being in AEW Helped Tony Schiavone's rep as an announcer

[The Blue Nova]

I find Tony being in AEW has helped him a lot as far as his reputation and legacy as an announcer goes. Tony was pretty good in WCW but sadly towards the end not so much as he lost his passion(he said so himself) and it showed. The infamous quotes that will put buts in seats and this is the greatest night in the history of this sport, was sadly what he was known for for the longest time. I find being in AEW as an announcer helped him alot to get over that and is more beloved now then he was say 20 years ago. In my opinion I find he is the best commentator in AEW as he has his passion back and it shows.

[ASYLUMHAUSEN]

Tony has come full circle and is the best in the business right now. Full stop.

•His “god, I love professional wrestling” line from All Out should be a forever soundbite

•his hatred of MJF and Adam Cole (BAY BAY) is just weekly brilliance.

•”It’s STIIIIIIIIING!” has become a sort of wholesome meme about fandom IMO

Jim Ross may for all intents and purposes be the GOAT (regardless of his current downside of his career problems he absolutely is) but this second life version of Tony has added to his overall legacy and helped close the gap.

No matter how you slice it, when you step back and look at his whole career? He truly is one of the GOATS and this current run absolutely cements it.

[ASYLUMHAUSEN]

I would also like to add that the 2 best on the mic TV guys right now are Tony Schiavone and Pat McAfee.

What a weird, wild world we live in as wrestling fans.

Wrestling in 2022 remains the absolute best 😂

[nihilismizhawt]

100%. I had really lost my liking for him any level from 1999 on, and just didnt care at all for him. To think, the biggest thing he was known for after 2000 was being the guy who said the "Thatll put butts in the seats." Now he's a certifiable legend and I love seeing him every week. Thank goodness for something like AEW to allow people to rehabilitate their reputations.

[Cyno]

Before AEW, the last I saw of Tony was in a disastrous TNA segment where he cut a worked shoot promo as a heel for some reason (this was when Vince Russo was working for TNA, shocker). I never bothered with MLW, so that 2003 segment was the last I saw of him as a commentator until 2019.

[lucas_lee]

If anything this has shown how great Tony is,while this kind of displays JR'S shortcomings and inability to adapt

[Slingshot Suplay]

I love hearing Tony's reactions to the action. He missed so much over the years, I'm glad AEW has revitalized his love of wrestling, like it has for many lapsed fans.

[Cry Me a Wiggle]

Tony was the Michael Cole of late WCW: The poor soul who had to be the voice of all of the idiotic decisions being made. I wanted him replaced by Scott Hudson then. I adore him now and recognize it wasn’t his fault.

[Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story]

I know people don't love the guy, but I also think you need to give SOME credit to Conrad for reigniting Tony's passion and giving him a platform where people were reminded why they loved him when they were kids. Tony's the man.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Before WCW went straight to Russo Hell I always thought Tony pre 1999 was a great announcer. Him and Bobby were actually having fun, and their performance at Bash at the Beach 1996 with Dusty was amazing in getting that angle over. Even in his brief WWF run I thought he was good, very enthusiastic.

During Attitude when WWF took the lead that’s when he became “the greatest night in this sport” guy. But that was because he couldn’t get into such a disastrous product. Some nights he’d be watching some awful David Flair segment or bad swerve and he’d laugh or roll his eyes, or plug Surge soda or the WCW cologne. He was arguing with Heenan more because Bobby also knew that WCW was in flames and neither guy could figure out how to salvage those angles. Now that he’s got a halfway competent booker, good workers and some familiar TNT connections he’s got reasons to get invested in calling shows again.

[Deleted]

Apr 21, 2022 18:22:55 GMT -5 Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story said:

I know people don't love the guy, but I also think you need to give SOME credit to Conrad for reigniting Tony's passion and giving him a platform where people were reminded why they loved him when they were kids. Tony's the man.

Conrad makes me roll my eyes sometimes, but that's pretty undeniable. Without Conrad, Tony doesn't get back into wrestling at all, and then he doesn't get the MLW gig, and then he doesn't get into AEW.

Honestly, Schiavone is probably my favorite of the Dynamite announcers. Yes, JR is "The voice" to most people, and Excalibur is the one who knows all the moves and how to pronounce all of the newer shit that's come out in the past 20 years move wise, but Tony's sheer exuberance and genuine love for wrestling is just so infectious.

