Tony Schiavone Was Surprised When Hulk Hogan Joined WCW

Tony Schiavone has acknowledged that it was a big surprise to him when Hulk Hogan joined WCW in 1994. Hogan’s leap from WWE to WCW that year began to change the game for WCW, and the former WCW announcer talked about how it shocked him during his latest episode of What Happened When for AdFreeShows.

“I didn’t think anyone up there wanted to come down here,” Schiavone said (per Wrestling Inc). “I do remember this, I’m thinking ‘Boy, they would like a lot of our guys because they could probably make something out of them, make them a good character or something. But nobody would want to come down here because that would be a big step down.’ So that was my feeling back then.”

Hogan’s jump to WCW was one cog in the machine that eventually led to the creation of the nWo and WCW becoming a legitimate competitor for WWE during the Monday Night War era.