable hardcore match during those early years was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q%3Dhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v%253DeHXzwRB28ks%2526%26amp;sa%3DD%26amp;ust%3D1542165567894000&amp;sa=D&amp;ust=1542165567901000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFFC0hijvil5TuT-FBRrM8-j-CZMA\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">two-out-of-three falls match<\/a>\u00a0between Sami Callihan and <strong>Drake Younger<\/strong>. I will forever be indebted to Sami, as without his guidance\u2013particularly in those early years\u2013I would never have had the good fortune to find myself where I am today.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NWA Force 1 - Referee Kris Levin takes a chair shot from Sami Callihan\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a56JNiUQboA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>What were your thoughts when preparing for the concrete jungle match?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I had little time to prepare, as it is typical in this industry to not know what your assignments are until the day of the event. On the other hand, I had over a decade\u2019s worth of preparation\u2013years of officiating deathmatches, primarily in <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2018\/08\/11\/game-changer-wrestling-continues-to-change-the-game\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Game Changer Wrestling<\/strong><\/a>, alongside three tours of Mexico with <strong>Desastre Total Ultraviolento<\/strong>, made officiating <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q%3Dhttps:\/\/thegorillaposition.com\/2018\/05\/17\/tales-from-the-mat-05-17-2018-the-squared-circle-of-life-and-deathmatch-wrestling-part-1\/%26amp;sa%3DD%26amp;ust%3D1542165567894000&amp;sa=D&amp;ust=1542165567901000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEb8VPB6ArS24KaVJNEAzR82EfogQ\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q%3Dhttps:\/\/thegorillaposition.com\/2018\/05\/24\/tales-from-the-mat-05-24-2018-deathmatch-wrestling-part-two\/%26amp;sa%3DD%26amp;ust%3D1542165567895000&amp;sa=D&amp;ust=1542165567902000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH0Wbsi8amvDuVnYyi-qlMQmaMs5A\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">genre<\/a>\u00a0somewhat of a forte for me.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-30794\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/11\/22141214_10214722686290337_8874199518406951647_n-e1542174476469.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\"><\/p>\n<p>I had officiated no-canvas deathmatches previously but never had I encountered technical difficulties to the level we were experiencing with the movement of the boards under our feet. In that instant, I was forced to not only referee the match but do my damnedest to literally hold the ring together and provide as safe a space as possible (given the circumstances) for the performers to ply their craft, all with the added pressure of being live on pay-per-view. With that said, the Concrete Jungle Deathmatch was without question the most challenging bout of my career.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are some of the misconceptions surrounding referees in wrestling?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think a big misconception about refereeing among the uninitiated is that anyone can do it. I mean, sure, anyone can do anything. That doesn\u2019t mean they can do it well. I always appreciate fan feedback, but when it comes to criticism regarding the mechanics and inner-workings of an industry that I spent years travelling North America cultivating, I think about this modification of a quote from playwright <strong>George Bernard Shaw<\/strong>: those who can do. Those who can\u2019t, talk about those who can.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are your goals in the wrestling industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My biggest goal within the industry is to, in some way, leave it a better place than when I first started. My greatest passion in life is storytelling. So long as I can positively contribute to that end and be a small piece of the bigger whole, be it in the ring or backstage, I live my dreams and achieve my goals nightly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Referees in the wrestling business often go without acclaim, credit, or even basic recognition. In some cases, wrestling fans only notice referees when they make a perceived mistake. However, there is a lot to the craft which goes without being noticed. Fans of IMPACT Wrestling who watched the recent Bound For Glory Pay Per View [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2048,"featured_media":30793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7],"tags":[1527,3861,130,3860,1176,3862,3863],"class_list":["post-30748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-impact","tag-bound-for-glory","tag-concrete-jungle","tag-impact","tag-kris-levin","tag-lax","tag-ogz","tag-referee"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2048"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}