Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer is reporting that Tony Schiavone has reached a deal with All Elite Wrestling.
No word as to any details regarding the deal, only that the two parties have reached one, but Schiavone has had his presence on AEW media, particularly with an “AEW Control Center” segment during episode one of “Road To All Out” which was back in July.
PWInsider is confirming that Tony Schiavone is still going to work with MLW. The wrestling broadcast icon has been a prominent presence on MLW Fusion as a commentator with play-by-play man Rich Bocchini and returned to the program a few weeks back. Before the news broke that Tony would be returning to MLW, the promotion in which he first returned to the wrestling broadcast booth, Schiavone shared the previous uncertainty of his status with MLW (due to his baseball and college football commitments) and also commended the company’s great production work:
“I’m in the midst of the contract with them. I signed a three-year deal with them and in the contract it said that if I have baseball or if I have Georgia basketball or Georgia football that that would take precedent. Well when we first started doing this they had their tapings on Thursdays which was no problem, especially no problem with football and basketball because basically, we play football every Saturday. Basketball we play Wednesdays and Saturdays or Tuesdays and Saturdays, very rarely do we play on Wednesdays. And then in 2019, Court sent me the entire schedule and everything was on a Saturday with the exception of right before WrestleMania, they’re going to record on a Thursday and a Friday. Well in April they’re taping in New York on April 4th and April 5th. That’s the opening day of baseball season for me, April 4th is. So I got in touch with Court and I said, “Listen with the exception of one day in the month of June, I can’t do these.” And they started doing live shows now. There were some times where back we would shoot the shows and then we would go somewhere else and do the commentary later. We would post the commentary later because I wasn’t available, but now that they’re doing live shows they need to bring in an announce team to do those live shows, I’m not available. So it really looks like that I’m not going to be doing it for a whole year. I don’t know what 2020’s gonna be for them, but it looks like I’m going to go a whole year without doing it. So it’s fine with me, I got plenty to do. They got Jim Cornette doing it now which I understand he’s doing a great job which I know he would and Rich Boccini is a great announcer. Matt Stryker is a great announcer and I told Court, “Listen, you let those guys do it. You’ve got fine announcers. You don’t need me. I’ve got plenty to do.” And so that’s where we are right now.”
“He’s got a good team. He’s put together some very, very good people who have done wrestling before and people who have worked in the WWE/WWF for years works with him and good post-production people, good cameramen, good director and to me that was always the backbone of wrestling. You could have great wrestlers, but if your TV show didn’t look good, people weren’t going to migrate to it and I think his show looks good. I think they do a good job at putting together his show. And so I think he should be commended for that. I think they’re doing a great job.”
You can catch up and hear the entire interview I conducted with Tony back in March below:
