Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Wrestling fans are or should be, very familiar with the name Tony Schiavone. Tony has been a backstage interviewer and play by play commentator for Jim Crockett Promotions, WCW and even briefly for the WWF. He (as of this writing) now is a major part of All Elite Wrestling’s broadcast team and behind the scenes executive. While Schiavone holds an impressive resume in the professional wrestling industry, there are those who might not remember his extremely brief stint in TNA wrestling in 2003. Some would like to forget this happened, including Tony Schiavone himself.
As mentioned, Schiavone was the lead announcer for WCW for years and remained in that position up until the company folded and was sold in 2001 to WWE. Even though WCW was sold, Schiavone remained under a Time Warner/WCW contract up until November of 2002, when it finally ran out. The reasoning he said, was because the pay and benefits were just too good to give up, even if he stayed home doing nothing. When the contract finally ended, Schiavone said he sent feelers out to WWE and spoke with executive producer Kevin Dunn a few times. Nothing ever materialized with those discussions. Schiavone said he also placed one call to Jerry and Jeff Jarrett about working with their upstart TNA promotion…but heard nothing back. He even did some work for the ill fated XWF promotion.
Schiavone had developed a pretty bad reputation from his years over at WCW. He had personal heat throughout his tenure with colleagues like Bobby Heenan and Jim Ross as covered here. Schiavone was known for his over exaggerations of building up matches and events by saying things like “This will be the biggest night in the history of our sport.” He was also looked down upon after making a disparaging remark about Mick Foley winning the WWF title on WCW Nitro by murmuring…”Yeah that’ll put butts in the seats.”
Despite his tarnished reputation, Schiavone was overall still a great wrestling announcer that couldn’t find work in the business after the fall of World Championship Wrestling. That all appeared to change in January of 2003. Vince Russo and Jeff Jarrett reached out to Schiavone to do some work with TNA. At the time, TNA was still a weekly pay per view only company. They had no television deal to speak of and their roster was ever changing and developing. Schiavone, with no longer having WCW money to live on, decided to take advantage of the TNA opportunity.
Money was tight with TNA, so instead of being flown to their tapings which took place at the Fairgrounds in Nashville, Tennessee…he was picked and driven in a van by Vince Russo and Disco Inferno. They drove him from his home in Atlanta, Georgia to Nashville with a few other wrestlers like the Armstrong family. Schiavone’s appearance was intended to be a surprise and Russo who orchestrated the appearance wanted to play off the hatred that Schiavone developed over the years.
After arriving at the venue for the show, Schiavone was sitting backstage watching the taping on a small, old color TV monitor. He observed the talent that was wrestling that night, as well as seeing wrestlers and execs scurrying about backstage. It was at that moment that Tony Schiavone realized that he no longer wanted to be a part of the wrestling business. He was burnt out and had didn’t miss all the craziness that went with putting on a wrestling show.
Despite his epiphany, Schiavone wanted to honor his TNA commitment and appeared entering the ring interrupting an interview between Goldi Locks and William ‘Paul Bearer’ Moody. The crowd reaction to seeing Schiavone in a TNA ring was lukewarm at best. Tony then started to run down TNA and comparing it to WCW. He made fun of Moody by calling him fat and then called out lead TNA announcer Mike Tenay in a bizarre heel turn. The two argued with one another about the proper ways to call a wrestling match and how Tenay never helped Schiavone with getting work in the company. Some of Schiavone’s heel promo was scripted by Vince Russo, while other parts of it were adlibbed by Schiavone himself.
This entire segment received a few boos and not in the good kind of heel heat way…but the go away type of heat. It all set up a world title match between Jeff Jarrett and Raven. Schiavone doesn’t really recall much from that entire segment as it was all a blur to him. His heart simply wasn’t into it anymore. All he wanted to do was return home and start planning a new chapter in his life and career.
Apparently, the long term plan was have Schiavone join Vince Russo’s heel faction called S.E.X. ( Sports Entertainment eXtreme) and be their personal voice calling their matches. With Schiavone’s change of heart…it never materialized. Schiavone did the appearance and a second showing the following week that was taped the same day and he was gone. He remained gone from pro wrestling for over 18 years after that TNA appearance.