Tony Schiavone Recalls Jim Herd’s Reaction To His WWE Jump

On the latest episode of the What Happened When with Tony Schiavone, the AEW broadcaster discussed the circumstances surrounding his 1989 departure from Jim Crockett Promotions for WWE and his return to WCW. You can check out some highlights below:

On Jim Ross being the lead announcer at JCP: “I think that — I had read or had heard that Meltzer had reported that JR being the lead announcer made me want to go somewhere else. That is not the case. I was happy and living in Charlotte. We had bought a house in Charlotte.”

On the WWE opportunity arose via JJ Dillon: “JJ called me and said you know, ‘I’m going up here. He said, ‘I asked Vince if there anybody else at NWA, WCW, like for me to talk to?’ He said, ‘Yeah, Tony Schiavone.’ So he said, Do you want to hear from Vince? I said, I sure do.'”

On getting the call from McMahon: “I never will forget I was on the roof of the freaking house doing some work like an idiot. Lois says, ‘You got Vince McMahon on the phone.’ I got down off the roof. He offered asked me what I was making. I told him, he offered me $40,000 more a year. So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll take it.’  And because I didn’t have a contract with Jim Crockett promotions, nor had I signed a contract with Turner.”

On telling Jim Herd. “I went back… Herd said, ‘Well, then we’re letting you go right now.’ I called Vince back and I said, ‘I have been fired by WCW.’ He said, ‘Well then you’re on  the payroll today.’ He put me on the payroll that day, and I went up there and had a great year of my career. So there wasn’t anything that made me go up there, with the exception of knowing that Herd was a f**king idiot, and it all worked out for me for a year. And then my God. Well, it ended up being a good move back when it’s all said and done years and years later. But it was not easy then.”

On life in the Northeast proved challenging: “Yeah, I think so. Lois didn’t like it. We couldn’t afford to buy a house because of the — you know, it’s much more expensive to live up in Connecticut. And we lived outside of Norwalk, and I didn’t mind it. I really enjoyed my job. But Lois didn’t like it because all of her friends and her mom and all of her family were back here. And she said, ‘I just don’t think it’s working out for us here.’ And then Jim Barnett called me, and like an idiot I said, ‘Okay, I’ll listen.’ And then they offered me a lot more money to come back.

“And I met them at the Grand Hyatt, downtown New York City. And I remember the meeting in that hotel room with Jim Barnett and Jim Herd and myself. And I remember Jim Herd telling me his feelings about, ‘We need more characters in wrestling that are history based. And we need like a Long John Silver who has a peg leg and he unscrews his leg, hits a guy with a guy over the head with it, screws it back on before the referee sees it. And a hunchback, where you can’t really pin him because of his hunch on his back.’ I remember thinking, ‘Do I really f**king want to do this? Oh, my God, is it worth it?’ And at the time you know, it wasn’t. The money was, and Lois thought it was pretty good but she was going to let me make the decision. So I’d made the decision to come back. And of course when I came back, I immediately wanted to kill myself, and really was depressed. But we moved in 1990 to this house that I’m in it right now. We’ve been here ever since we’ve hung in there, and here we are in 2025. So that’s that’s the short version, I guess.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit What Happened When with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.