13 Things Fans Forget About Tony Schiavone In WCW

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• The recent promotion for Tony Schiavone in AEW as the Senior Producer and a special advisor of talent relations adds another fascinating twist to his legendary career. Even during a rocky year full of increased backstage turmoil in AEW, Tony Khan has leaned on Schiavone even more due to his experience going back to the WCW days. That level of experience at the highest level in wrestling is rare to come by.

Tony Schiavone has been in the professional wrestling business for 40 years, so it is safe to say he has seen the best and worst of the industry. While he is currently loving life in AEW as a play-by-play commentator and senior producer, he is best known for his time with WCW.

Related: 10 Backstage Stories About Tony Schiavone We Can't Believe

Under Eric Bischoff, Tony Schiavone went on to become one of the most important parts of the promotion, with many of its best moments being called by the Virginia native. And while his time there saw many ups and downs, fans tend to forget a few details about the 64-year-old's time in Atlanta.

UPDATE: 2022/11/19 07:30 EST BY JOEY HAVERFORD

The recent promotion for Tony Schiavone in AEW as the Senior Producer and a special advisor of talent relations adds another fascinating twist to his legendary career. Even during a rocky year full of increased backstage turmoil in AEW, Tony Khan has leaned on Schiavone even more due to his experience going back to the WCW days. That level of experience at the highest level in wrestling is rare to come by.

WCW used Schiavone in a major way as the voice of their promotion, along with some backstage duties. Any promotion trusting someone that much clearly valued the talent to sell angles and set the stage. Schiavone has even more fascinating footnotes about his time in WCW.

13 Allegedly Pitched David Arquette To Win WCW Championship

One wild story in WCW that tracked back to Tony Schiavone was the booking behind David Arquette winning the WCW Championship. Vince Russo has been criticized for over two decades now for that decision, but he was inspired by someone else.

The story shared by Russo claims that Schiavone approached him at the end of a booking meeting and discussed how shocking it would be if Arquette won the top prize. Russo clearly enjoyed the idea to use it and make a celebrity the WCW Champion in a failed idea.

12 WCW Used Friendship With Ric Flair As Part Of Storyline

The friendship between Tony Schiavone and Ric Flair existed for many years from even before their time together in WCW. Few combinations of top stars and commentators had this connection as seen in rare WWE scenarios like Jim Ross and Steve Austin.

WCW utilized the friendship in storylines when Schiavone expressed disdain after certain things happened to Flair. Schiavone’s character considered boycotting the show after Curt Hennig slammed a cage door on Flair’s head with WCW selling it as a career-ending injury.

11 Often Ran Away From Commentary Table During NWO Takeover

One cool thing about Tony Schiavone’s character as a play-by-play commentator was that he sold the fear of the New World Order. Various members of the heel faction would look to take over the commentary table and have their talent calling the matches.

Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay often ran away to avoid getting attacked by the nWo group. Larry Zbyszko was the only commentator that stood up to the nWo, and it helped him get over again. There were some moments where the nWo forced Schiavone to stay with them, but he mostly ran away.

10 Started With Jim Crockett Promotions

Tony Schivone first entered the world of pro wrestling in 1983, pre-dating WCW. He got a start with NWA-affiliated Jim Crockett Promotions in the early 1980s, broadcasting next to David Crockett from 1985 to 1989 on Superstation TBS.

In fact, Tony also conducted backstage interviews and delivered play-by-play commentary for JCP’s weekly show, World Championship Wrestling, alongside big shows like Starrcade. This is where he also worked with his future AEW broadcasting partner, Jim Ross.

9 Bobby Heenan Was Hurt By Schiavone Not Defending Him

Things were not going well for WCW as it came closer to its demise, and this was affecting many of its talents, including Tony Schivone and Bobby Heenan. The two had a good relationship until then, calling Nitro together weekly, but when the company decided to fire The Brain, things went south quickly.

Heenan was unhappy about being forced to quit, and he felt that Schiavone could have stood up for him as they were good friends. Tony also apparently never contacted Bobby after the latter's firing. Any mention of Heenan today gets Schiavone a bit emotional reminiscing about the good memories.

8 WWE Stint In The Middle

When Jim Crockett Promotions was bought by Turner Broadcasting and rebranded WCW, Tony Schiavone saw the writing on the wall and decided to join WWE. However, things never worked out as planned in Connecticut, and his wife kept saying they were better off working in Atlanta.

