Schiavone and Anderson both recall an experience with/at WWE.
Both Arn Anderson and Tony Schiavone are fixtures on AEW programming on a weekly basis. Schiavone does commentary with Jim Ross and Excalibur on Dynamite and Arn accompanies both Cody Rhodes and his son Brock Anderson to the ring for their respective matches.
A Q&A that Arn and Tony recorded for Ad Free Shows was uploaded to the ARN podcast feed and there was a point when they both recounted an experience with WWE and where both of them were personally and professionally at that point in their lives. Schiavone was backstage for a WWE event in 2018 while the company was in Georgia. He said he went to see some of the producers like Arn, Dean Malenko and others and said they were all in a bad mood and it was like a morgue. Schiavone compared that to what it’s like backstage at AEW.
Back in 2017 I believe it was, maybe 2016, the WWE came to Phillips Arena and I got in touch with Arn [Anderson] and he said, ‘I’ll get you backstage’ so I’m thinking, you know, ‘Hey, you know, maybe I’d like to work backstage as an agent or a producer or something’ and I walked backstage to the room that Arn and Scott Armstrong was in and Fit Finlay and Jamie — [Dean] Malenko and Jamie Noble and it was like a f*cking morgue. Those guys were like — they were like f*cking in a bad mood and like, I walked away from there [and] said, ‘No. I don’t want any part of this buddy.’ But it’s so unlike that now in what we got backstage so yeah, he’s [Tony Khan] changed the business for us and that’s why I get so pissed off when people say bad things about him online and on Twitter and on social media. It blows me away. It f*cking blows me away that people out there want companies to fail. Why would you want that? Why would you want any company to fail? I don’t want any company to fail. I don’t want any person to fail in any walk of life. I want everybody to be successful so, I don’t get that and so anyway, I’m just kind of rambling on here but I agree with everything Arn says. It’s just great being backstage.
When Arn Anderson finished up with WWE, he was ready to be done with the wrestling business as a whole. He went on to speak highly about AEW President Tony Khan for making him feel good about the business again.
I can be perfectly honest with you guys. Probably two years ago, I was on the verge of just hating the wrestling business, because of the trap I was in, the job I was in, the pressure I was in and it was the work schedule no one will ever understand. Back in those days, we were covering the entire planet and you would go out for two weeks and come all the way back to the States and do a TV and then you would go out on another eight or nine day run and you got to see your family just occasionally and it’s a very, very difficult business and I love this business since I was eight years old and I had gotten to the point where I was just about ready to just hang it up and thank God for both Tony [Schiavone] and myself who had a couple of conversations before we came back to work with AEW and I’ll tell you what, it’s been nothing but a pleasure. I can’t tell Tony Khan enough times and I’ve already got a job. This is not me just sucking ass. But he has treated me nicer as a man and as a human being and a former talent and a current mouthpiece for Cody Rhodes. He made me feel good about the business again guys which made me turn around and wanna do anything that you guys want or try to do it so we could pass that on and you guys enjoy the business again as well.
AEW Dynamite on 11/17 emanated from Norfolk, Virginia and to get a recap of that show, check out John Pollock and Wai Ting’s review at this link.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the ARN podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
