Tony Schiavone Warns Against WWE Selling To A TV Company

Tony Schiavone is sounding the alarm bells over a possible outcome in WWE’s current future frenzy.

For anyone unaware, Vince McMahon officially returned to WWE earlier today and his daughter Stephanie resigned from her position as co-CEO.

Based on statements from different parties as well as reports from those close to the situation, Vince’s return won’t have an impact on the day-to-day operations of the company. In other words, Vince won’t be controlling the wrestling.

That said, one of the most dominant theories is that Vince McMahon is returning to prepare WWE for sale. Dave Meltzer made mention of WWE’s attractiveness to potential buyers in the Wrestling Observer and Vince still holds majority control in WWE’s stock.

With these theories and reports, the idea that WWE could be sold to another, larger conglomerate might become reality. But some people, including Tony Schiavone, don’t think it’s a good idea.

Schiavone witnessed the rise and fall of WCW during the Monday Night Wars and so he has some experience about how TV companies can influence a wrestling promotion for better and worse.

On an episode of the What Happened When podcast, Tony Schiavone explained that TBS and other affiliated networks started making decisions that hurt WCW.

Even Eric Bischoff, who was given tremendous decision-making authority over WCW, couldn’t block some of the ideas and directions that the TV companies took with WCW.

And to Tony Schiavone, this corporate interference is what led to WCW’s downfall.

“Eric [Bischoff] says ‘Thunder’ was a bad call. ‘Thunder’ was TBS’s call. Nobody wanted ‘Thunder,’ and there again is the rub and there again is the reason I know I’m right on this. Why WCW would’ve never worked.

You cannot have a television company, that knows nothing about running a wrestling company calling the shots. That’s why WCW went down because it was owned by a television company.”

“You can’t just be another cog in the wheel so to speak like we were, can’t be another WCW/Atlanta Braves/[Atlanta] Thrashers/CNN/TBS/TNT like we were. You’ve got to be your own entity.”

h/t WrestlingInc for the transcription