Tony Schiavone Explains Why He Doesn’t Watch WWE

On the latest episode of What Happened When with Tony Schiavone, the AEW broadcaster revealed that he makes a conscious effort not to watch any current programming from WWE. It comes down to his desire for AEW to maintain its own unique identity, free from outside influence. Schiavone currently serves as a lead announcer and senior producer for AEW. You can check out some highlights below:

On not watching WWE:

 
“I would rather watch this now. A lot of people in wrestling backstage know what happens at WWE, and the WWE people know what happens on our show. The wrestlers do because they know each other, and they keep up with this stuff. I have no interest in watching WWE or NXT’s current stuff, and that’s not to say anything bad about what they’re doing.”

On why that’s the case:

“I just have no interest in it because I want us to cut our own path and not try to be anything like them.”

On being willing to watch other products:

“I do have an interest in watching old independent wrestling and old ECW and even old WWE back in the day, or old NXT we watched, of course, one of the matches we watched was, to me, the greatest woman’s match I’d ever seen with Sasha Banks and Bayley. And I like watching that, because those are guys and girls that I now know, back in the day, but the current stuff, I’ll just watch our stuff and not let anything they do, the WWE, influence how I call a match or what I do.”

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.