Trivia / Tony Schiavone

• Career Resurrection: After the fall of WCW, Tony had a few brief commentary stints in other promotions before stepping away from the business altogether. When he started doing the What Happened When podcast in 2017, it reignited Tony's passion for wrestling and eventually led to him returning to wrestling commentary, ultimately resulting in him being hired by nascent promotion All Elite Wrestling.
• Creator Backlash: Before starting his What Happened When podcast in 2017 recounting his experiences in wrestling, Schiavone seemed to be very bitter about his wrestling commentary stint, if his tweets were anything to go by (for example, one person asked him what his favorite memory was of WCW, Tony responded "when it ended"). However, he later clarified that he didn't hate working for WCW, he was just "tired of the bullshit" and very uncomfortable with the unprofessionalism and shilling he was forced to do. It went to the point that at the time he considered his one-year WWF run as the best year of his wrestling career, and regretted returning to WCW after it ended.
• Funny Character, Boring Actor: Inverted. Tony Schiavone the commentator, was the Comically Serious Deadpan Snarker commentator, but Tony Schiavone the person is very boisterous and has a great sense of humor.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Best known for his work in WCW, but considers his one-year run in WWF to be the best year of his career.
• Old Shame:
  • He regretted the "butts in the seats" comment almost immediately and called Foley a few days later to apologize.
  • Bobby Heenan hated Tony's guts for many years due to several reasons: Schiavone allegedly hiding finishes and angles from him and other announcers (he was as oblivious to them as the others were), supposedly trying to prevent him from paying respects to Gorilla Monsoon after his passing (he says that he did question the decision, but only because he didn't think Eric Bischoff would allow it, which, based on Eric's reputation, doesn't sound far-fetched) and for cutting off ties with him after Heenan was fired from WCW in 2000 (which Schiavone claims he was ordered to do by Craig Leathers, and that Heenan never reached out to him either). Heenan has criticized Schiavone in numerous shoot interviews. Tony, however, says he held no ill-will towards Bobby and never did, saying of Heenan's criticism of him: "I deserve it".
• Wag the Director: Tony was a producer in addition to his announcer duties, which led to a lot of people accusing him of being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad while Heenan and Mike Tenay would be lucky if they got a word in. "Mean" Gene Okerlund said of Schiavone "Tony was the consummate politician" and "Tony watched out for Tony and in doing so, had a tendency to bury people along the way".
• What Could Have Been: His random TNA cameo was supposed to be his full-time return to professional wrestling as Vince Russo's heel announcer. But essentially what happened was, he was in the back watching the monitor, and he heard Tenay and West marking out over every single move. He decided he didn't want to spend the rest of his life screaming nonsense, so he returned to his job prior to joining JCP...being a minor league baseball commentator.