What Happened When with Tony Schiavone

[RazorbladeKiss87]

Lots of the shows ended up being pretty good and hilarious. It was usually the long profile shows, e.g. Goldberg, DDP, Steve Austin, that didn't work.

 

 

I kinda think those are the low points for STWW as well. Some of them have been good but many don't hold my interest. As for WHW, the Goldberg one had some interesting points but nothing groundbreaking. Didn't even listen to the others as I'd soured on that style. I also can't get into the watch along episodes because I don't have the Network and don't have much interest in getting it. So, I won't be too sad to see the podcast go. It was fun for what it was and gave me some good laughs at work.

[BruiserBrody]

Conrad said on the BOARD that twitter trolls were taking Tony's naughty comments and trying to get him fired from his "real" gigs, so that was the main reason the show is ending. Tony has a ton of side jobs according to Conrad. He's sticking with MLW live events as well.

[El-P]

Conrad said on the BOARD that twitter trolls were taking Tony's naughty comments and trying to get him fired from his "real" gigs, so that was the main reason the show is ending.

 

What a fucking shitty thing to do. Some people really would need to get a fucking life (I know it's a cliché, but still). Well, it sucks. Nothing lasts forever, but if this is the reason... Fuck these people.

[Britwresdvds]

I enjoyed listening to this to begin with, but then it just became a collection of catchphrases with very little new insight into anything. I'm not bothered if it's stopping, to be honest. I've switched off the last few I've listened to well before the end, as it's just been the same old stuff again and again.

[With Coil]

I got the feeling that if I stopped listening I really wouldn't miss much. I haven't listened since Conrad's rant against Scott Steiner. I still have no idea if that was a work or not. I vaguely remember him ranting and then claiming it was a work. I didn't find it funny at all.. and I really lost interest in the podcast after the War Games Nitro episode they did. Now that episode made me laugh. Loved that episode.

 

The most intriguing thing to me was Tony, of all people, kinda throwing a little bit of weight behind the Kimberly stories. I'm kinda apprehensive to believe that stuff.. especially when the only people I remember talking about it are Scott Steiner, Bryan Clark, Sean Waltman.

[brocklock]

I got the feeling that if I stopped listening I really wouldn't miss much. I haven't listened since Conrad's rant against Scott Steiner. I still have no idea if that was a work or not. I vaguely remember him ranting and then claiming it was a work. I didn't find it funny at all.. and I really lost interest in the podcast after the War Games Nitro episode they did. Now that episode made me laugh. Loved that episode.

 

The most intriguing thing to me was Tony, of all people, kinda throwing a little bit of weight behind the Kimberly stories. I'm kinda apprehensive to believe that stuff.. especially when the only people I remember talking about it are Scott Steiner, Bryan Clark, Sean Waltman.

Conrad derailed a different show for five minutes to talk about how the beef between him and The Steiners wasn't real.

 

People seemed to love it, but a turning point for me was Conrad doing the "Tommy Young come jerk me off " Barbarian joke fifteen times in the span of about two minutes, then was shilling a Tommy Young Barbarian shirt by the next episode.

[PeteF3]

 

Conrad tweeted that while there might be changes, WHW will be sticking around after all.

[El-P]

Anyone has listened to the "wedding edition" yet (because I probably won't) ? What's up with the podcast ?

[brocklock]

I haven't listened to the show in a few weeks, but a couple of the announced episodes in April sound interesting. Tony's going to start doing shows he wasn't at and presumably has never seen like the Clash with Flair/Steamboat and ECW Barely Legal. Tony doing random shows he never saw probably wouldn't work every week, but it would spice things up a bit.

[tofu_chipmunk]

After listening to the wedding edition (only for those that really enjoy the schtick from the show), it sounded like Schiavone was talked into continuing the podcast by his family. Format changes will probably be coming, but it wasn't divulged if it would be in length of the podcast, frequency of the podcast, or content. Conrad said that he had been making backup plans in the event that the podcast ended, which was followed by a brief clip of Bischoff's WWE theme song, and Conrad stating that he guessed he had three podcasts now.