It's like he's the Anti-JR, in the sense that he just decided "Well, the psychology isn't what I like and grew up on, but GODDAMN, can these kids GO in the ring"

[Fade is a CodyCryBaby]

Been watching a lot of old WCW & WWF and the same thought occurred to me. He’s actually my favorite in AEW. JR’s obviously JR’ing his way through it. And I’m mixed on Excalibur. Tony’s the most complete, I feel.

[ghost]

Tony was always great except for the latter part of WCW’s demise but at that point everybody in the company stopped caring. If he somehow got the Attitude Era gig instead of JR, he’d be remembered just as fondly as JR now.

As far as Tony today, his hatred for MJF is probably my favorite part of his act. A few weeks ago when Wardlow had MJF set up for the powerbomb, the sheer joy of Tony screaming “Yes! Yes! Yes!” before Spears broke it up was amazing. Once Wardlow lands that first powerbomb on MJF, Tony’s going to smoke a cigarette on the announce table.

[Andee9001]

My first real encounter with him came from talking about Mankinds title win on the Monday Night Wars dvd. After that i'd see digs at him on Wrestlecrap and always thought he was rubbish. It wasn't until i watched the 3 Best of Nitro volumes i realised how good he actually was. Him being back in AEW has been an absolute delight.

[Deleted]

Here's a really good opinion piece about how Tony's reputation has transformed in the last few years - www.fanbyte.com/wrestling/how-tony-schiavones-aew-comeback-saved-his-reputation/

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

I have been a Schiavone mark for many, many years - when I first heard about MLW, I even posted on here at the time that while I was interested in the product and liked some of the talents involved anyway, literally just hearing Tony talk about wrestling was the biggest selling point for me.

What has been really heartening about Tony in AEW is that it proves just how damn good he is when he's off the leash. There are a lot of talents, many of them ones I was already a fan of, who when given an environment like AEW to get some creative freedom have just been able to get even better than they were, people like Danielson, or Punk, but that is true for Schiavone too. He was given so much stupid shit to say in WCW - either because of what was booked in front of him or because of what was fed to him to say - that he was always an underrated announcer, but modern Tony Schiavone is better than he's ever been.

[GuyOfOwnage]

I'll be honest, I never saw Schiavone in his prime. My local cable company didn't carry TBS for a very long time, and to top things off, I was a WWF kid through and through. By the time I heard Tony's announcing, it was during the Monday Night War era where he very much came across as an annoying-as-hell shill. I even remember him being the butt of countless jokes in the late 90s IWC. And because I'd never seen anything else he'd done prior to that, I went along with it. Here's a link to an Angelfire page (yes, Angelfire, complete with late 90s typeset) with a joke about Schiavone that pretty much sums up most of the IWC's opinion of him at the time (NSFW):

www.angelfire.com/sc/flight69/tony.html

The difference between then and now is like night and day. He doesn't sound like a shill machine that just had 18 cups of coffee, screaming about the greatest night in the history of our great sport. Now, he has room to breathe and actually, y'know, call the damn match. Furthermore, it's incredible to me that THIS is the same guy that made me want to mute Nitro when I was a kid. I wouldn't even dream of doing that now. Tony is phenomenal at his job.

[Jedi-El of Tomorrow]

Apr 21, 2022 18:25:47 GMT -5 Clash, Never a Meter Maid said:

Before WCW went straight to Russo Hell I always thought Tony pre 1999 was a great announcer. Him and Bobby were actually having fun, and their performance at Bash at the Beach 1996 with Dusty was amazing in getting that angle over. Even in his brief WWF run I thought he was good, very enthusiastic.

He was a great commentator, but those last couple of years in WCW were bad. Having to shill the stupidest shit, say the dumbest shit, and a toxic work environment are all gonna result in somebody just being completely done. He and Brain were good till towards the end of 98, then everything hit. The environment caused them not to have the chemistry they once did, and neither guy really wanted to be there.

AEW's gotten us prime Tony back. Imagine telling somebody in 2001, that in 2022 Tony would be the guy that fans love on commentary, and JR would be the ones that fans don't want on commentary anymore.

[Magic knows Black Lives Matter]

Oh, big time. Just speaking as someone that started watching after the Monday night war, you would have thought dude was a special type of buns from how folks talked about him.

No. Turns out he was just on the wrong side of history through literally no fault of his own and is just a good commentator that loves wrestling even after it tossed him aside for so long.

[Glitch]

When wcw folded, there was a ton of revisionist history instantly written. And since Tony was on the losing side of the war, he was made to look like the worst announcer ever. Fortunately as time went on, we got to see this revisionism start to erode, and Tony's work in AEW helped clear up wrong doings to his reputation.