AEW Star Believes Vince McMahon Would Have Fired Him If He Joined WWE

AEW announcer Tony Schiavone believes Vince McMahon would have fired him had a potential 2019 return to the company come to fruition.

The veteran commentator is probably best known for an 11 year stint as the voice of World Championship Wrestling before its 2001 closure. Before joining Ted Turner’s organisation, however, Schiavone spent a year with WWE and led the announcing for both SummerSlam 1989 and Royal Rumble 1990.

It was during a watchalong of the 1990 version of the popular Premium Live Event for his What Happened When podcast that Schiavone revealed that discussions took place about a return to WWE in 2019:

“Who knows with the WWE, how long I would have stayed (in 1990) after that because I could have been fired like I would have been had I taken that job five years ago. I would have been fired almost immediately.”

Schiavone doubled down on his views after co-host Conrad Thompson questioned if he really felt that McMahon would have put such plans in place:

“There is no question. There is no question, in my mind, that Vince wanted me to come there to fire me. Yeah, I believe that.”

Tony Schiavone Believes Vince McMahon Wanted To Keep Him Away From AEW

After declining a potential return to WWE in 2019, Schiavone joined All Elite Wrestling and has enjoyed a successful run with the company. The 66 year-old is a prominent voice on both Dynamite and Collision and he firmly believes that McMahon’s attempts to sign him in 2019 were purely to stop him joining AEW:

“He wanted to hire me. I feel bad about Bruce [Bruce Prichard] because Bruce is in the middle of this and Bruce is a friend of mine and I believe anything Bruce tells me is legit and sincere.

Vince wanted to hire me to keep me away from this upstart company AEW. COVID happened, they cut back, why not cut back on one of the newest guys that just arrived? There is no question I would have been let go.”

H/T: Fightful for the above transcription