[El-P]

The Spring Break edition is everything I hoped for.

Most amazing story to me : Miss Monday Nitro that day ended up in prison for fucking a 13 years old boy. Holy shit.

[Victator]

If Conrad can shut up about dicks and sex, the show would be far better. I like hearing Tony get into the nuts and bolts of wrestling production. Or hearing his real opinions on booking. It makes me wonder about the alternate universe where Tony got WCW in 93.

[El-P]

I agree Conrad gets really annoying when he takes upon himself to derail the show and not even try to get anything from Tony, who's been really insightful at points (the WrestleWar episode was really good).

[BigBadMick]

I've been more selective with this podcast this year but covering Clash 6 this week sounds promising.

[El-P]

Well, Tony watching Clash 6 was pretty fun.

 

And damn, I almost forgot about it, but Ricky Steamboat with Bonnie in an almost wedding dress and his little brat in a dragon outfit was one lame-as-fuck babyface presentation.

[Matt D]

Well, Tony watching Clash 6 was pretty fun.

 

And damn, I almost forgot about it, but Ricky Steamboat with Bonnie in an almost wedding dress and his little brat in a dragon outfit was one lame-as-fuck babyface presentation.

 

Listen to Tony watch ECW from this week. I'm not saying EVERYONE should, but you should. A little goes a long way but it's appropriately surreal and ridiculous.

[SomethingSavage]

I stopped listening when we got back to back weeks with Conrad taking ten minutes (that felt more like twenty-five) to "call out" Scott Steiner.

 

Only to, minutes later, emphasize that it's all a rib. Because it's all about being entertaining. And nothing says entertainment like telling people you're trying to be entertaining.

 

If it's less of that and more of Tony's actual introduction and reaction to a new side of the sport, then yeah. I could maybe go for that.

[Matt D]

I stopped listening when we got back to back weeks with Conrad taking ten minutes (that felt more like twenty-five) to "call out" Scott Steiner.

 

Only to, minutes later, emphasize that it's all a rib. Because it's all about being entertaining. And nothing says entertainment like telling people you're trying to be entertaining.

 

If it's less of that and more of Tony's actual introduction and reaction to a new side of the sport, then yeah. I could maybe go for that.

I'm not recommending it to anyone but him but it's casual but still about 60% Tony watching the show. The dick jokes go too far, like always (though Tony is pretty quick with them) but he's flabbergasted by a lot of it and some of the goofy stuff like them doing fake Taz voiceovers promos are kind of funny. It's just surreal. I'm seriously thinking of switching over to this Jameson interview now that we've hit the main even though.

[The Thread Killer]

I watched this week's episode for a couple of reasons, I wanted to see what WHW was like post-Schiavone wedding, I wanted to watch Barely Legal again, and I was curious what Tony thought of ECW. I enjoyed it for the most part, and I'm going to admit I laughed out loud more than once - like at Tony giving John Kronus the name "Daryl" and especially his rant on Conrad for taking a job with the WWE Network:

 

"You sold out. You joined the evil empire! ... Can I have a job?"

 

My main issue with this show was with Conrad Thompson. I don't mind Conrad at all on Something to Wrestle, really. But I find he is a lot different on WHW, he seems obsessed with sexual humor and penis jokes. And that's fine, I guess. But he doesn't let humor happen, he's constantly pushing Tony to make dick jokes. Even if Tony is in the middle of talking about something else, Conrad starts egging him on to make a Klondike Bill joke. It really takes away from the show. I don't mind Tony making dirty jokes, but Conrad really needs to just let the jokes happen naturally.

 

He does the same thing with Bruce, constantly encouraging him to go to their tried and true box of jokes ("Well, you know...huh?" "doot doot doot" etc.) and especially his impressions. Conrad isn't a professional journalist/interviewer and I appreciate that, but I found him to be really obnoxious during this episode, to be honest.

