|
in terms of internet people in the late 90s and 2000 tony had a really bad reputation. i remember people on message boards wishing scott hudson would take all of tony's duties and that he would gently caress off
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 09:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 15:49 |
|
|
TriffTshngo posted:What was the general consensus on Tony Schiavone, pre-AEW? For the longest time I mostly saw people talking about how he was this miserly buzzkill in WCW, but I dunno, WCW was a trash fire. Makes sense he'd get irritated with all the stupid bullshit they pulled. Plus he and Heenan supposedly hated each other so I can't imagine that helped. General consensus I can't give, but my uninformed impression was distinctly negative. The image I had of him was of a politicking corporate yes-man who oversold and parroted some of the worst lines in broadcasting. When I saw that AEW were bringing him in, I thought it was a huge mistake. I have rarely been so happy to be so wrong.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 09:58
|
|
|
I think MLW helped to rehabilitate his reputation a little bit. I remember seeing people defending AEW bringing him in based on that work
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 10:03
|
|
|
TriffTshngo posted:What was the general consensus on Tony Schiavone, pre-AEW? For the longest time I mostly saw people talking about how he was this miserly buzzkill in WCW, but I dunno, WCW was a trash fire. Makes sense he'd get irritated with all the stupid bullshit they pulled. Plus he and Heenan supposedly hated each other so I can't imagine that helped. Tony was good at his job, pre-nWo. The worse WCW got, the worse he got. Then he basically quit the business, worked for an Atlanta Braves minor league affiliate and Starbucks, then got lured out of retirement by Court Bauer. His MLW stuff was fine, but AEW seems to have brought his passion back, it's nice to see.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 13:09
|
|
|
I like to believe that his passion for life and wresting coming back is mostly down to becoming bffs with Aubrey
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 14:07
|
|
|
GEORGE W BUSHI posted:I think MLW helped to rehabilitate his reputation a little bit. I remember seeing people defending AEW bringing him in based on that work Hearing Tony on MLW was such a nice surprise. I expected him to be the old bitter guy who stunk up the joint like at the tail end of WCW and in TNA. But he sounded like he was genuinely having fun and enjoying watching this whole new crop of wrestlers. Super heartwarming to hear him begin to love calling wrestling again.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 14:55
|
|
|
jesus WEP posted:I like to believe that his passion for life and wresting coming back is mostly down to becoming bffs with Aubrey She's a delight so I'm good with this theory
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 15:03
|
|
|
TriffTshngo posted:Plus he and Heenan supposedly hated each other so I can't imagine that helped. Everyone loved Heenan and absolutely took his side. In hindsight, maybe he was a dick to Heenan but that wasn't even in the top 100 worst things going on behind the scenes in WCW.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 15:14
|
|
|
rujasu posted:Everyone loved Heenan and absolutely took his side. In hindsight, maybe he was a dick to Heenan but that wasn't even in the top 100 worst things going on behind the scenes in WCW. That certainly puts a lot of online Schiavone-hate into perspective; fans LOVE(d) Heenan, so of course they would take his side and think Schiavone sucked. Up until AEW’s launch last year the consensus on him seemed to be what others have said, “bitter stooge.” It’s incredibly refreshing having him be so energized about the show he’s on (particularly since AEW has yet to fall into any of the awful pitfalls late WCW got into). This week’s “Kiss my rear end” moment with Don Callis 
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 15:26
|
|
|
The other nice thing about Tony's comeback is that he admits that he was a bitter jerk who had given up on trying in WCW. He didn't try to spin it like "I never did anything wrong" – he fully admits that he wasn't enjoying himself and let it bleed into his work. It's always refreshing to see someone not only grow out of a bad situation like that but be able to have enough humility to admit when they were wrong.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 15:30
|
|
|
I'll always remember the cold open episode of Nitro after the NWO slammed a cage door on Ric Flair's head and injured him. Schiavone talks about how Flair got him into WCW, talked like Flair had just been murdered by the NWO and refuses to do the broadcast, leaving it to Tenay and Zybysko. It was the first episode of Nitro I ever saw and Tony Schiavone convinced me that the NWO were bad fucken dudes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 15:33
|
|
|
TriffTshngo posted:What was the general consensus on Tony Schiavone, pre-AEW? For the longest time I mostly saw people talking about how he was this miserly buzzkill in WCW, but I dunno, WCW was a trash fire. Makes sense he'd get irritated with all the stupid bullshit they pulled. Plus he and Heenan supposedly hated each other so I can't imagine that helped. Tony was a joke by the end of his time in WCW, with "Tonight is the greatest night in the history of our sport!" thrown out to open every single show.. He was all the worst parts of Joe Buck - constantly selling you on what you're already watching, and continually insisting everything you were seeing was the greatest thing ever. A lot of what he did was coming from Bischoff, but still. As it got closer to the end, it was clear he just didn't care, but it sucked to have him on commentary and just burying the product further.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 16:46
