Credit: Udo Salters/startraksphoto.com
Melissa Gorga welcomed her husband, Joe Gorga, to her podcast on Thursday, where the Real Housewives of New Jersey couple addressed an outburst Joe had at one of their 16-year-old son Gino’s recent wrestling matches.
Following the release of a video clip that featured Joe, 49, hopping out of his seat in the stands to confront the referee presiding over the game about his alleged missed calls and the treatment Gino was getting from his opponent, he and Melissa, 44, looked back on the incident, noting that Joe’s behavior wasn’t out of the ordinary for a parent of an athlete.
“Our whole life is a reality show, right? I can’t even go to wrestling matches anymore … It’s ridiculous. Leave me the hell alone. Let me be with my son. My God!” Joe began on the January 11 episode of On Display.
“You lost your cool. You overreacted a little bit,” Melissa replied. “[But] there’s always a parent getting annoyed with a ref, no matter what sport.”
According to Joe and Melissa, feuds between parents and refs “[happen] every match.” But because Joe is on a television show, his outburst was recorded.
While Joe didn’t appreciate being filmed, Melissa said she was happy about Gino’s handling of the incident.
“One thing I take from this is how Gino handled the situation because he … I feel like we hold our kids to a very high standard when it comes to how they treat other kids and how they behave and their sportsmanship and just as a whole, even just behavior if you win or if you lose, and we do have to say, [Joe] lost [his] cool, but Gino did not,” she noted. “Obviously there was a situation where there was dirty play going on on the mat, and if it happens once, and the ref lets it [slide], alright, but it happened maybe three, four times.”
Melissa said that in addition to sticking his tongue out at Joe, Gino’s opponent was putting his fingers in Gino’s eyes and committing other violations of the game.
“The whole place was getting frustrated … that the ref wasn’t calling this out,” she shared. “It was very dirty play.”
Continuing on, Joe said that the story was “getting twisted” by the media.
“People say I charged the mat … First of all, I’m not the ref. There’s a ref out there being paid. If you miss one call, that’s fine. But if you’re missing five, if the kid’s out of bounds or he’s punching him in the back while you’re wrestling and then he sticks his tongue at the parent, it’s disrespectful,” Joe stated, adding, “In the NFL, they fine you for that.”
“The ref, the way the ref reacted was uncalled for. He should’ve sat there and listened. He’s the one that caused a problem, also,” Joe explained. “This really was a first for me. I’ve yelled from across the room like everyone else does because that’s what wrestling is, it’s an intense sport. I’ve never really gone to this limit, but it was that bad.”
Following the incident, Melissa and Joe said Gino received an apology from the other coach, and Joe and Gino had a “heart-to-heart.”
“At the end of the day, I have bonded with my son,” Joe revealed. “He is such a class act. He didn’t fight back. He didn’t throw a punch. He didn’t get aggravated. I got kicked out. He called me. I left very nicely. He called, ‘Dad, you good?’ He goes, ‘Dad, don’t worry about it. As long as you’re okay.’ He was so classy.”
The Real Housewives of New Jersey season 14 is expected to premiere on Bravo sometime in the coming months.
