What Tony Khan Wanted Said During AEW’s Hulk Hogan Tribute

Tony Schiavone has explained how his Hulk Hogan tribute on AEW TV came to be and what Tony Khan wanted him to talk about.

Hulk Hogan died aged 71 after suffering a cardiac arrest. WWE led tributes to perhaps its biggest ever star, but the outpouring of grief was perhaps muted compared to what some might have expected.

There is no doubt this was in big part due to the racism storm that engulfed Hulk Hogan for the final decade of his life. A controversy that many feel Hogan never apologised appropriately for.

Tony Schiavone paid his own tribute to Hulk Hogan on AEW Collision in the days following his death, and it seems he tried to speak from the heart.

Tony Khan Guided Tony Schiavone On Hulk Hogan Tribute

Speaking on What Happened When, Tony Schiavone was asked by his co-host Conrad Thompson how he found out about Hogan’s death and what went into his moment on Collision, where he paid tribute to his former colleague:

I first got the news from you, Conrad, when you sent me a text. I immediately go online, look around. A couple of the sites had it, TMZ had it. I let some people in our company know exactly what had happened, some of the guys I worked with. It just absolutely floored me because I knew he had some back and neck problems. I think anyone who knows him knew that he was struggling to get around, but to have a heart attack…

When something like that happens to somebody you worked with, you kind of think about your own mortality and how fragile life is. You think about my god, it did not seem that long ago when I was calling some of his matches, even in WWE, for that one year I was there. But then I thought about what he meant to pro wrestling, and it’s undeniable what he meant to pro wrestling.

So I put together a thing to say, and Tony Khan helped me with the verbiage of what to say. He wanted to make sure I talked about the family and made sure I talked about how he made an impact wrestling on TNT, and so I put it together. I remember telling Tony, “Do you want me to read it to you?” And he said, “No, I trust you.” So then I told the guys in the truck, please do not wrap me up, do not tell me you have 9, 8…they said okay. I think they gave me a minute and thirty to do it, and I think I did it in a minute and ten.

It was from the heart as a wrestling fan, and it was from the heart as a guy who was fortunate enough to be a part of a company where Hulkamania was running wild and be a part of a company where Hulk Hogan turned things around and ignited the Monday Night Wars. I was there for all of it, and that’s not lost on me, so it was truly from the heart.

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