Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
He was the voice of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) throughout its existence. He holds the distinction of being the very first play by play announcer to ever do a broadcast of a wrestling pay per view all by himself. His signature catchphrase “Oh My God!” is known throughout wrestling circles. Today on the blog, we ask….’Whatever Happened to’ Joey Styles?
Joe Bonsignore became a wrestling fan when he was 13 years old. From that point, Bonsignore knew he wanted to be involved in some way in the wrestling business. He attended Hofstra University and majored in broadcasting. While attending college, Bonsignore began interning at the headquarters of Pro Wrestling Illustrated Magazine. He also started doing play by play for a local independent promotion in the New York area.
As an intern, Joe traveled to a WCW house show in New Jersey with his boss…PWI editor Bill Apter. It was at the WCW house show where Joe first was introduced to Paul Heyman. A while later, Heyman went to the PWI offices to do a promotional photo shoot. Joe reintroduced himself to Heyman and showed him some audition tapes of himself in hopes of landing a job with WCW.
Joe continued to work announcing gigs at indie shows and decided that he needed a catchier name than Joe Bonsignore. He and a friend came up with the name ‘Joey Styles.’ Once Heyman joined ECW as a manager and co booker, Heyman remembered Joe and invited him to Philadelphia to audition to become an announcer. In reality, Heymn didn’t have the authority at the time to do such a thing…but ECW owner Tod Gordon liked his audition and hired him for 20 dollars a night.
Joey Styles began working under Heyman to teach him the intricacies of being a wrestling announcer. When Styles accidentally blurted out “Oh My God” during a crazy spot in a match…Styles went back to Heyman and apologized. It was Heyman who encouraged Styles to continue to use that phrase as it added a reality to the action. Joey became just as synonymous with ECW as the wrestlers themselves.
Joey Styles remained with the promotion until it went bankrupt and folded in 2001. He went to do commentary for ECW’s once bitter rival XPW and also worked for Major League Wrestling. Styles then decided to try his hand as a promoter. He founded a group called ‘Extremely Hardcore’ which would be a pay per view only wrestling promotion much like TNA was. Before his promotion could get off the ground…Styles signed with WWE.
Joey started off as a play by play man working under Jim Ross. Unfortunately, Joey’s broadcasting style was not what WWE management preferred and Stles would move from the broadcast table to behind the scenes. He would work up the ranks and become WWE’s Vice President of Digital Media Ad Sales and Digital Media Content for WWE.com and the WWE App. He would also do specials online and did commentary for WWE’s sponsored ECW reunion shows.
After nearly 11 years employed by WWE, he was let go in 2016. Styles returned to the independents and did commentary for three different indie promotions which were Chikara, Evolve and Beyond Wrestling. He would get fired from all three promotions after making a joke to Evolve’s female ring announcer Joanna Rose that “Donald Trump would like to grab her by the _____!” After his termination…Styles walked away from the wrestling business.
So the question remains…whatever happened to Joey Styles? Since walking away from professional wrestling, Joey worked for a company in ad sales. Since then, he now works for a Pharmaceutical prescription pricing company called ‘Capital Rx.’ Joe’s position title is Manager of Employer Solutions. Joey resides in a suburb of Connecticut.
