WWE referees have had a series of different uniforms throughout the years. From the 1970s until 1983, still operating under the World Wide Wrestling Federation banner, referees wore black and white striped shirts, comparable to referees in other sports, such as
ice hockey,
basketball, and
American football. In the mid-1980s until 1995, a World Wrestling Federation (WWF) referee's attire consisted of a blue collared shirt with black trousers, boots, and
bow tie, similar to that of a boxing official. Beginning with the March 13, 1995 episode of
Monday Night Raw, the uniform was changed back to the black and white striped shirt with a WWF logo patch on the left breast as well as the shoulders. With the
WWE brand extension in 2002, referees appearing on
SmackDown! began wearing blue
polo shirts with black pinstripes, differentiating themselves from the Raw referees, who continued to wear black and white shirts. When
ECW was revived in 2006, their referees were given black shirts. As of 2007, they had grey and black polo shirts. As of November 2008, however, all referees wore black and white striped shirts and were no longer brand exclusive. On the November 15, 2010 episode of
Raw, the referees wore the "boxing referee" attire as part of the
Old School Raw special episode. Since the re-establishment of the brand extension in 2016, WWE referees have given colored designations on the patches with the logo; for instance, blue for
SmackDown and red for
Raw. However,
NXT, WWE's developmental brand, has the NXT logo patches (formerly yellow until 2021) in place of the WWE logo patches. After
Raw moved to Netflix in January 2025, all WWE referees in three assigned brands consolidated their look wearing a gray polo shirt with two black stripes on the left side similar to its
UFC counterparts as both promotions are owned by
TKO Group Holdings. In WCW, referees wore collared shirts with bow ties until around 1999, when they switched to striped shirts. During
The Invasion storyline in WWE (known at the time as WWF), the WCW referees wore white polo shirts, switching near the end of the storyline to baseball-jersey style grey shirts with a small black WCW logo on the left breast and one on the right sleeve. In ECW, referees first wore striped shirts (as they split off from the
NWA), and later wore an all-black uniform akin to those of
mixed martial arts officials, later with a half-black, half-red shirt. The all black uniform would return for the first two
WWE One Night Stand events, before giving way to the brand extension ECW referee shirts. In
Impact Wrestling, referees have switched between the striped shirts and the "boxing referee" attire on occasion. In
All Elite Wrestling, referees wear black and white striped shirts with the AEW logo, except for pay-per-view events, where the referee's shirt contains a patch with the event logo, on the right breast. AEW referee
Aubrey Edwards noted on social media the promotion has a deal with
Canton, Ohio manufacturer Smitty Officials Apparel, which supplies a gridiron football-specific two-inch wide stripe shirt for officials. Special referees wear themed versions of these; for example, if a regular female wrestler or celebrity is cast, she would typically wear a skimpier version of a normal referee's shirt. This practice was phased out the WWE throughout the 2010s, as a reflection on the general trend of treating female wrestlers less as models and more like genuine athletes; WWE, AEW, and Impact all now regularly feature female referees on their programming wearing the same uniform as their male counterparts. Others may just add a referee-style shirt to their normal costume such as the case of
Mick Foley, who wore a rumpled white dress shirt with black stripes painted on while arbitrating matches. In these cases, the emphasis is on the character temporarily assuming the referee's role. == Notable referees ==