|
|
|
I’ve said it before but the Rehabilitation of Tony Schiavone / Tony Getting His Smile Back might just be my favorite part of AEW. He just seems to happy and excited to be back and be doing this and you can tell he’s found his long lost passion for the business again. It’s absolutely wonderful.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 16:58
|
|
|
Life starts at 63. Now all Tony has left to do is submit Don Callis with the lockjaw.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 17:00
|
|
|
Ganso Bomb posted:The other nice thing about Tony's comeback is that he admits that he was a bitter jerk who had given up on trying in WCW. He didn't try to spin it like "I never did anything wrong" – he fully admits that he wasn't enjoying himself and let it bleed into his work. It's always refreshing to see someone not only grow out of a bad situation like that but be able to have enough humility to admit when they were wrong.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 17:10
|
|
|
I've been watching some early 90s WCW and Tony is pretty darn good in this era. He also suffered from being not as good as Jim Ross in a time period where their shows competed directly against each other in the Monday Night Wars.ChrisBTY posted:Life starts at 63. It's a ways off, but I really hope that at some point we get a Britt Baker face turn based entirely off of someone being a dick to Tony and goddammit, that's Britt's friend!
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 17:37
|
|
|
Punch McLightning posted:I've been watching some early 90s WCW and Tony is pretty darn good in this era. He also suffered from being not as good as Jim Ross in a time period where their shows competed directly against each other in the Monday Night Wars. Tony was also pretty good from the outset in the WWF, and fit pretty well with Ventura. It's probably best he moved on, because Monsoon was vastly superior, and Ross, after that, was also better.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 17:45
|
|
|
El Gallinero Gros posted:Tony was good at his job, pre-nWo. The worse WCW got, the worse he got. Then he basically quit the business, worked for an Atlanta Braves minor league affiliate and Starbucks, then got lured out of retirement by Court Bauer. His MLW stuff was fine, but AEW seems to have brought his passion back, it's nice to see. Schiavone - and one of his sons - still does production stuff for University of Georgia football radio broadcasts. I have no desire to watch current wrestling, but kudos to Tony if he's doing good work again. I have tried to listen to his podcast and can't stand it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 17:45
|
|
|
Tony's reputation was very bad for the years following WCW's demise. He clearly had no passion for the product from 99-2001, and who could. He did bad announcing of a bad product. After WCW Heenan, who had always been a fan favorite gave a lot of interviews and while he wasn't viciously negative on Tony he did tell stories about their friendship falling apart and Tony not calling after Heenan lost his job. (Also I believe he said Tony was the only one on the announce team who thought Nash beating Goldberg was a good idea after the show so it made him seem like kind of a yes man toadie with other stories.) Add in the weird TNA appearance and he was a joke who seemed kind of like a jerk. People re-evaluated him a bit the last few years and warmed up to Tony and then the podcast and MLW made people really want to see the redemption story which happened when he came to AEW and was so cool.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 18:13
|
|
|
What is Mike Tenay up to these days? I feel like several people have tried to get him involved in promotions and he has no interest. I wish him the best and hope he’s enjoying himself.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 19:49
|
|
|
Tato posted:What is Mike Tenay up to these days? I feel like several people have tried to get him involved in promotions and he has no interest. I wish him the best and hope he’s enjoying himself. If I was 65 and my last two jobs were WCW and TNA, yeah, I'd be retired too
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 20:40
|
|
|
Tato posted:What is Mike Tenay up to these days? I feel like several people have tried to get him involved in promotions and he has no interest. I wish him the best and hope he’s enjoying himself. He did a sports betting podcast for awhile. It seems like he lived De Niro's life in Casino except instead of getting involved with the mob after being a sports book prodigy he got into wrestling.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 20:52
|
|
|
Punch McLightning posted:
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 22:03
|
|
|
Tony Schiavone on commentary is infectious; you can tell he's just having so much fun watching the action, and it makes everything more fun to watch along with him.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 22:12
|
|
|
