Mike Tenay Is Excited Don West’s Family Will Be In Chicago For Impact Hall of Fame Induction

In an interview with PWInsider, Mike Tenay spoke about his excitement about Don West going into the Impact Hall of Fame this weekend, noting West’s family will be in Chicago. Here are highlights:

On being inducted with West tomorrow: “It’s a really unique situation. The ability to not only be inducted yourself into the Hall of Fame, but also to be the spokesperson in essence for someone else. And I thought back on everybody that has gone into the Hall of Fame and I couldn’t come up with anybody that has done it. I’m sure there has been, but it’s a unique situation in that I have this balance of doing a tribute to Don and transitioning into a series of Mike Tenay ‘Thank You’s,’ I guess you would say. When you have somebody that was as close to me as Don was and we became such great friends, it becomes such an immense honor to be a part of the tribute to him. The specific reason that I decided to do it this year was the time, it was related to his passing in December of last year. The fact that the event is emanating from Chicago, which is Don’s hometown and the other primary reason behind it being the way that Scott D’Amore stepped up to the plate on the GoFundMe situation for Don and his family, and I certainly didn’t see that coming. I just thought it was just…I just felt like this was the perfect time where all the planets were aligned and it was the right thing to do. As far as Don, I think about this and you know, it’s always nice to have recognition by your peers for the hard work that you do, for the dedication that you have to your craft, to your career. So, for me, this weekend is just extra special when you add the inclusion of Don West in his hometown. And I think at the same time, I hope that it provides in a sense, I hope it provides closure and I know it’s an odd term, but I hope it provides closure for all my years with TNA and Impact Wrestling that has been missing for both Don and myself. It was the subject of a lot of conversations through the years that I had with Don after we both left the wrestling business and I just felt like it was finally the right time to do it.”

On why their partnership worked: “I think because we hit it off as friends even before we had our first minute on the air, and when I say friends, that was from the drive from Nashville to the event, the first one and it was almost like an immediate feeling that we’ve known each other for many, many years. We had so many things in common. We both shared, I think, an equal sense of humor on things. And again, this is part of the reflection that I’ve had in the last couple of weeks. If I can, I’d like to expand and I’m going to include Bobby Heenan in this and not detract from Don by any means, but only to make it more special. But I think back to that reflection and how amazing it’s been to have two great friends as broadcast partners in Don West and Bobby Heenan. I’ve always thought that you don’t need to be great friends with your announce partner to be a good broadcast team, but I always thought that it made working together on air so much easier when you’re socially friendly. You’re so much more comfortable together on air and I always believed that the friendship that Don and I had, I felt like it came across to the audience as opposed to just the business relationship. So, I think when you look back on it, the fact that we did so much together socially, If there was a pay-per-view in a city, it wasn’t even a question of talking in advance that we were going to go out to dinner together the night before. We might discuss what sporting events or concerts or whatever it was that we wanted to go to together in that city. And it was so funny because that was a very similar relationship that I had with Bobby Heenan and almost miraculous to be able to pick it up after Bobby was gone, and just have our social lives and our friendship and our business lives just mesh together so well. I just think that that really was the key to being a strong broadcast team on air.”

On West’s family being in Chicago: “I think it’s really great that Don’s family is going to be in attendance this weekend. I know that his wife Terri is going to be there. I know her sister, who was just so incredibly helpful to the family, she moved her total base of operations to Washington to be Terri’s strength and power. I’ve heard from Terri that Don’s family, I think his mom and dad may be there. I know that the brothers who live in I think Georgia and Florida are trying to come, I don’t know whether they’re going to be there. I think it’s just so important that they’re there.”

On his Professor nickname: “Legacy-wise, I never called myself ‘The Professor’. That was a name that was given to me by another announcer, so I didn’t…again the egocentric parts where I’ve taken five, where I’ve taken a half an hour to give you a five-minute answer. But I hope that the takeaway from my career is that you may have enjoyed my wrestling announcing, maybe you didn’t, it’s a matter of taste. I don’t have an issue with either, but if you learn something…I’m gonna be doing a meet and greet in Chicago this weekend after the show on Saturday night, and it’s the first one that I’ve done in many years. We used to do them almost as you remember when you go to a TNA pay-per-view, they have the whole weekend and usually the Saturday before the show, we’d have hours where we do meet and greets with the whole roster….the amount of people that would come up to me and say, ‘You educated me about Lucha Libre, you exposed me to Lucha Libre, you opened my eyes about Japanese wrestling,’ That was the conversation that I had with them that meant so much to me. I’m kind of looking forward to it again on Saturday. Just to get that feedback. So I guess the legacy of all of that is that ability to teach and hopefully at the same time expand the careers of the wrestlers, make them feel more important to the people watching at home.”

On why he never returned to wrestling: “I think in the bigger picture, you just nailed it, that that part of my life has changed. I think that in all the people that I’ve known in my lifetime, I think that I’ve enjoyed retirement more than any person I’ve ever met. I look at it almost like a pay off or a pay day for the ridiculous travel schedule that I had for so many years. The WCW travel schedule was a lot of different cities in a very short time period. The 52 weeks a year is something that fans don’t take into account. We would often run into other broadcast teams from other sports – baseball, football, hockey, basketball, and they would be absolutely amazed that there was no offseason in professional wrestling. I think just because it’s the norm, wrestling fans don’t even think about the fact that there’s no offseason. When you look at the consecutive weeks that Michael Cole has put up, which is absolutely amazing. I think he mentioned the other night when I was watching the show that he had missed just [three] weeks in the 20-plus years that he was there. When I look back on my career, the 20-plus years with WCW and TNA, I never missed a show. There were a couple of shows where the storyline called for me to [be] written out, but I was actually at those events; I was in the TV truck. So, I never missed a show with either company in all of those years. The commitment that you have with that schedule is unbelievable. Fortunately, in WCW, we moved to Atlanta for that time period. But during all the years, I think it was 15 or 16 years or whatever it was with TNA, I was living in Las Vegas. Every single week. I would fly to either Nashville or Orlando. In Orlando. It was fun. Live shows the Universal Studios tapings, on opposite weeks I would fly to Nashville where we would do both in-studio voiceovers and I was part of the creative team, and we would have creative team meetings. So, there was never a time where I wasn’t on the road. Those flights from Las Vegas to Orlando and Las Vegas to Nashville and then back every single week, they can take a toll. So, I think that, I think that I moved on to the next chapter in my life. A lot of it primarily because it was such a commitment to travel and travel these days is even more difficult even than it was back then.”