All Elite Wrestling commentator Tony Schiavone recently addressed various topics related to professional wrestling on his podcast, “What Happened When.” During the episode, he specifically discussed a segment from WCW Control Center that aired out of sequence and recounted how he nearly lost his job over it due to Eric Bischoff’s reaction.
Schiavone said, “I don’t remember exactly what day it was. But you know, I had attempted many — and Eric [Bischoff] may not even remember this. But I have attempted many times, or I had tried to be not only a good employee of WCW, but also a good father. So I coached Little League Baseball. And my wife would always say — Eric would always tell me, he said, ‘You have to put wrestling first instead of Little League f***ing baseball.’ And I said, ‘Well, I am.’ He said, ‘Okay.’ And Lois would say, ‘Eric’s just jealous because you’re spending more time with your kids than he is.’ I said, ‘Well, he’s running the company and I’m not.’ So anyway, there we did a Control Center that aired, and we put it together. Neil Pruitt was involved, and our editor was Kemper Rogers at that time. We put it in a show, and it talked about what happened before it happened. It was put in the wrong show. And so Eric called me about it, and he got on me about again, paying more attention to being a coach than an employee. And he said — and it was my fault, because I didn’t, I trusted the two guys to get it done, and I should have watched it and I didn’t. And it was really bad. And I don’t know how much traction it got with wrestling fans at that time, but it was very, very embarrassing for all of us that had happened that.”
On the dangers of taping something ahead of time:
“Anytime you record something ahead of time, there’s always dangers. There always is. Radio, television, doesn’t matter. Because it takes many people to make it right. But I remember that Control Center airing before the matches happened, and like last night on, and I’m thinking, Oh, ‘Jesus Christ.’ So there it was. And then Eric threatened to fire me, but he didn’t. And there you go.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
