Schiavone on conversations he’s had with Khan about difficulties on AEW commentary
Tony Schiavone reveals conversations he’s had with Tony Khan about difficulties on AEW commentary in balancing calling the action with promoting future shows:
“Boy is that a tough one. That is a tough one. It’s sometimes impossible to do. I like to think that when I’m doing Collision I’m able to get it all in, but sometimes, you just cannot.
“And sometimes, when we do a pre-taped Collision, then I’ll come back here on Friday and do voice repairs. And a lot of times, the guys in Nashville will cut out like 30 seconds for me to promote these three venues coming up, tickets available here and here and here. And I’ll look at that thinking, ‘Guys, we can’t do that in the middle of all these high spots’. I get it, it’s television, you don’t have to call every spot.
“Tony (Khan) and I – and Excalibur and I – have had a lot of discussions about this. But it’s a very very difficult thing to do.
“And sometimes you think you’ve got a spot on live TV that you can promote it, and Tony will be in your ear and says, ‘Don’t do it now’. So you don’t really know. It’s just almost an impossible, difficult thing to do, it really really is.
“To the point that I had brought up to Tony one time, why don’t we cut out 30 seconds at the beginning of a match, before… let’s say we have a Toni Storm pre-tape, right? Come back out of break, Toni Storm pre-tape, and we’re getting ready to go to the ring for Orange Cassidy. Before we go to the ring, take a crowd shot, 30 seconds, and have me hit these three venues (then) let’s go to the ring. And a lot of the time, they don’t want to take that 30 seconds away from the guys and their wrestling match. But I think that would be the best way to do it.
“But that is one of the more difficult parts of what we do now, it really is. Because the action’s so fast, things are happening so much. You don’t want to ignore it, because if you do, sometimes you feel like you’re doing a disservice to the wrestlers. Because if I’m in the middle of saying ‘Tickets available at Crypto Arena at AEWTI…’ and somebody hits somebody with a tremendous dropkick, I need to react to it, right?
“And you’ve probably heard me say, many times, more times than I would like, I’ll be in the middle of promoting something and I’ll stop and pick up with something else.”
(source: What Happened When with Tony Schiavone)
This might sound crazy, but how about having some actual wrestling matches that don’t have high spots all the time instead of overscripted pinball or forgettable bloodbaths? Then you could make some time to promote things during what stupid people call rest holds. This could also draw some actual wrestling fans to your product.
But who am I to argue with three time booker and four time promoter of the year…
@Luke
I can argue from the point from someone who has done commentary. Tony is spot on. The balance is deciding which matches do to the promo. You don’t do it during a title match, and you have to marry talking about the upcoming shows into calling the action during a higher paced match.
Commentary and producing commentary is tougher than the person watching at home thinks. Take it from someone with a combined 30 plus years of experience.
@Disgruntled Jobber
Nothing to argue, I agree with everything you said and I agree with Tony Schiavone. I know commentary is hard (tried it, sucked), which is why very few people know how to do it well. The person you need to convince is not me, it’s Tony Khan. He still doesn’t get the little things like commentary, production, camera work, refereeing…