Gaz-L posted:I think it was good BECAUSE it was a house show. Because of that, HHH didn't feel compelled to do his 45 minute EPIC BATTLE playbook and instead had an 18 minute good main event match, and he even sold for Mox because he knew he was going over in the end. Also Mox helped tell a coherent story- ZaNy-in-that-WWE-way wrestler smartens up and does mat wrestling and holds, HHH wasn't taking him seriously and is taken back by it. I love that match.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 22:15
|
|
|
DeathChicken posted:They should have it go like Sting and Lex Luger's friendship, where Lex was an utter poo poo to everyone except Sting, who always had his bud's back even when he was an rear end in a top hat tony called her a bitch on tv and she's very clearly taken shots at him, i really dont think it would work, but idk
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 22:40
|
|
|
D.N. Nation posted:Also Mox helped tell a coherent story- ZaNy-in-that-WWE-way wrestler smartens up and does mat wrestling and holds, HHH wasn't taking him seriously and is taken back by it. I love that match. in a world where vince isn't poison-brained and trying to force face coronation Roman, backdooring into ambrose vs roman (with reigns being the brutal guy he was vs. brock the year before) would have been cool, imo
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 22:42
|
|
|
CellBlock posted:Tony Schiavone on commentary is infectious; you can tell he's just having so much fun watching the action, and it makes everything more fun to watch along with him. He loves the tope suicida, man
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 22:44
|
|
|
CellBlock posted:Tony Schiavone on commentary is infectious; you can tell he's just having so much fun watching the action, and it makes everything more fun to watch along with him. Definitely this, but also I hope they don't have him yell "IT'S STIIIIIIIING" every time he shows up because when he did it last week it felt very "gotta get the catch phrase in" and less heartfelt.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2020 23:09
|
|
|
MassRafTer posted:He did a sports betting podcast for awhile. It seems like he lived De Niro's life in Casino except instead of getting involved with the mob after being a sports book prodigy he got into wrestling. Who would be Tenay’s Pesci, though. Don West?
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 00:06
|
|
|
El Gallinero Gros posted:He loves the tope suicida, man one of my favorite memories of AEW so far is a super early Dynamite where someone hit a dive to the outside during a breakdown spot and Tony just yelled "YES!"
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 00:21
|
|
|
MassRafTer posted:He did a sports betting podcast for awhile. It seems like he lived De Niro's life in Casino except instead of getting involved with the mob after being a sports book prodigy he got into wrestling. he was a regular at the palms before i started working there. never got to see him, would have loved to pick his brain 
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 01:26
|
|
|
DeathChicken posted:They should have it go like Sting and Lex Luger's friendship, where Lex was an utter poo poo to everyone except Sting, who always had his bud's back even when he was an rear end in a top hat Was that always written and handled consistently? I didn't watch a ton of the other company before '95, but whenever I checked in, Sting could always count on Luger. I really watched sporadically, but the following were always on whenever I watched: - MENG - Bunkhouse Buck - Sgt. Craig Pittman, who, watching him now, wow, his matches loving blew - Mr. Hughes - Snobby British people, which may include Chris Adams, non-electric Steven Regal, and ... Bobby Eaton? oh well - Paul E. Dangerously; it took a long time for me to get used to the last name Heyman I recall Buck being a really decent lower-end heel, and him being really good at selling. Am I imagining this? I'm always hesitant to revisit wrestling stuff I haven't watched in 20+ years and being let down.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 02:06
|
|
|
Yeah Bunkhouse Buck was fine, he just looked out of water in a cleaner setting than in some 70's fed.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 02:35
|
|
|
Lots of good replies about Tony Schiavone here. A few things to add: At one point, I think after the podcast started but before the MLW run, Tony was still bitter enough that he was preemptively blocking some people on Twitter (I think Bryan Alvarez was one?) entirely because they were wrestling media and he only wanted to interact with "regular fans." That eventually changed, but it helps you get an idea of his mindset. There are plenty of little things that didn't help his rep with fans, some of which were completely true (he's admitted that he should have kept in touch with Bobby Heenan when Bobby got fired) and some of which were ginned up in fans' heads (his line insulting William Regal in a shooty way on the last Nitro, which always came off so weirdly venomous and random that fans largely assumed it was Tony being an rear end when it was actually a line Bruce Prichard fed him to build up the invasion). Tony also got roped in with the newsletter reports of Scott Hudson having heat with the full time/office announcers because they were worried he was "undercutting" them (as a part timer with a great government day job to fall back on), but I don't recall Tony ever being specifically named in them. (Scott was also far from the first freelance announcer to work alongside Tony in WCW; I know that Chris Cruise had a similar