Tony Schiavone reflects on his resurgence in pro wrestling.
Tony Schiavone was the voice of WCW for decades. Shortly after WCW closed its doors, Tony walked away from professional wrestling altogether. Eventually, he would be brought back into the wrestling space by Conrad Thompson for a podcast, What Happened When, and that would lead to him eventually doing commentary for MLW and his resurgence on TNT with AEW.
Speaking with Sports Illustrated, Schiavone called his time with AEW the best two-and-a-half years of his career so far and says that the acceptance of the audience has made the job even easier because he loves what he does.
“It’s been the best two and a half years of my career,” Schiavone says. “It’s worth your weight in gold to work for good people, and it’s a pleasure to work here. I can’t stress this enough—the acceptance of the fans for my return has been mind-blowing. So for me, it’s really easy doing what I do because I love it so much.”
Schiavone also ran down the Full Gear card. Noting that he was excited to MJF get hit, what surprises Chris Jericho has in store, and believes CM Punk and Eddie Kingston's promo on Rampage was "great shit."
“I’m looking forward to seeing MJF get hit in the face,” he says. “I’m genuinely excited every time I see Bryan Danielson in the ring, and I think Chris Jericho is going to have a lot of surprises in store for all of us during the Minneapolis Street Fight.
“CM Punk and Eddie Kingston, that interview from last week, that was great s---. I’m looking forward to seeing that as much as anything else.”
When asked for a prediction on the Women’s Championship bout, Schiavone was quick to say that Dr. Britt Baker will retain her title.
“I’m not going to discount Tay Conti, who is a great fighter, but I can tell you right now that she’s not going to beat Britt,” says Schiavone, who has a playful-but-tenuous on-screen friendship with Baker. “I say that under duress. If Britt heard me say otherwise, I’d be in a lot of trouble.”
Fightful will have full coverage of all things AEW Full Gear on Saturday, November 13, 2021. Also, Fightful has live coverage of AEW Dynamite every Wednesday.
