Tony Schiavone was done with wrestling.

It was the spring of 2001 and the “Monday Night Wars” had effectively been ended. Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) had just completed the purchase of rival World Championship Wrestling (WCW) from Turner Sports shortly after the gargantuan America Online/Time Warner merger when executives at Turner Broadcasting had deemed professional wrestling no longer in line with its vision. The WWE would scoop up a number of WCW assets – most notably its tape library – including a select few performer contracts, but Schiavone’s wouldn’t be one of them.

The lead play-by-play announcer for WCW’s flagship program WCW Monday Nitro and the longtime voice of wrestling on Turner networks, first with Jim Crockett Promotions in the mid-‘80s and later WCW, Schiavone found himself without an industry job for the first time since 1983.

For the Craigsville, VA native, it was time to turn the page on that chapter of his life.

“When WCW closed down, I did get in touch with the WWE and they never really got back in touch with me, but I realized by them not getting back in touch with me that they didn’t want me and that was fine,” the 62-year-old Schiavone told TSN.ca. “I decided that I was going to try to reinvent my career and maybe go back in the direction that my career was before wrestling started, which was in baseball, and in radio. And I was able to do that. I was able to make a good living and I was happy. I was working for Georgia football and Georgia basketball. I had a job with the [Atlanta] Braves’ Triple-A team [Gwinnett Braves] doing their play-by-play. I had something going on every sports season.”

The industry that had dominated Schiavone’s professional life for nearly two decades – pro wrestling – was now gone from it entirely.

“I had no interest [anymore],” Schiavone said. “I didn’t watch wrestling. I decided that once the WWE never got back in touch with me, I’m just going to walk away from it. I’m not going to sit in front of the TV and watch wrestling and wish I was back into it. I’m going to do a cold turkey thing and I did.”

Schiavone was completely at peace with his decision to enter into the new phase of his career, one with the squared circle in its rear-view mirror.

“I had no interest in it and it had been out there on the internet, I think, that I was very bitter about the business and that was a complete lie,” Schiavone said. “I’m not bitter about the business. I realized – at least I thought at that time – that the business had passed me by, that I had my run in the business. I enjoyed it. I made some money. I was able to put kids through school and I was able to make a good living.”

As it turned out, Schiavone wasn’t actually done with wrestling. He was just on an extended break from it.

The calendar had just turned to 2017 and Schiavone was preparing for a Bulldogs basketball game one night in January when he had what was almost a prophetic conversation.

“I was talking to our producer down the line…we were just chatting before a game and he said, ‘Hey, would you ever consider doing a podcast in wrestling?’” Schiavone recalled. “And I said, nah. He said, ‘Well, you ought to consider it. I’m listening to this guy named Conrad Thompson. He’s got a podcast with [longtime WWE producer and booker] Bruce Prichard and it’s a great podcast. You’ve got a lot of stories and I think it would be good.’ I kinda blew it off and said, ‘No, I’m not interested.’”

While Schiavone wasn’t interested, it turned out that Thompson was. He coincidentally contacted Schiavone only days later.

“Conrad sends me this email and it wasn’t just an email, it was a very lengthy business proposal,” Schiavone said. “I got to thinking about it and I talked to my wife and our daughter was getting married in a year. My wife said, ‘Well, you could help pay for the wedding.’ So I started doing the podcast with Conrad and it piqued my interest in wrestling again and I realized how much I’d missed. The podcast became pretty successful and it still is. I get a lot of feedback and I started to connect with the fans.”

The podcast in question is called What Happened When, a show where Schiavone and Thompson recall memorable moments from the Monday Night Wars, reviewing shows and looking back on the era. Now in its fourth year, the pair has recorded nearly 200 episodes. Doing the show forced Schiavone to delve back into wrestling, something that he hadn’t done in years.

“The last Nitro we did in 2001 was the last time I watched wrestling until we started doing that podcast in 2017,” Schiavone said. “And it just so happened that in January 2017, there was a Royal Rumble and Conrad told me, he said, ‘You should probably start watching this stuff again and get on the [WWE] Network to see what you’ve been missing.’ So I watched the Royal Rumble that one night and it had actually been about 16 years since I actually watched wrestling on TV.”

