WWE Tried To Keep Tony Schiavonne Away From AEW

On Tony Schiavonne and Conrad Thompson's "What Happened When" podcast, it was a special Ask Tony Anything episode. Below are some of the highlights.

Tony Schiavone was asked: “If the Braves called you and offered you the announcing job, would you leave AEW?:  “No, that ship has sailed.  If there was a chance to do both, I would do that.  But I would not leave AEW for that.  You can’t put a price tag on working for a good person and that’s what we are doing.  It’s worth it’s weight in gold.  On the surface everybody would say, man, you would want to do the Braves.  But my question is, who would I work for?  Who would be my boss?  Would it be a good relationship or would he nag me or give me shit and make me miserable?  With Tony (Khan), he is very positive.  He doesn’t make you miserable and he’s a great person to work for with a good heart.  That is worth a lot.”

Tony was asked, “When you chose AEW over WWE, what position did WWE have in mind for you?”  Tony responded:  “They were very sketchy about it.  They said we just want you to come to work here.  We need more people here who have a strong wrestling background to help out.  Well, what would I do?  Well, you would just work with us.  I was talking to Bruce (Prichard) and I think Bruce was shooting with me that he didn’t know.  Now it’s pretty apparent what was going on and I don’t blame Bruce for it.  But, they wanted to get me so AEW wouldn’t get me and they would have run me out the door right after Eric Bischoff or before.  I’m not blaming Bruce but I get it.  I know what Vince (McMahon) was thinking.”

Tony talked about the neck surgery he had years ago:  “I was in a couple of accidents where I was rear-ended.  One was in Charlotte and one back in Virginia.  I went to the hospital both times thinking I had whiplash and apparently I didn’t.  Then later in life in the late ‘80s, when I would reach for something, I would have an electrical shock run from the back of my neck all the way down my arms.  I had an MRI done and it was really serious.  I dragged my feet on getting surgery until I went to a surgeon.  He put a neck brace on me immediately and said wear this.  He said if you have one more wreck you will be in a wheelchair the rest of your life.  He told me the reason it’s so severe is that you have a thinner sac of fluid around your spine than most people.  That makes any type of contusion or any type of problems you have with your neck more severe.  He had studied in Japan because the people in Japan have inherently thinner sacs of fluid around their spine.  It’s part of their makeup.  They have more neck injuries in Japan than anywhere else.  They went in and cut open my spinal column and they opened it up and widened it so I would have room for my spine in my spinal column. He said I would also have more back problems as we go along.  I have scar tissue on my spinal cord.  That’s the reason why I still have pain and the doctor said there is nothing they can do about that.  But as far as the danger of me not being able to walk again, I believe that is behind us.”