There is the troubled WWE kid called Lil Naitch, who the inconvenient cousin of Batman visits in the middle of the night.
August 13 2025
I’ve been doing wrestling for years, and I assumed I had seen everything. Out of chairs on the head? Check. And even Tables up through the Announce desks? Been there. But a WWE referee being munched by the pet of Dracula at 2 in the morning? That is something new, even in this wild business.
Charles Robinson-yes, the guy everybody sarcastically referred to as Lil Naitch because he is basically a Ric Flair super-fan- just suffered what could be the strangest non-wrestling-related injury of 2025. Dude was stirred in the middle of the night with a goddamn bat strapped to his arm. Not baseball type. The flying, and possibly rabid, type to make the horror movies frightening.
Shutterbugs to Ring Bugs (Literally)
So now that we have established some backstory on the nocturnal nightmare we are considering, here is some background on Robinson. This man did not simply bump into the job of being a referee–he had to work his way up. Began as a photographer in the 90s when WCW was actually still around and wrestlers looked ridiculous with mullets. Fitting with a stint as a photographer at around the same time(97 or so), he swapped his camera for zebra stripes and never looked back.
The nickname of Little Naitch? Pure gold. Robinson chose to be so obsessed with Ric Flair that he would walk around imitating all the moves of the Nature Boy. Upon WWE devouring WCW in 2001, Robinson jumped ship and later became head ref at SmackDown, after Mike Chioda was canned in 2020. And all this after a lad who began by snapping photos of sweat-slick men in tights.
2025: Robinson can not get a break
Here is the thing about Charles Robinson–dudes been getting Thumps like a champ recently, and not all of them are intentional. He very recently received a spear from Goldberg during the retirement match of the legend on Saturday Night in the Main Event. Word of it is, it broke one of his ribs. Seems like even in retirement matches Goldberg hits like a freight train.
But that thing with the bats? That is some new level of randomness. Imagine this: It is 2 AM, and you are more than likely dreaming about counting three-counts or whatever refs dream about when suddenly: BAM-little flying mammal thinks your arm tastes yummy.
Robinson took it in stride as the pro he is, writing about the entire experience in his driest of dry wit:
Good morning, start. 2:00 am and have been bitten by a bat. Bat! Thatt is correct, 4 hours in the emergency room and six shots later.”
Six shots. Six. That is likely rabies vaccination, tetanus shots, and anything else that doctors can give you when midnight or get-up-and-go wildlife decides to make you its late-night snack.
Social Media Gold: Where Actual is better than Kayfabe
Charles Robinson’s overnight ER update on the bat bite
Read what Robinson posted about the entire mess on her Instagram. The man actually found a way to make a potential rabies scare a content that is both worrying and funny. It is only in wrestling, folks.
Why This Story Stings
Wrestling is full of larger-than-life characters, but Robinson is the opposite; he is the average Joe who made it. The man who loves his job so much that he gets bumps from superstars and bites by flying mammals, but he goes with the flow.
It was concisely said by Reddit wrestling fans:
lol that entrance he made running to the ring as an emergency ref… top-10 ref entrance of all time.”
The man has seen it all: the dying days of WCW, the corporate takeover of WWE, the pandemic shows with no fans in the stands, and now even a personal vendetta by the local bat population. In it all, he has stuck to the same energy, which motivated him to look like Ric Flair in the first place.
The Meaning of the Bigger Picture
What kills me about the whole thing is how well/perfectly it encapsulates why wrestling is a special thing. It is not only the scripted drama, but it is the actual human beings behind the characters who have to go through weirdness in the real woworldbut still show up at work.
Robinson has probably got to appear on SmackDown this Friday as though nothing has occurred. People like that are used to doing that sort of thing. No matter who injured you, Goldber, breaking your ribs, or a Bat believing you to be a walking buffet, you can and should continue.
My Take
A bat attacking Charles Robinson at 2 AM is somehow the most wrestling thing that has happened this year, not to mention that it was not even scripted. This is a man who has wasted his entire career trying to make other people’s matches appear legitimate, and now he is confronted by the least convenient alarm clock in the entirety of nature.
The sheer fact that he can make something that could have been a really serious medical circumstance into some social media gold proves why fans treat him like a goddamn hero. Wrestling may be scripted, but life is not–and whether on the mat or in real life, Robinson does it professionally with a kind of swagger that has helped him become Lil Naitch in the first place.
Hopefully, the bat got the message, and Robinson is back to recording pinfalls rather than rabies inoculations. Oh, he knows his luck, though, he will come up with a way to put this into some kind of storyline. The Referee Living in the Bat Cave has a good ring to it, right?