The podcast meant that Schiavone was dipping his toe back into the industry. Shortly thereafter, he would jump right back in. In the summer of 2017, Court Bauer resurrected his Major League Wrestling (MLW) promotion, one that had been dormant since 2004. He approached Schiavone to do commentary for MLW’s Fusion program. Schiavone agreed as a means to supplement his income, but found himself once again enamoured with the business.

“I started talking to the younger guys and younger girls about their profession and their desires and I started realizing that if my voice can help enhance their careers and move forward, because the independent wrestling scene has a lot of people in it, then why not?” Schiavone said.

A year after his return, Schiavone received a phone call that would change his life again…well, two phone calls, actually.

“It just so happened that on one day last year, I was contacted by both the WWE and All Elite Wrestling on the same day,” Schiavone said. “It was just one of those things where, with podcasting and people getting in touch with me, the stars aligned. But I think that the fact that I jumped back into the podcast got my interest back to it.”

Nearly 20 years after WWE told Schiavone they weren’t interested in his services, Schiavone returned the favour, spurning the company he briefly worked for from 1989 to 1990 to join the fledgling AEW.

Fast forward to just over a year later and Schiavone and the rest of the AEW broadcast team are preparing to mark the one-year anniversary of AEW Dynamite on his old stomping grounds of TNT.

Part of a three-man commentary booth alongside Marc “Excalibur” Letzmann and the legendary Jim “JR” Ross, Schiavone finds himself in a different role than his WCW days where he was the lead announcer. On Dynamite, Schiavone adds complementary commentary and analysis, taking a backseat to Excalibur.

“I like to think – well, I know I am – I’m easy to work with,” Schiavone said. “I didn’t know Excalibur at all, and when I was told that you’re going to be working with a masked guy who used to run a promotion and used to be a wrestler, I’m thinking ‘Oh, boy. What do we got here?’ But he’s a very intelligent guy and he knows his stuff and he’s a good kid. He’s hardworking and he and I have struck it off. JR and I have known each other for ages, so I think one of the things that makes our chemistry good – if you, in fact, think it is that way and people think it is that way– is that I do know my role and I don’t try to force the issue.”

Schiavone says he enjoys the niche he’s found with his partners.

“I do know that I was a lead play-by-play guy for so many years, but I realize that Excalibur knows the holds and knows the moves and JR is being JR and kind of directing the broadcast and I’m just adding stuff in,” Schiavone said. “It was [Wrestling Observer publisher] Dave Meltzer who wrote that it’s pretty apparent that Schiavone is there because of his voice and people remember their childhood. And if that’s what I’m there for, that’s fine by me. At my age, I’m just happy to have a job and work with good people.”

While starting the podcast with Thompson meant that Schiavone had to catch up on what he had missed in wrestling, working again within the industry on a daily basis has shown Schiavone firsthand what trends have emerged in the modern product.

“I think the style of wrestling has changed,” Schiavone said. “I think the wrestling style that we see now is more of the style of lucha libre wrestling that we saw back in the [WCW] cruiserweight days. And I think the style of  [Paul Heyman’s] Extreme Championship Wrestling has kind of stood the test of time, as well. Of course, I say that now, but I never saw any ECW [when it was active], but I’ve watched plenty of ECW since then. There’s a lot of that hardcore style that still remains. I think that’s what’s changed from what I used to call.”

But some things about wrestling will forever stay the same.

“One of the things that’s not changed is that you’ve still got to tell the story as an announcer,” Schiavone said. “You’ve still got to promote. You’ve still got to try to enhance what you see on TV to make fans interested in it. That hasn’t changed at all.”

Schiavone has quickly developed admiration for the performers on AEW’s roster. Asked to name a couple of them who stood out for him over this first year, he was unable to keep his list short.

