Tony Schiavone Talks Past Issues With Eric Bischoff, Mick Foley "Butts In The Seats" Incident

Tony Schiavone is best known for being the voice of WCW where he worked under Eric Bischoff. The two of them haven't had much of a relationship since WCW's demise, but they will reunite this weekend at Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2).

Before that, Schiavone spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast to talk about his relationship with Bischoff and what the two of them will be doing this weekend.

"Eric and I have a combined show that we're doing Friday night and we're also doing some autograph signings and meet-and-greets as well," said Schiavone.

"I really love talking to fans. I really do. I love hearing their stories about why they love pro wrestling. I look forward to meeting the fans that will be there for the entire weekend."

Bischoff and Schiavone will have a combined panel at C2E2 and Schiavone has lots of things to get off his chest regarding their past. He was asked what he expects during the panel and he went back to the last days of WCW and wanting some clarity.

"We all thought Eric was going to buy the company and we would continue on TBS. It had to be a span of a couple of days where Eric was not in charge and Vince bought us," stated Schiavone.

"I put a lot of stock in Eric as he was my boss and depended on me for a lot of stuff. So I'd like to know what the hell happened."

Schiavone and Bischoff were once both announcers between Bischoff ascended to running WCW. Schiavone remembers telling Bischoff that he had changed when he came into power.

"I told him 'You're gonna change.' He was like, 'No I'm not.' I said, 'You've got to. You're gonna be the boss.' And he really did change and wasn't always easy to work with," said Schiavone before adding that the two haven't stayed in much contact since leaving WCW.

"We've never really talked to each other that much. A couple of text exchanges?but I'd be very interested as to what he has to say."

Schiavone said that at the panel he won't hold back and will call out his former boss if need be.

"I'm gonna be very honest with Eric and not take blame for stuff I didn't do," revealed Schiavone. "If there's stuff that he shares the blame in, then I'm gonna call him on it.

"Some of the stuff he says may jog my memory and get me to say, 'Yeah! Absolutely! You were a terrible boss."

While in WCW Schiavone was best known for spilling the beans on Mick Foley winning the WWE Championship. But Schiavone says he just did as he was told, even though he wasn't directly told by Bischoff to reveal WWE's results.

"He did not directly tell me to do it," stated Schiavone. "But [WCW producer] Annette Yother came out to tell me to really say something bad about Mick Foley becoming world champion and I came up with the line ["That's gonna put some butts in the seats"].

"It will be interesting to find out what [Bischoff] said backstage or if he said anything?. When [Yother] appeared through the curtain, it was always something big. If it was coming from her, then it was coming from Eric.

"Yeah I'll take the blame for it, but had Annette not come out through the curtain, I wouldn't have said it."

Schiavone brought up that Bischoff used to routinely give away Raw match results while he was on commentary and he was merely acting as a puppet for WCW backstage.

"I said anything they wanted me to say [on commentary]," said Schiavone.

"Do what the boss says?as stupid as the boss may be. There's plenty of them out there and they are humans like you or me."

Tony Schiavone will be appearing at Chicago's C2E2 convention this upcoming weekend. He and Eric Bischoff will be taking part in an "After Dark" panel entitled "What Happened In 83 Weeks" on Friday night. It will be hosted by Conrad Thompson and tickets can be purchased here.

The full audio from our exclusive interview with Tony was included in today's episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard in the embedded player below. During the full interview Tony discusses his upcoming C2E2 panel with Eric Bischoff, Bruce Prichard re-signing with WWE, how he blew his chance his AEW, his memories of Cody Rhodes as a child, how WrestleMania compares to Starrcade and more.

You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here.

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