As AEW Dynamite prepares to air an episode tonight that officially surpasses the total number of episodes produced for WCW Monday Nitro, veteran commentator Tony Schiavone shared his emotional thoughts on the milestone during the “What Happened When” podcast. Schiavone, a defining voice of WCW Nitro now working as a commentator and senior producer for AEW, offered significant praise for AEW President Tony Khan’s impact.
“It is pretty cool,” Schiavone said of the achievement. Acknowledging how his comments might be perceived, he added, “I need to say something here, and most people are going to say, ‘Oh, you’re a suck up.’ Yeah, I am.”
Schiavone candidly reflected on AEW’s journey, admitting, “It hasn’t always been a smooth road working with AEW. There’s been bumps, and I’m talking about bumps that you have not seen, bumps that have not been reported by 411 f*ck sheets and all the other stooges that pretend to be journalists.”
Despite these challenges, Schiavone emphasized the profound positive effect Tony Khan has had on the lives of those working for the company. “But when I think about what this company has done, and what Tony Khan has done for everybody who works backstage, he gave us new life. He completely changed our lives,” Schiavone stated passionately. “Everybody who works for him, he changed our lives, especially people in the front office. So that means a lot.”
He connected Khan’s personal investment to the milestone’s significance: “So when he talks about this being a special moment, he’s talking about it because he loves wrestling on a nostalgia level, like we do. Tony has done a lot for us.”
Schiavone also credited Khan heavily for creative successes within AEW, particularly highlighting the popular “Timeless” Toni Storm character. “Right now, Timeless Toni Storm is probably the biggest woman’s star that we have. Well, not probably, is the biggest woman’s star we have, and that’s because it was a character that Tony Khan developed,” Schiavone revealed. “Tony Khan came up with the idea. RJ City took the idea and, of course, wrote some scripts for it and everything, but it was Tony’s idea.”
He further praised Khan’s creativity over the company’s history: “And he’s come up with some very good ideas for us over the last six years. If you think about Stadium Stampede, if you think about the double cage, or going up on top of the double cage, he’s come up with some very, very good ideas for us, and it’s been and we are charged to implement them, which we have done the best of our ability.”
Looking ahead to tonight’s landmark episode of Dynamite, Schiavone concluded, “So, I really feel that this is going to be a very special night for many, many reasons.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit AdFreeShows.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