Related: 10 WCW Wrestlers Whose Careers Were Ruined By Management

Despite doing commentary in SummerSlam 1989 and Royal Rumble 1990, apparently Vince McMahon was never a big fan of Schiavone, and the broadcaster eventually asked to be let go. Schiavone then joined WCW but claims he had a good relationship with the McMahons behind the scenes.

7 Voice Of WCW

After returning to WCW, and with Jim Ross leaving the company in 1993 for WWE, Tony Schiavone soon became the main man behind the announcer's desk. In essence, like Ross became the voice of WWE, Schiavone was hailed as the voice of WCW.

The talented personality would remain the main commentator with the company until its demise in 2001, working alongside a multitude of announcers, including Jesse Ventura, Bobby Heenan, Stevie Ray, and Juventud Guerrera. He also led the team over at Thunder, but Nitro was the top duty.

6 Ready To Rumble Residuals

The WCW-backed movie, Ready to Rumble, did not set the world on fire, but it did introduce a wider audience to the pro wrestling business. It also starred a number of the company's talent, including Tony Schiavone.

As a result, as claimed by the man himself, the commentator gets checks for the movie every year. So, every time someone downloads, streams, or buys the movie, they contribute to Tony getting paid his share of royalty.

5 Not Retained By WWE During WCW Takeover

By the end of his tenure with WCW, Tony Schiavone seemed to have fallen out of love with wrestling, what with the constant politicking in WCW leaving no one happy. And when the promotion finally went out of business and was purchased by WWE, his name was not on the list of those heading to Vince McMahon's organization. WWE picked Scott Hudson as the WCW voice they wanted to retain.

Related: 10 Things Vince McMahon Thought Were Funny But Were Totally Cringe

Instead, Schiavone completely left the business, dedicating his time to his other love, sports broadcasting. The legend returned to the wrestling world when started a fairly successful podcast, What Happened When?, alongside co-host Conrad Thompson.

4 The Mick Foley Spoiler

The Monday Night War was something WCW had aced by 1999, but a silly decision that involved Tony Schiavone seemingly changed history forever. The company had a history of revealing pre-taped Raw results on its broadcast and on January 4, 1999, it made perhaps its biggest mistake yet.

Eric Bischoff instructed Tony to spoil the results of the upcoming Raw, revealing that Mankind would beat The Rock for the WWE Championship and saying sarcastically, “It's gonna put some butts in the seats.” Safe to say every party involved in this fiasco regrets this action to this day, seeing as how history has turned out.

3 Worst Television Announcer

As already mentioned, Tony Schiavone was feeling jaded by the end of WCW's existence. He was being asked to do and say many silly, detrimental things on TV, with perhaps the most damaging incident mentioned above.

As a result, he had started to become dull and a shell of his former self, even becoming a figure of ridicule among fans and critics. All this led to him winning the unwanted Wrestling Observer Newsletter Worst Television Announcer award, as voted by readers of Dave Metlzer's newsletter, in 1999 and 2000.

2 Had Heat With Bobby Heenan For Hiding Finishes & Angles

Another aspect of Tony Schivone's issues with Bobby Heenan was that the latter accused him of working only for himself. The Brain even alleged that his colleague would hide finishes and angles from himself and fellow Nitro commentator Mike Tenay during broadcasts.

Related: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Heenan Family

The fact that longtime wrestling broadcaster Gene Okerlund concurred with Heenan and said that "Tony was the consummate politician" and "Tony watched out for Tony, and in doing so, had a tendency to bury people along the way" did not help. Lots of damage was done, but it's safe to say that Schivone has bounced back admirably and become a much-loved figure today.

1 Ric Flair Tried To Make Him Break Character

Ric Flair and his promos are legendary, and his chemistry with Tony Schiavone, who would sit down with him for many of these segments, shone through. Many times, interviewing wrestlers was tougher than calling matches for the commentator. Tony revealed that, as a result, many performers would try to get him to break character or laugh during promo segments.

Flair, knowing this and being good friends with Schiavone, would amp it up deliberately to see if he could get his colleague to break, which perhaps fans should go revisit and see if they can spot. The two still joke about this today whenever working together as part of Conrad Thompson's podcast network.