Meet the pro wrestling referee who just showcased his ‘dream job’ at his alma mater

All Elite Wrestling referee Bryce Remsburg went from growing up a wrestling fan to being a student at Temple to now living out his dream job — as a referee for a major professional wrestling company.

“In every part, it doesn’t feel like a job; [but] it’s the job that I have been training for, for 21 years,” said Remsburg, who returned to North Philly on Wednesday night for AEW’s main event at Temple University’s Liacouras Center.

“I learn something every week. There’s so much to learn about [from] camera placement, [to] when we go to break, the way a show is paced, and what time commercials have to happen. I learn something every single time that I go to the arena. There are moments where it’s frustrating but I can’t imagine myself anywhere else.”

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This wrestling dream started for Remsburg in a small town in Pennsylvania called Palmyra which is a two-hour drive from Philly. When Remsburg was seven years old, he remembers going to his neighbor’s house to watch World Wrestling Federation superstars like Macho Man Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior.

Remsburg was hooked.

The first wrestling show that he attended was at the Hershey Park Arena in 1991 where he watched Hulk Hogan take on Ric Flair in the main event. He began collecting wrestling t-shirts and wrestling in his backyard.

When Remsburg was 19, he started training to become a pro wrestler but realized that he was not an athlete of that caliber and the risk of injury was real.

It doesn’t feel like a job; it’s the job that I have been training for, for 21 years.”

“There was a stigma about hardcore wrestling and there were some stories that wrestlers had trouble walking up a flight of stairs or had trouble getting out of bed in the morning or have trouble remembering their kid’s names,” said Remsburg. “You don’t have to sign up for an extreme style of wrestling but that was enough to [convince me to be] a referee. Especially because being a referee means you can still do all of the travel and you get to do all of the shows.”

But what also drove Remsburg’s interest in pro wrestling was the unbelievable fan base for wrestling in Philadelphia. In the industry, Philly as one of the best wrestling towns in the world. Growing up for Bryce, there were up to 12 independent wrestling promotions in Philadephia. He says it was also a major influence on why he decided to go to Temple.

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In doing so, Remsburg pursued a degree in telecommunications. While he went to all of his classes in his freshman year, starting in his sophomore year he began working as a referee on the independent scene. Rembsurg would attend classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays while working as a ref from Friday through Sunday.

Remsburg treated college as his 9-to-5 job as the only thing he would do on campus was to catch up on work or go to classes. While Remsburg’s parents weren’t aware of the extent to which he was traveling for these wrestling shows, the only thing that mattered to them was if his grades were slipping.

Which he attests, they never did.

Following his four years on North Broad, Remsburg’s next step was to find a job that worked around his wrestling schedule. The gig that got Remsburg his wrestling connections was printing t-shirts for independent promotions. Remsburg would use those connections to hook up his friends in the industry. Remsburg also worked in movie theaters and at a pharmaceutical advertising place. But, his jobs inside and outside of wrestling were not entirely paying the bills.

Until All-Elite Wrestling came along.

AEW was started in 2019 by billionaire Tony Khan who is the son of Shad Khan — the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars. While there were plenty of independent wrestling promotions, there were none near the level of World Wrestling Entertainment in a business sense.

But in 2018, a group of free agent wrestlers created an event called All In which sold 10,000 tickets in mere seconds. This opened the eyes of Khan, a longtime wrestling fan who had both the money and the vision to compete with the WWE.

Enter Remsburg who was asked to do the first-ever AEW pay-per-view called “Double or Nothing” in Las Vegas in 2019 at the request of the Young Bucks, a part of that earlier free-agent collective. AEW needed people to fill in a referee and because Remsburg was a friend of the Young Bucks — it was his ticket to the big show.

“Bryce behind the scenes is very no-nonsense,” AEW referee Aubrey Edwards said. “He has to be very direct, very honest, and have difficult conversations with people. So a lot of times wrestlers will have an idea in their head of what they want to do, but they don’t necessarily think about how the ref fits into that. I’ve seen many instances where Bryce is extremely good at saying, ‘That’s good but why don’t we do this instead.’”

Once Remsburg was officially hired full-time by AEW, he quit his other jobs. Now, being a professional wrestling referee pays for all of his bills. Remsburg is also very involved in the travel department for AEW as well. Remsburg officiated the main event of the 2023 version of All In, in front of a sold-out Wembley Stadium.

When asked to think about it, in addition to being a top referee, Edwards did have three words that described Remsburg both as a person and as a ref.

“Father,” she said. “Like number one above all else, he’s like the world’s greatest dad. Hardworking and fun.”