Mike Chioda was one of WWE’s all-time refs. First, he had to score booze for Andre the Giant in Wildwood.

Andre the Giant needed to find something to drink before he stepped into the ring in Wildwood. But the “Eighth Wonder of the World” was not going to venture into the Shore town that night in the early 1980s.

“Hey, kid,” said the 7-foot-4 goliath with a thick French accent.

He wanted Mike Chioda, a teenager from Willingboro who helped set up the wrestling venue as a summer job, to hunt down vodka and wine.

“I said, ‘Sorry, boss. I’m not old enough,’” Chioda said.

The giant was puzzled. He asked Chioda again. Sorry, Chioda said, but he couldn’t help. He was just 17. A few of the veteran wrestlers in the locker room heard the conversation and pulled Chioda aside. He couldn’t say “No” to Andre the Giant, they said.

“How can I get him alcohol? I’m not old enough,” Chioda said. “They said, ‘How would you get beer if you wanted it now?’ I said, ‘Well, I’d go to the liquor store and wait for someone who was cool enough and then ask them to buy a six-pack of Löwenbräu.’ They said, ‘That’s what you have to do.’”

Chioda worked for WWE — then known as the World Wrestling Federation — for 35 years, becoming known as one of the company’s most respected referees. He was the third man in the ring for some of the most iconic matches in WWE history, became The Rock’s handpicked referee, took a chair shot at WrestleMania in 1999 when it was last held in Philadelphia, and officiated Ric Flair’s final match.

First, he had to score booze for Andre the Giant.

“I said, ‘You have to be kidding me,’” Chioda said.

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Chioda, who is now 57, played shortstop at Willingboro High and dreamed of making it to the major leagues. But his baseball career ended when he suffered a torn ACL playing rough-touch football at a family reunion, just a week before he was planning to attend a Phillies tryout.

“I intercepted a ball and one of my cousins put me into the bushes,” Chioda said.

So he turned to wrestling. Chioda was friends with the children of Gorilla Monsoon, who lived just off the golf course that Chioda’s father owned. Chioda worked there as a dishwasher — “My dad paid me $3.35 an hour” — but soon learned there was more money in wrestling.

Monsoon, whose real name was Robert Marella, hired Chioda to help at the wrestling shows and paid him $200 a night. Chioda did everything from setting up the ring to playing the wrestlers’ entrance music.

“We used to play the music with a boom box and a microphone,” Chioda said.

The money was great and it became even better when Monsoon told Chioda that he had to sell programs. Monsoon’s son, Joey Marella, became one of the top referees and no longer wanted to sell them.

Chioda stood in the middle of the Wildwood boardwalk, hawking $1 magazines with Andre the Giant and Big John Studd on the cover. He sold out in a flash — “People that weren’t even going to the show wanted them,” he said — and pocketed 10 cents off every sale. He made an extra $300 selling programs.

“My dad had to call Gorilla because my mom found rolls of 20s in my sock drawer,” Chioda said. “I came home from school and she said, ‘What are you doing? Are you dealing drugs? Where are you making this kind of money?’ I said, ‘Wrestling, Mom.’ She said that’s [expletive]. I had a water bed. I had everything. I had four cars by the time I was 17.”

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Chioda became a referee in 1987, a few years after he joined the company full-time as part of the ring crew. He drove around the country in a truck, setting up the wrestling ring wherever the show was and then breaking it down before driving to the next town.

He refereed his first TV match in 1989, worked SummerSlam in 1990 at the Spectrum, and soon became one of the top refs. Chioda officiated WrestleMania main events, crowned new champions, and became popular for the way he signaled a two-count.

He did almost everything in professional wrestling. Everything except take a shot from a steel chair.

“Let’s do it,” Chioda said after The Rock and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin told him their plans for their 1999 main-event match at WrestleMania in Philadelphia.

The chair shot, they warned him, would be to the head.

“All the stuff these guys do, you can’t just sit there and go, ‘Oh man,’” Chioda said. “I said, ‘Just bring it. There’s no place I’d rather take a chair shot than WrestleMania in Philadelphia, 20 minutes from home.’”

Austin gave Chioda advice backstage about the proper way to take the chair, reminding him to use his hands to protect his face. Chioda, not knowing any better, said that would make it look like the ref knew what was coming.

“I’d rather just lean into it and take it,” Chioda said. “When I took that chair shot [from Austin], it was just like, ‘Holy [expletive].’ The crowd went nuts. My bell rang for like three days. It was like a phone was ringing in my ear. My neck was tight. These chairs are not fake.”

Chioda went backstage and was replaced by another referee. The officials backstage were so happy with Chioda’s performance that he earned a $2,500 bonus. He used the money later that year to finish paying off his mother’s home in Willingboro. His first chair shot came in the town he loved. It was worth it.