“Obviously, MJF has because he is a throwback to the old heels,” Schiavone said. “Jon Moxley – I didn’t see much of [his WWE character] Dean Ambrose, but only the Dean Ambrose from 2017 forward. I immediately said, ‘Man, Jon Moxley is kind of like our ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin.’ And I like Jon Moxley better than Dean Ambrose. Again, I didn’t see the Dean Ambrose before 2017 and I heard that he was pretty rough and rugged, but I just love what Moxley does. I love the Young Bucks and not only because I respect them for being on the independents and the money they made and the following they got, but also just because they’re cool guys. They’re great guys to work with.”

But Schiavone’s acclaim isn’t reserved for just those at the top of the card.

“I like Butcher and Blade, man,” Schiavone said. “I think these guys can be two very, very big stars. I just like their look. It’s very unique and they’ve never given us a bad match. They’ve had some great matches. They had that great match against the Bucks where they started back in the kitchen and finished up on the tables and everything. I like them a lot, too. I love Nyla Rose. I’m excited Thunder Rosa is with us because Thunder Rosa and I have been friends for quite a while since we did an autograph signing a couple of years ago together in Staten Island. I’m really excited that she’s here. I’d love to see Riho get back. I think she brought a lot of joy to us.”

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has sidelined another of Schiavone’s favourites in PAC, who remains in England under travel restrictions.

“I can’t wait until PAC gets back and I’m so glad that we’re still showing him in our recorded open, that we’re still keeping him alive by showing his face in the opening of the show,” Schiavone said. “I got to see Neville [PAC’s WWE persona] wrestle a little bit in the WWE because that’s when I started to watch it back then, but man, PAC can do a lot of stuff and I don’t think he’s had a bad match.”

Schiavone also offered praise for the two men embroiled in AEW’s hottest feud in recent months.

“It’s hard for me not to mention Orange Cassidy, too, and what he’s done,” Schiavone said. “And what a story he is, too. Oh, and I better say ‘Le Champion’ Chris Jericho because, if not, I’ll hear about it from him. Jericho has become such a great leader for our company. He’s been such a great leader for the young guys and the guys who don’t have that much experience. I think Orange Cassidy was going to be a star, but I think Chris Jericho’s made him a star over the last couple of months."

Just as Schiavone himself had been gone from the business for years, he’s aware that fans, too, had left. When WCW closed its doors, many of its fans didn’t make the jump over to WWE, like Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page and Lance Storm did. Others, tired of the WWE’s virtual monopoly, have also stepped away with ratings continually declining over the past several years despite bumper new television contracts.

Schiavone believes AEW offers an alternative.

“I would say that we have guys who have very good athletic ability,” Schiavone said. “We have some guys and girls who are in the midst of some great storylines. I think we focus a little bit more on the wrestling in the ring than what you’ve seen in the past.”

But because he subscribes to the same broadcasting philosophy as one of professional sports’ greatest icons, Schiavone says he can’t really pay much attention to what the WWE is offering right now.

“It’s hard for me to sit here and compare what we do to what the WWE does because here’s what I do – the exact same thing that I did when I did Nitro back in the day – I do not watch the competitor,” Schiavone said. “If something is going on with the competitor, I’ll read about it or I’ll hear about it from somebody backstage, but I don’t watch it. The reason I don’t is an old thing Vin Scully used to say and, of course, I was a big baseball guy. Vin Scully said years ago that he never listens to any other announcer because he doesn’t want to get caught in the trap of trying to imitate what they say or how they call a game. And I don’t want to do that. I guess I can watch it with the sound down, but I can find out the information another way.

So I can’t sit here and say, ‘Hey, watch AEW because we are X-different than WWE’ because I don’t know what they’re doing. I just know that we have exciting wrestling, we have great storylines and I think it may be, from what I understand, a little bit more of what the fans really want in a wrestling program than what the WWE is providing.”

While few breathe the rarefied air of Scully’s status in the sports broadcasting pantheon, Schiavone himself is among the great voices in wrestling’s history, calling memorable matches throughout the careers of all-time legends like Ric Flair, Sting, Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat.

As for his most famous call, Schiavone says he’s often told that it came from 1996’s Bash at the Beach pay-per-view where the main event saw Hulk Hogan’s infamous heel turn and the formation of the New World Order (nWo) stable alongside Kevin Nash and Scott Hall.

The decision to have the industry’s most beloved babyface embrace the dark side helped kick-start WCW’s most profitable period, but it came as a great shock to fans. Schiavone wanted to convey that surprise and disgust and inadvertently came up with what would end up being one of the signature lines of his career.

As the fans inside the Ocean Center in Daytona, FL rained boos and garbage down on Hogan after his betrayal of Randy Savage, Lex Luger and Sting on WCW’s darkest day, Schiavone concluded the broadcast with “Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell!”

“Nick Jackson of the Young Bucks says this to me every time he sees me – I’m talking about every time he sees me,” Schiavone said. “Nick Jackson will say, ‘Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell.’ It’s kind of a joke in the back. Now, when that happened, I didn’t think anything of it because it was kind of off-the-cuff when it happened. I remember as this was all going down, I remember thinking in the last 30 seconds of that Bash at the Beach show, I better say something to really put a punctuation on this because this is a hell of a moment. If you go back and look at it, Hogan turning heel was a hell of a moment. So I said it kind of off-the-cuff and I didn’t really think anything of it. I walked to the back and I remember Brian Knobbs was in the back and he said, ‘That was a great line!’ I said, ‘What was?’ and he said, ‘Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell.’ And I just said, ‘Oh, thanks, man.’ So that was back then, but it’s kind of stood the test of time. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but apparently it was. That has to go as one of my favourite calls.”

The other moment that Schiavone said still gets frequently talked about wasn’t exactly a call.

Nitro ran up against the WWE’s Monday Night Raw every Monday night for over five years from 1996 to 2001. While WCW had enjoyed the upper hand in the ratings battle in the first half of that time, the tide began to turn in the WWE’s favour towards the end of 1998, but both programs were still recording impressive ratings.  While Nitro was always live, the WWE would frequently air a taped show every other week. A live RAW would be filmed on the Monday and then on the following night, the next week’s RAW would be taped that Tuesday. Because of this practice, spoilers for the taped edition would often leak ahead of time and WCW president Eric Bischoff attempted to use this to his advantage.

On the evening of Jan. 4, 1999, Bischoff instructed Schiavone to reveal live on air what was about to happen over on RAW. Former WCW performer Mick Foley, then wrestling under the Mankind gimmick, was going to win the WWE World Championship from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. So Schiavone did just that, concluding “That will really put butts in the seats.”

What happened next was exactly the opposite of what Bischoff wanted. Instead of viewers sticking around for the main event, an estimated 600,000 Nitro viewers flipped over to RAW to watch Foley win the title. While the viewership numbers don’t actually support the claim, that night is widely considered to be the moment when the momentum in the Monday Night Wars shifted permanently in the WWE’s direction.

Schiavone now looks back on that evening with a kind of pride.

“If you look at the WWE Encyclopedia, my line ‘Butts in the seats’ line is the one they remember,” Schiavone said. “But, of course, that’s because the history is told by the winners of the war. But I get it. That’s the way they are. I often think – and I’m sincere when I say this – if they think that I was the reason why the war changed, then I’m proud of that. I’m proud that I had that much stroke in the wrestling business back then. I changed the war? Me? Well, no I didn’t. The war was being changed long before that happened. But I do like that some people feel that’s the reason it happened.”

Over 20 years later, Schiavone finds himself amid another wrestling rivalry, but one without the enmity that existed at times between WCW and WWE and one where it’s a pleasure to go to work.

“Everybody gets along,” Schiavone said. “It’s a great place to work. WCW wasn’t necessarily a great place to work and that was probably part of the reason why I stepped away from wrestling, as well. At the very end, WCW was not a great place to work. There was a lot of politicking, as I’m sure you know, and just everybody was unhappy. But now, everybody is happy. Everybody works together. As a group, we look forward to getting together every other week. It’s kind of the highlight of what we do.”

The next benchmark in a career filled with many for Schiavone comes on Oct. 14 when Dynamite holds its one-year anniversary show.