Tony Schiavone was a recent guest on the Edge & Christian Pod Of Awesomeness. Schiavone spoke about his short tenure with WWF in the late ’80s, explaining how he was hired and that choosing to leave was still something he regrets:
Conrad [Thompson] played a Jim Cornette interview that happened a couple of years ago that said that I left because I was upset that Jim Ross was getting a bigger push than I was. That’s not true at all. I got a call from Vince McMahon, JJ Dillon had gone to work up there and JJ said: “Vince would like to talk to you”. Vince called me and said, “I’m looking for someone to replace me because I think I need to walk away from being an announcer.” The two shows were Superstars and Challenge. Vince said, “I’d like to bring you up because I like your voice, I like your announcing style and I’m looking for someone to replace me.” We set up a time to go up to Greenwich, Connecticut where his house was to meet with him.
You know how the business is even now, nothing’s a secret. The very next day, Jim Herd called me. “I heard you’re talking to Vince! Well, then we can’t use ya if that’s the way you’re gonna be.” I turned around and called Vince and he hired me on the spot over the phone. Then, I don’t know what happened, maybe I wasn’t the announcer he thought I was, but he lost confidence in me. I did SummerSlam, he didn’t use me for Survivor Series, he used me for Royal Rumble only because [Vince] had spent so much time in the sun in Boca Raton that he didn’t want to do the show. I did play-by-play but he had lost his confidence in me. Plus it wasn’t easy to live up there in Connecticut with five young kids, so I eventually came back. I went up there thinking I was going to stay for the rest of my life.
Schiavone added:
I tell ya, and I’ve said this before, it’s a decision I regret to this day. I really do, I had a great year at the WWF. I learned so much about television production, they had me as the producer of their home videos at the time, which was their Coliseum videos. I learned a lot, built some friendships with people who still work up there in production who I’m still friends with. I’ve had a great life here in Georgia, met some great people, did some other sports, but if I could do it all over again I would have never left.
I wish I would have even given it another year or two years. My wife is from the South so I’m not sure if she would have adapted, but my family probably would have adapted. The happiest time I spent were not doing voiceovers, not doing PPVs, it was in the edit suite creating the videos. We did little vignettes with Gene Okerlund and the Bushwhackers, with Jimmy Snuka, I enjoy doing stuff like that.
Tony reveals his favorite match to call, which came during his time in WWF in 1989:
This is really out there, but it’s true. In 1989, there was a Saturday afternoon where Lord Alfred Hayes and I recorded at Madison Square Garden for WWF on MSN. It was Hulk Hogan and Big Boss Man in the cage, where Hogan suplexed Boss Man off the top of the cage. Then, we flew to Boston and did a show. That was the most memorable day I ever had in wrestling. You know, being in Madison Square Garden for the first time, it’s a big deal. To me, working MSG during the day and the old Boston Garden at night, it was great. I had some great WCW moments, some great Nitro moments, a lot of big moments, but nothing excites me like that double shot I did with Hogan and Boss Man.
