Former WCW announcer and What Happened When host Tony Schiavone recently took part in a Reddit AMA session; you can read a few highlights below:
Tony Schiavone Comments On David Arquette’s WCW World Championship win:
There’s a lot of people who feel that I was the one who came up with that idea. I was in on the planning of that, but I’m not so sure if it was solely my idea or not. I thought, back then, “what the hell? Why not?”
Looking back at it, a lot of people feel it devalued the title. But it also brought a lot of eyes to the product. We were in USA Today. His wife, Courtney Cox, she was one of the most popular women on television. It got us a lot of media attention.
I’m not sure that it’s as bad as people think. It didn’t bother me.
Schiavone reveals which angle was the most fun to call:
Wow, give me a second here, it’s kind of like you’re Conrad, trying to pick my brain…
I had the most fun the night of Hogan and Goldberg at the Georgia Dome. But I go back, not to beat a dead horse, but to my first show at the Garden with Hogan and Bossman. I started out with Crockett and the next thing I know I am in the WWF. I probably had more fun that day than any other day in wrestling.
Schiavone on whether or not Scott Steiner was as crazy backstage as he was on screen:
Yes he was. He scared the hell out of us all the time. We never knew what he would do next. Whenever he came out to the set, and I know I can speak for Heenan and Tenay, we were scared. I’m not so sure if he was sincerely like that, or if it was part of his gimmick and he wanted us to believe it, but we believed it!
When Tony thought WCW was ‘losing the war’:
I think it’s gotta go back to the night where we had Nitro, and the match with Hogan and the Giant went into Robin Hood, and the fans didn’t get what was advertised. I just thought we were going in the wrong direction. We were doing what was best for the TNT Network, and not WCW.
Vince McMahon would have never allowed USA or NBC to dictate his product, but we did that night.
Schiavone on if WWE had contacted him after WCW folded:
Back then, when we first folded, they never contacted me. I contacted them, but they never returned my calls. Later, they contacted me to come up to do some work for their DVD and I was very busy and turned it down. I did go and do some work for the Monday Night Wars.
If they asked me to be an announcer, I’d turn it down. That point has passed. I don’t think I have it in me anymore. I would go back as a producer.
