Tony Schiavone Reveals How His ROH Debut Was a Segment Added at the Last Minute

– During the latest edition of What Happened When, AEW broadcaster Tony Schiavone discussed making his first ROH appearance in history at Final Battle. Schiavone revealed his interview segment was a last-minute idea for the show. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Tony Schiavone on how his ROH debut came about: “I’m backstage. I think the Zero Hour had already started, and Sonjay comes by me. He says, ‘Have you checked your texts?’ I went, ‘No.’ We got these text threads. I don’t know why I didn’t check it because I check it all the time. It said, it was from Sonjay, Sonjay said, ‘Tony wants you to do an interview on this pay-per-view.’ I went, ‘God…’ It’s not that I don’t want to do it, it’s just like, okay, what is it gonna be about? So I gotta rush around. I don’t have a Ring of Honor jacket. I just have an AEW jacket. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

On their costume designer getting him an ROH jacket: “I go to see out buddy Clint, one of our costume designers, and he said, ‘Well, I’ve got a jacket. I think it’ll fit you, and I’ll put a Ring of Honor patch on it.’ He did, and I did the interview with Bryan Keith and Orange Cassidy to set up the match. So it was the first time I’d ever been on Ring of Honor. How about that? Last-minute type shit [laughs]. I made my Ring of Honor debut when Bobby Cruise was the ringer announcer on his twentieth Ring of Honor [Final Battle].”

Schiavone conducted an interview with Bryan Keith during the live pay-per-view broadcast.