Author: You might have read "Cena grants WrestleMania wish for man-child suffering from terminal talentlessness" and thought, wait, is this real? Or maybe you chuckled at "Wrestling legend who barely spoke for 30 years now never shuts his big yap" before realizing these headlines came from the masterful mind behind Kayfabe News.
For over a decade, Colin Hunter has delivered "unreal news about an unreal sport," serving as wrestling’s answer to The Onion with headlines that blur the line between parody and possibility. His satirical genius has fooled countless readers, earned praise from legends like Mick Foley, and even inspired real WWE storylines. Now, the man who built his reputation on the art of kayfabe (the wrestling world’s unwritten rule of maintaining the illusion) is stepping into the ring for real. The Ref Didn’t See It! chronicles his transformation from sharp-tongued satirist to one of wrestling’s most unlikely participants, in a journey that’s part documentary, part self-discovery, and fully captivating.
The Ref Didn’t See It! Why Kayfabe News Creator Made a Documentary Celebrating Pro Wrestling’s Referees
Pro Wrestling Stories welcomes Colin Hunter, creator of Kayfabe News. A National Newspaper Award winner and former physics communicator by day, Hunter spent over a decade writing more than 3,600 parody articles before stepping into the ring himself. His new documentary, The Ref Didn’t See It!, follows his unlikely journey from satirist to certified referee. Below, he shares how a half-joke became 100 matches and a surprising new chapter.
"Stop smiling!" hollers my trainer from ringside. Again.
It’s true that I’m smiling when I shouldn’t be. I’m the referee in a professional wrestling match – well, a training match, in front of an audience of none – so I’m supposed to look stern, attentive, and, well, official.
I’m wearing my brand-new striped shirt and black slacks, but I’m not truly a referee. Not yet. It’s the autumn of 2022, and I’m taking the first tentative steps on a strange and wonderful journey: to earn my stripes as a pro wrestling referee and make a documentary about the process.
I’m smiling because I’m standing in a wrestling ring — me, in my late forties, after a lifetime of being a fan. I’m smiling because, for me, this is boyhood-dream-come-true stuff, even if there’s nobody there to see it.
My trainer has warned me that he’ll slap the smile off my face if I break character in the ring — and he already has, once, hard — so I force the grin into a look of stern concentration.
But on the inside, I’m beaming.
Even now, several years, 99 matches (at the time of this writing in June 2025) and one documentary later, I’m still covertly giddy inside every time I put on the stripes and step into the ring.
Learning the Ropes: Behind-the-Scenes Wrestling Referee Training
On the last weekend of June 2025, I’ll referee my 100th wrestling match. And I’ll still be smiling on the inside — perhaps more than ever.
The idea began, as most of my ideas do, half-jokingly: what if I trained to become a pro wrestling referee and we made a movie about it?
It was a silly notion that also made perfect sense, which is familiar territory for me. I’ve spent more than a decade writing Kayfabe News, a satirical site often described as "The Onion of pro wrestling." I’ve written more than 3,600 satirical news stories about an unreal sport, poking fun at the absurdities of this world I love.
But I’m a writer, not a fighter, and I never thought I’d be part of a wrestling match in any capacity.
My friends Sara Geidlinger and Marshall Ward of Bonn Park Media saw something in the idea. "We’re making this movie with you," they said almost immediately, and they meant it.
We spent the next two years filming The Ref Didn’t See It! at dozens of independent wrestling shows in Canada and the US. The camera followed me from clueless beginner to semi-competent official, learning the ropes refereeing from the ground up — the nuances of body positioning, communication, timing, looking the wrong way when the heel is cheating.
Colin Hunter’s Journey From Kayfabe News Satirist to The Ref Didn’t See It! Documentary
What began as a kind of gonzo documentary about my misadventures became a story with much more heart than we expected.
Emily Parker, a second-generation referee from Nova Scotia, is the beating heart of the movie. She’s following in the footsteps of her late father, with the mentorship and friendship of Canada’s top working ref, Harry D. Without spoilers, Emily and her fiancé, wrestler Justin Newhook, provide some touching and tear-jerking moments in the film.
I found something in refereeing that I didn’t know I’d been missing. Wrestling became a third place for me — not home, not work, but a space where I feel alive. The locker rooms became familiar and warm, full of handshakes and humour.. The other refs became mentors, friends, and co-conspirators. The wrestlers — even the heels who berate, distract, and abuse me in the ring — became my people.
But we didn’t make this movie just for wrestling fans. In fact, we’re hoping to change the minds of people who think they don’t like wrestling. Director Sara Geidlinger wasn’t a wrestling fan when we started, but she is now. Through the camera lens, she saw what I’d always known but never articulated: wrestling, for all its chaos and artifice, is about trust and joy. She fell for it. Watching Sara’s appreciation for wrestling grow has made me love it even more.
Sara and I lost our mutual best friend, Marshall Ward, during the making of the movie. He was the biggest wrestling fan we knew, with an encyclopedic knowledge that made a trivia ham-and-egger by comparison. He believed in the film. He was supposed to make the movie with us, and instead, it is dedicated to him. I often think about how overjoyed he would have been to see me referee a wrestling match.
So on the last weekend of June 2025, when I referee my 100th match and more, I’ll try to look stern, but I’ll be smiling on the inside. Always.
The Ref Didn’t See It! is available now at therefmovie.com.
Listen to Kayfabe News creator Colin Hunter discuss his journey from satirical wrestling writer to documentary filmmaker and referee with Pro Wrestling Stories senior editor and author Evan Ginzburg and Russell Jackman on Wrestling and Everything Coast to Coast:
