TAMPA — Bill Alfonso has lost count of how many times he has been injured.
“Broken ribs, broken noses, a broken arm that had to be put together with a titanium plate and nine screws,” Alfonso said. “I almost bled to death once.”
Now 66, he’s been hooked ever since a family friend gave him tickets to his first professional wrestling show in 1970.
“I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” Alfonso said.
For 45 years, he’s worked as a referee, an on-screen manager and as in-ring talent for the WWE and its rivals.
Alfonso, who lives in Tampa, is now a free agent, lending his charisma and personality to promotions on a case-by-case basis.
He won’t have to travel far from home for the next gig.
On July 12, Alfonso will appear at The Coliseum in St. Petersburg as part of a Major League Wrestling promotion show titled, “MLW Blood & Thunder 2024.” He will perform as a manager, but there is always a chance that the wiry Alfonso will seek to cheat for his wrestler.
“Bill brings a frenetic energy to every match that somehow transfers into the matches themselves,” said Court Bauer, the promotion’s founder and chief operating officer. He is known for “calmly finding openings to up the ante, sliding a chair into the ring while somehow spinning around and rallying the fans. He’s a walking commotion that you can’t help but love to see out there.”
That energy helped the smaller Alfonso to stand out in a business known for giants, said Barry Rose, who promotes professional wrestling fan fests in Tampa Bay. “He was this super ref that everyone loved to watch work. Whenever he is at one of my fan fests, he is one of the most requested guests we get. He is so engaging.”
Vic DiMaio, now a local political consultant, was Alfonso’s childhood neighbor in West Tampa. He said Alfonso always had the cartoonish, over-the-top personality needed for professional wrestling. “Everyone liked him. He was always that guy making us laugh, pushing boundaries. You could tell he was destined for stardom.”
But it wasn’t until attending that first show, put on by the now defunct Championship Wrestling from Florida at West Tampa’s Fort Homer W. Hesterly Armory, that Alfonso found an outlet.
“You could see the gleam in his eyes whenever we talked about wrestling,” DiMaio said.
Alfonso wasn’t the only neighborhood kid who dreamed of success in that industry. So did his best friend, David Canal. But Canal had the 6-foot-2-inch and nearly 300-pound frame necessary to make it as professional wrestler “The Cuban Assassin.” Alfonso was considered too petite at 5 feet, 10 inches and under 150 pounds.
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Explore all your optionsBut referees are typically on the smaller side, intended to make the wrestlers look bigger.
“Dave lied for me,” Alfonso said. “He got booked in Texas and told them I was his little brother and a referee.”
That was 1979. He had no experience, but Alfonso said he had an idea of what to do from watching shows in Tampa. “It turned out that I was a natural.”
The referee enforces or overlooks the scripted rules, but their mannerisms and interactions with grapplers and fans add to the theatrics.
“Bill made refereeing an art form,” DiMaio said. “When he missed bad guys cheating, fans really believed it. They’d yell that he was an idiot, blind, all kinds of crazy stuff.”
After six months in Texas, Alfonso returned to Tampa with a dream of refereeing for Championship Wrestling from Florida. Gerald Brisco, who worked both in the ring and front office there, promised Alfonso a job when one opened.
His break came a few months later when a referee missed a show.
“He was fired on the spot,” Alfonso said. “And I was hired.”
Alfonso got the gig and was put to work backstage, too.
Back then, professional wrestling still operated under the guise of legitimate competition and storylines, which meant the feuding good guys and bad guys could not be seen together outside the ring. They stayed in separate dressing rooms, with Alfonso as the go-between while they planned matches.
Wrestler Dusty Rhodes helped Alfonso land a referee gig for World Championship Wrestling, which was owned by Ted Turner.
“He paid his guys very well,” Alfonso said. “I took my first check to Dusty Rhodes and said that I thought they overpaid me. He laughed and told me I would make more than that. I was in my 20s and making $100,000-plus.”
He moved on to the WWE, where, in 1992, he refereed at WrestleMania — the industry’s most important annual show.
Alfonso earned true stardom beginning in 1995 after joining Extreme Championship Wrestling, which was a more hardcore alternative to the other promotions.
He started as a referee who promised to enforce the rules, which made him a bad guy in a promotion that had fans chanting for more violence. Alfonso became an on-screen manager who irritated crowds and opponents by blowing a refereeing whistle during matches and interfering on behalf of his grapplers.
He became one of the industry’s most hated personalities. Fans clamored for the annoying Alfonso to get his comeuppance and cheered when, in 1997, a female manager busted open his head during their match. It’s considered one of the bloodiest moments in the history of that bloody promotion.
“I had to get rushed to the hospital and they almost couldn’t stop the bleeding,” Alfonso said.
After that promotion shuttered in 2001, Alfonso returned to the WWE for a short stint before transitioning into the current phase of his career.
“I’m doing really well,” Alfonso said. “I get booked three weekends a month.”
Looking back, Alfonso said, the first match he saw was the most important. “I fell in love with the business that day.”
If you go
MLW Blood & Thunder 2024 will be at 7 p.m. on July 12 at The Coliseum, 535 4th Ave. in St. Petersburg. For ticket information, visit mlw.com.
