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Real Reason For Tony Schiavone’s Mysterious AEW Absence

Tony Schiavone

Tony Schiavone set tongues wagging after he missed AEW Dynamite and now the real reason for his absence has been revealed.

Excalibur was joined by Matt Menard and Ian Riccaboni at the announce desk for the January 8 edition of Dynamite as AEW’s lead announcer noted Tony Schiavone was away on assignment.

This raised eyebrows with many fans given the interesting week Schiavone has had. NJPW announcer Chris Charlton has been suspended following his controversial comments at Wrestle Dynasty where he referred to Tony Khan as a “money mark” and criticised AEW’s use of former NJPW stars Jay White, Kazuchika Okada, and Will Ospreay.

Tony Schiavone took to social media to tell Charlton “GFY” and suggested he shower more before quickly deleting that message and many wondered if the voice of WCW’s absence was related to that outburst. But it seems that’s not the case at all.

Tony Schiavone Not Suspended By AEW

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer revealed that Schiavone’s absence was not linked to the Chris Charlton fiasco and rather he was dealing with family business:

Tony wasn’t on the show tonight and it’s nothing big or anything like that. When he wasn’t there I started getting all these people going like ‘Oh my God did he get suspended for the text [Tweet] but it was just a family situation. He’s fine, he’ll be back I presume on Saturday. It’s not anything to be alarmed over, it was a family situation and he missed one show.

It should be noted that Tony Schiavone did not release a new episode of his What Happened When weekly podcast this week as well.

If you use any quotes from this article please credit original source and h/t with a link back to TJR Wrestling for the transcription.