Tony Schiavone Glad He Never Had Vince McMahon Screaming In His Ear During WWE Tenure

Tony Schiavone may have been the voice of WCW, and now AEW as well, but the broadcaster also spent a short tenure in WWE. On the latest "What Happened When," Schiavone said that he felt respected at WWE, especially by the people he worked closely with.

"Bruce Prichard was my boss and worked closely with Kevin Dunn," Schiavone explained. "I've brought this up many times, there was a little bit of a problem where Bruce kept telling me 'Vince is thinking you're sounding too southern.' I said 'Really?'" Prichard reportedly told Schiavone to listen to himself and try to get rid of the "twang" in his voice. Schiavone says that Prichard was always the messenger for Vince's criticism, saying Vince opted to play "Good Cop" in the game of "Good Cop, Bad Cop" that he had to play with higher-ups. 

"I guess that's changed, he's good cop and bad cop now." Schiavone says that McMahon didn't produce him during his tenure in WWE, which Schiavone is grateful for. "There's not one announcer out there that had Vince producing in their ear that said they enjoyed it," Schiavone chuckled, noting that he was lucky to have Prichard in his ear producing his commentary. "I think I was respected. I think after I left I wasn't." Schiavone went back to WCW, where he remained until the company closed in 2001. Outside of a brief appearance in TNA, Schiavone left the wrestling business altogether, not returning until he signed with AEW in 2019.