Tony Schiavone is headed to All Elite Wrestling as PWinsider.com confirmed on Monday that he has signed a deal with the promotion. Dave Meltzer was the first to report that AEW had reached a deal with Schiavone.
It was noted that WWE also had an interest in Schiavone. It turns out that as late as Wednesday, WWE was still pursuing a Schiavone deal. That stopped once he agreed to terms with AEW this past Thursday. He will be on television quite a bit as Schiavone, who is signed to an MLW contract, will continue with his role in MLW.
MLW tweeted out a video that was released back in December on YouTube. The promotion commented under the tweet of the video that “Mr. Schiavone’s MLW status is unchanged.”
https://twitter.com/MLW/status/1163260345504403461
With Schiavone signing a deal with AEW, he’ll be back on TNT where he was the lead announcer for Monday Nitro that was presented by WCW.
Prior to this news, Schiavone had appeared in AEW video packages uploaded to YouTube a few months ago. At the time, he wasn’t under contract with AEW.
I am not. I just like to help @CodyRhodes when I can. https://t.co/DFJwwxiyUa
— Tony Schiavone (@tonyschiavone24) July 4, 2019
Currently, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross serves as the lead play-by-play announcer for AEW so it will be interesting to see what Schiavone’s role with the promotion will be.
AEW has yet to make the signing official but an announcement is expected shortly.