James “Little Guido” Maritato (AKA Nunzio) was kind enough to provide the foreword to my upcoming textbook, On Officiating: The Professional Wrestling Referee’s Rulebook. Now available for pre-order as an eBook, on sale in paperback 8/25.
The future “Little Guido” and “Nunzio”: 22-year-old James Stone vs. legendary mixed martial artist Yoshihiro Takayama at UWFi in Tokyo, Japan (2/18/1995).
The best pro wrestling is what you watched as a ten or twelve-year-old. Those mythic characters and their larger-than-life melodramas you obsessed over with friends forever reside within that warm glow of nostalgic bliss. For me, that era occurred from 2002 to 2004, coinciding with Rey Mysterio’s SmackDown! debut, harboring the golden age of WWE’s cruiserweight division.
For a sixth-grade runt, seeing wrestlers in the land of the giants that were relatively close to your size was a revelation. Limited to 225 pounds and below, the Ruthless Aggression era’s cruiserweight division also featured an array of supporting staples, including the leader of The Full Blooded Italians, two-time future champion, Nunzio.
A wiry 170-pound scrapper flanked by heaters, Chuck Palumbo and Johnny “The Bull” Stamboli, “The Sicilian Shooter” was a rare comedy character that could back up his trash talk as a crafty technician who took gnarly over-the-top rope bumps and knew how to make the most of a moment. On his podcast, The Kurt Angle Show, the WWE Hall of Fame member and ‘96 Olympic gold medalist said: “Nunzio’s a tough little bastard, man. I liked working with him. You could do whatever you want with him. He was like, ‘Hey, do whatever you want. You can kick my ass, throw me all over the place.’ He is one tough son of a bitch... He’s a great talent.”
Nunzio vs. Kurt Angle on SmackDown! (2/3/2005).
Before WWE, James Maritato entered the business in 1991, working for several years on ECW's undercard as Damien Stone. After impressing at a tryout with his work ethic and amateur skills, he began training under the legendary Billy Robinson while competing in Japan for shoot-style wrestling promotion UWFi (Union of Wrestling Forces International) as James Stone. He re-emerged from the experience at ECW in 1996 — now under the complete creative direction of Paul Heyman — joining The FBI as Little Guido. There, he continued to build his reputation as an egoless hard worker who wrestled captivating matches in an array of different styles, perhaps best exemplified by a frenetic series with Super Crazy and Tajiri.
“Nunzio’s a tough little bastard, man. I liked working with him... He’s a great talent.”
—Kurt Angle
I first met Guido as a teenager just a few months into my own pro wrestling journey, a few years after first seeing him on TV. We were backstage at an indie in South Jersey when my early mentor (and ride that night), Tommy Force, ribbed me about why, having finished my last match assignment, I was taking so long to get changed. I explained I was waiting until the main event had finished, just in case something came up that required another official. Guido, fresh from WWE, overheard and complimented me, saying it was smart thinking on my part. That brief interaction gave me a huge boost of confidence in trusting my instincts. We would work together several times in the ensuing years, including when I booked him on a small Brooklyn matinee against future WWE Superstar Carmelo Hayes, and, later, as colleagues at Impact and House of Hardcore.
Nunzio, prior to his WWE TV debut, in a dark match vs. Bryan Danielson, featuring guest referee Jacqueline Moore (12/3/2002).
Recently, he was gracious enough to lend his 35 years of experience in the ring to the foreword of my upcoming textbook, On Officiating: The Professional Wrestling Referee’s Rulebook. He had a yearlong run with the WWE as an official in 2011, but what referees can really learn from is his adaptability and versatility. To be a successful official, it’s necessary to go with the flow, adjusting to the talents’ styles while managing the expectations of the office. That can mean alternating from a serious to comedic tone, or enforcing an entirely different rulebook. Talking shop while preparing the text, we discussed how expectations can change from one show to the next, or even match to match within the same card:
GUIDO: “The business sure changes over time. I mean, damn, look at us in ECW in the nineties. We did everything in front of the referee. That was a totally different brand. One time, somebody got disqualified for using brass knuckles, and Joey Styles made a big deal: This is ECW, where ten thousand chairs were used in that same match, and they get DQ’d for using brass knuckles?
“But the business has changed. So has refereeing. At some companies, referees are very involved in your match, and certain organizations may bury the referees worse than others, but it all depends on what’s going on in the match. One could use the referee perfectly. The next may be chaos. It depends nowadays on the style of the match.
“I was able to adapt to different styles. That’s very important, because wrestling Super Crazy is different from wrestling Tajiri. The more styles you learn, the better matches you can have. Sometimes you don’t speak the same language as your opponent. We say, Oh, I can ‘talk wrestling’ with them. They don’t really speak English, but you could get through a match, communicating in the locker room with hand gestures and certain phrases.
“People always said I was more of a utility man because I could do comedy and serious wrestling. I think that’s why I kept my job. You know, I was lucky. The reason why I stayed there so long was because I was able to be a versatile character. Working with Chuck and Johnny gave me access to working with The Undertaker, Brock Lesnar, APA, doing six-man tags and different programs: Vince McMahon hired us to do hits on Nathan Jones and Hulk Hogan as Mr. America. We had a great cruiserweight division, but, for a few years, I wasn’t really involved in it — I was busy managing and getting opportunities to work with these other guys.
“Then WWE let Johnny go and made Chuck a biker, which left me alone. They threw me in the cruiserweight division, and I was like a fresh face, having never really wrestled there. My first two years in WWE, I didn’t do the cruiserweight stuff. At the time, if you weren’t a big guy, your options were limited. Like me, Chavo was fortunate in a way, too, because he had Eddie, and then they brought Chavo Sr. in, so he was able to work with some of the top guys, too. You know, it’s unfortunate a lot of the cruiserweights didn’t get a chance to do that at times — it gave us longevity.”
Kris Levin is the author of The Best at Being the Worst: The 15-Year Odyssey of Pro Wrestling’s “Kid Ref” Surviving Impact, GCW, MLW & Mexico’s Deathmatch Wrestling Scene. His upcoming textbook, On Officiating: The Professional Wrestling Referee’s Rulebook, will be available in eBook and paperback on 8/25. He can be found online at TalesFromTheMat.com.
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