role in his second run with the company.) Throw in that Scott was SUCH a newsletter favorite (wrote his own parody sheet, was a longtime letter writer, etc. on top of being such a good announcer and a funny guy) and that made it even worse. Hell, you can probably rope in the stories about Tony refusing to call When Worlds Collide (as Chris Cruise told me in 2014 for an article in Fighting Spirit Magazine, “Tony was like, ‘No way am I touching that!’”) and what people extrapolated from that with Cruise (doing his first PPV or live broadcast) and Mike Tenay (on his first night ever as a commentator, though he was an experienced broadcaster) both doing such a great job. They were both newsletter favorites even before that, so "Tony Schiavone didn't want to call the little Mexican PPV" was how some people interpreted it even though I don't think that was the case. (Tony participating in the condescending commentary on the "Mexican hardcore match" on Nitro probably didn't help, either, but with hindsight, that was much more likely "Tony being moody and condescending in general" than "Tony thinks Mexicans are inherently lesser.") The Mick Foley title win thing didn't help either, of course, even though it's long been well-known that it was a line fed to him by Bischoff in the first place and that he called Mick to apologize before long. What the MLW run and podcast helped do, besides rekindle Tony Schiavone's love of pro wrestling, was make him the perfect bridge between Jim Ross and Excalibur. Alex Marvez was never going to be that guy, and even a better announcer like Goldenboy wasn't going to, either. Tony being an old school guy who worked with J.R. for years who had also developed a great appreciation for the modern style (not to mention being a super polished broadcaster) is what makes that booth work in a way that none of the other J.R./Excalibur combinations did. He can relate to both of them, set them both up in ways that stick to their strengths, and "translate" between them. Just how much he's enjoying himself now has also made it ridiculously obvious when watching footage of the times where he wasn't during his WCW run. It was always a thing that people noticed, but now that we have a great idea of what Happy Tony Schiavone sounds like, it's become super obvious what his mood was at a given moment in old footage.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 05:36
|
|
|
davidbix posted:What the MLW run and podcast helped do, besides rekindle Tony Schiavone's love of pro wrestling, was make him the perfect bridge between Jim Ross and Excalibur. Alex Marvez was never going to be that guy, and even a better announcer like Goldenboy wasn't going to, either. Tony being an old school guy who worked with J.R. for years who had also developed a great appreciation for the modern style (not to mention being a super polished broadcaster) is what makes that booth work in a way that none of the other J.R./Excalibur combinations did. He can relate to both of them, set them both up in ways that stick to their strengths, and "translate" between them. This is such a great point that I never really thought of. Tony doing MLW and seeing the new wrestlers and styles really did prep him for AEW in a huge way. He also always seemed to really appreciate great and athletic wrestling in WCW so he really is just that perfect cross between old and new.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 05:48
|
|
|
Red posted:Was that always written and handled consistently? I didn't watch a ton of the other company before '95, but whenever I checked in, Sting could always count on Luger. My dormant (I need to fix that) @LexLugerMoments account on Twitter has some great stuff from this run, some of which were RTs at the start (spoilered to make the page load better): Here you go: https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1096532894913306625 https://twitter.com/LexLugerMoments/status/1106719712636035072 https://twitter.com/LexLugerMoments/status/1106724640452431872 https://twitter.com/LexLugerMoments/status/1106726305113014272 https://twitter.com/LexLugerMoments/status/1106738610357850117 https://twitter.com/LexLugerMoments/status/1106791301691949056 https://twitter.com/LexLugerMoments/status/1106795264264806400 https://twitter.com/LexLugerMoments/status/1165514922702376960 https://twitter.com/LexLugerMoments/status/1165520751329456129 davidbix fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Dec 19, 2020 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 05:54
|
|
|
Thanks for all the info. It always seemed like Tony was just a guy who wore his heart on his sleeve a little more than a mindless puppet like Michael Cole who has no qualms faking enthusiasm about the garbage he's presented with, and tasked with presenting to the audience. Whenever I would watch reviews or retrospectives or old footage of WCW I actually liked how he had rather human responses to stuff like Heenan trying to walk all over him on commentary or the completely nonsense late-era stuff that was basically constant from 99-01.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 06:03
|
|
|
Here's a particularly obvious Genuinely Happy Tony Schiavone moment from the Nitro era: https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1280017788468432896
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 06:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 15:49 |
|
|
When was the Ciclope unmasking? Did it happen before that?
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2020 06:16
|
|
