Tony Schiavone doesn't think he would have last long if he went to WWE in 2019.
Tony Schiavone worked for WWE from 1989 to 1990, filling various roles including as a play-by-play announced. Schiavone departed WWE in 1990 to work for WCW, where he became the lead play-by-play announcer until 2001 when WCW went out of business.
On the latest What Happened When, Schiavone was re-watching the 1990 Royal Rumble, which he called as an announcer, and said that while jumping back to WCW in 1990 was a mistake at the time, it did allow him to do things like work with the Georgia Bulldogs and Atlanta Braves, which he doesn't think would have happened had he stayed with WWE in 1990.
"Who knows with the WWE, how long I would have stayed (in 1990) after that because I could have been fired like I would have been had I taken that job five years ago. I would have been fired almost immediately," Schiavone said.
Conrad Thompson chimed in to ask, "You really believe that?"
Schiavone replied, "There is no question. There is no question, in my mind, that Vince wanted me to come there to fire me. Yeah, I believe that."
Conrad asked, "Why do you think Vince wanted to hire you just to fire you?"
Schiavone said, "He wanted to hire me. I feel bad about Bruce [Bruce Prichard] because Bruce is in the middle of this and Bruce is a friend of mine and I believe anything Bruce tells me is legit and sincere. Vince wanted to hire me to keep me away from this upstart company AEW. COVID happened, they cut back, why not cut back on one of the newest guys that just arrived? There is no question I would have been let go."
Schiavone signed with AEW in August 2019 to be the play-by-play person for AEW Dynamite. He has since filled many roles for the company.
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