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Referee Rich Lannon Lannon was born in 1961 in Waltham, Massachusetts. He may be looking tomake a move to Georgia. He was once stationed in Okinawa, Japan as a member of the United States Marine Corps. He use to be an avid country line dancer where he met his fiance, "So guys, take up dancing if you are shy and want to meet women. There's not many ring rats at an indy show." Rich grew fond of the biz while going to monthly WWF shows at the Garden and Waltham's IBEW Hall. Rich's fave memory is meeting Pedro Morales and Gorilla Monsoon in a restaurant. "Also that night in a six man match, Chief Jay Strongbow went nuts and continuously smashed his three blond opponents in the head with a wooden chair. Blood flowed freely and shot out everywhere. The Chief was hardcore before all these ECW wrestlers were even born." Lannon was trained to boss the matches by Killer Kowalski in 1991. He reffed his first match in 1991. The bout had Bulldozer vs. "Ultimate Job Boy" Eric Hutchins in North Andover. Rich's high in this business occurred as being assigned senior ref for the WWF dojo. He refereed Kurt Angle's very first pro match as well as bouts involving Edge, Christian, The Hardys, Val Venis, Albert, Steve Blackman, Test, Mark Henry, Tiger Ali Singh, Droz, and Shawn Stasiak. He also refereed Triple H's first pro match. Lannon has 3 things he would change about the business: 1. He would be a full time WWF referee. 2. Bring back realism and psychology to wrestling. 3. Have every person that is qualified in their specialty, appear on at least one major WWF/WCW show. Thoughts On NECW: "I like the fact that the NECW wrestlers are friendly, experienced, and technically trained. I really enjoy working for Sheldon and Scott. I respect their honesty, opinions and appreciate their maturity for letting me get additional work from other promotions. I can only get better by working with a more vast variety of wrestlers and they realize that fact. I only hope that NECW really catches on and becomes a federation that sets the wrestling world on fire." - Ron Lemieux
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