Mike Chioda Reveals Incident of WWE Threatening Umaga With Financial Penalty Over Face Paint

During a recent episode of the Ad Free Shows' Monday Mailbag, former WWE referee Mike Chioda delved into various subjects, including an interesting backstage anecdote involving the late WWE superstar Umaga and face paint.

Chioda recounted a situation where John Laurinaitis, who was the WWE Head of Talent Relations at the time, confronted Umaga for not wearing his signature face paint during house shows. Laurinaitis warned Umaga that failure to adhere to the face paint rule would lead to disciplinary action.

Chioda said, “I remember me, Johnny Stamboli, Rey Mysterio, and Ekie in the car and we’re driving down. Ekie’s got a — he’s started this Umaga thing with the paint and all that stuff. So he’d go to TVs and have one of the guys paint his face all the time. We’re in the car on the way to a live event, I remember Johnny [Ace] calling him. He says, ‘Ek, you didn’t wear your face paint last night at the live event.’ Ek’s like, ‘Yeah, Johnny, I put it on the TVs.’ ‘You gotta start putting it on now or else you’re gonna get fined.’ He was like, ‘What?’”

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