“But I think it was my last one,” Chioda said.

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Chioda was reffing one of his first matches when a heel — wrestling parlance for “bad guy” — won a match by holding his opponent’s tights while Chioda counted to three. Chioda, on his way backstage, high-fived fans in the crowd. Monsoon and Jack Lanza — another former wrestler who became a company official — were waiting for him.

“They said, ‘What are you doing?’” Chioda said. “I said, ‘Did the match not go right?’ ‘No, the match was perfect. But then you messed it up by thinking you were a star coming back down the aisle.’”

A referee, they told him, is doing his job when he is not being noticed. No overreactions in the ring. Stay away from the wrestlers unless there’s a need. And definitely no high-fiving fans. Less is more, they told him. No one came to see the ref.

“Referees comp tickets, the wrestlers sell tickets,” Chioda said.

He broke in “the old-school way” under a group that included wrestlers like Chief Jay Strongbow, George “The Animal” Steele, Rick Martel, and Tito Santana. If they liked you, Chioda said, they took care of you. If not, they didn’t talk to you.

Joey Marella, who played high school baseball at Holy Cross, came up the same way. Monsoon pushed his son and Chioda toward refereeing as he told them that was their best route to a long career in an industry filled with short shelf lives.

The two listened and became top guys. Marella counted to three after Hulk Hogan body-slammed Andre the Giant in front of 93,000 fans at WrestleMania 3. He was WWE’s choice for the biggest matches and the guy Chioda could count on when he lost a tooth.

“We’re in Miami,” Chioda said. “Partying hard. I woke up in the morning and my front tooth is completely gone. I said, ‘Joey, did we get in a fight last night?’ I don’t see any cuts or black eyes. But I’m missing a tooth.

“He’s laughing in bed. He says, ‘I have your tooth in my front pocket. You walked smack into the elevator last night.’ He pulled out my tooth. I got my tooth fixed and a lesson learned: Don’t party all night.”

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They were best friends, which made Marella’s death in 1994 so crushing. Marella died when he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed on the New Jersey Turnpike. He was 31. The WWE finished a 17-day tour earlier that night in Maryland. Chioda urged Marella to come to Long Beach Island and ride Jet Skis. Marella said he had to get back to Tampa, Fla., where he had recently moved. So he drove after the show to catch a flight in Newark.

“He never made it that far,” Chioda said. “The accident happened just a couple miles from his mom and dad’s exit. It was sad.”

Chioda carried his buddy’s memory with him as his career continued. When The Rock — “I became his main ref” — asked him to referee his main event at WrestleMania 18 in 2002 against Hulk Hogan, Chioda wondered whether that spot would have belonged to Marella had he still been alive.

Chioda said Monsoon, who died in 1999, never recovered from losing his son.

Chioda keeps a picture of Marella on his desk in Florida, often reflecting on the way he and his father looked out for him when he was trying to find his way in the wrestling world.

“I still get choked up,” Chioda said. “He would’ve had a hell of a career. It’s a tough deal. Joey was a great guy. We had a lot of fun.”

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Chioda underwent shoulder surgery in the fall of 2019, keeping him out of the ring six months after he worked another WrestleMania. He was living in Florida, rehabbing at WWE’s Performance Center near Orlando, and preparing for a return to action. Then he received a call in April 2020.

“I got released,” Chioda said. “Out of the blue.”

The longtime referee was one of many to lose their jobs that month as WWE slashed budgets after the wrestlers were unable to perform in front of crowds during the pandemic. Tony Chimel, who grew up with Chioda in South Jersey and became a popular ring announcer, lost his job after 38 years.

“It was weird,” Chioda said. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me? How are we getting released? Everyone over 30 years is getting released?’”

Chioda eventually found peace with his dismissal. He had a great run in WWE, making good money and even more memories. He has since officiated a few matches for other companies, hosts a podcast, and appears at wrestling conventions.

He finally has his own wrestling action figure and sells T-shirts that say “The ref of my childhood” after a fan called him that. For many fans, that’s who Chioda was. And it all started with a 17-year-old kid waiting outside a liquor store in Wildwood.

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“I went down there with a $100 bill,” Chioda said. “You always have to worry about the guys coming back with your stuff. If I get beat with my own money, that’s one thing. But if I get beat with Andre’s money, I’m getting my [butt] kicked.

“It worked out, though. The guy took forever. I’m thinking, ‘Is there another way out of this liquor store?’ He comes out and goes, ‘Man, it took me forever to find that French wine.’”

Chioda returned with the goods and the Giant tipped him $50. Any time, Chioda said.