[Matt D]

I also tend to hold Conrad to the standard I'd hold you guys to, and it bugs me when he fails that standard. Some times that's not mentioning why Terry Boy is named Terry Boy, even though Tony would appreciate it. Sometimes it's not mentioning a Bischoff sign in ECW without mentioning talent swiping (Tony figured it was just because Bischoff was a good heel on TV). It's stuff we'd never miss. It's probably not fair to judge him on that but if he's not able to add that and if he's detracting in other ways, well....

[BrianB]

I'd highly suspect both Bruce and Tony have told Conrad what they prefer doing, and so he just tees them up. That's most obvious with Bruce, but it's been that way sometimes for Tony too. I'll be curious though if the dynamic on WHW shifts as Conrad gets more and more overworked with all his gigs. In my head, Tony's show is the one most likely to suffer, unless Tony keeps bothering to prepare and/or bring the lols.

[El-P]

 

Well, Tony watching Clash 6 was pretty fun.

 

And damn, I almost forgot about it, but Ricky Steamboat with Bonnie in an almost wedding dress and his little brat in a dragon outfit was one lame-as-fuck babyface presentation.

 

Listen to Tony watch ECW from this week. I'm not saying EVERYONE should, but you should. A little goes a long way but it's appropriately surreal and ridiculous.

 

I definitely will !

 

But he doesn't let humor happen, he's constantly pushing Tony to make dick jokes. Even if Tony is in the middle of talking about something else, Conrad starts egging him on to make a Klondike Bill joke. It really takes away from the show. I don't mind Tony making dirty jokes, but Conrad really needs to just let the jokes happen naturally.

 

I agree this has become an issue. Just let Tony by funny when he wants to be.

[Victator]

I also tend to hold Conrad to the standard I'd hold you guys to, and it bugs me when he fails that standard. Some times that's not mentioning why Terry Boy is named Terry Boy, even though Tony would appreciate it. Sometimes it's not mentioning a Bischoff sign in ECW without mentioning talent swiping (Tony figured it was just because Bischoff was a good heel on TV). It's stuff we'd never miss. It's probably not fair to judge him on that but if he's not able to add that and if he's detracting in other ways, well....

I could not even get thru the Eliminators match. Conrad was absolute shit. Just tell Tony John Kronus name. He is just insufferable now.

 

Apparently Ric Flair also carried broomsticks on podcast.

[The Thread Killer]

From things he has said over the past couple of years, I get the impression Conrad Thompson had a plan all along. Coming off his podcast with Ric Flair, his idea was to have a show that he would host, featuring somebody who had all the inside scoop on the inner workings of one of the "Big 3" wrestling companies from the 90's. He would use the dirt sheets as his source and as "a fan" he would question the insider about particular events or wrestlers.

 

After some growing pains, this formula obviously worked with Bruce Prichard and Something to Wrestle. From what I understand, it actually exceeded his expectations with it's popularity. It's pretty amazing how much this show took off and how much influence it is having on fandom right now. The fact that it spiked WWE Network numbers to the point where WWE reached out to him is all you need to know about how popular that show is. But I know he wanted to repeat the success of the Prichard show with somebody from WCW and ECW. He has gone on record saying that he has tried to get Joey Styles to do a similarly themed podcast regarding ECW. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually he does repeat the formula with an ECW insider.

 

We discussed this earlier in this thread, but where his plan fell apart was when he chose Tony Schiavone to be his WCW insider. Tony either didn't remember or didn't know 90% of the things Conrad wanted to talk about - plus he made it clear from the get-go that he was there to make money to pay for his daughter's wedding. They eventually "saved" the show by switching to the "watch-along" formula and gradually turning it into a comedy show. But when it became clear his "insider's look" formula wasn't going to work, he got lucky because Eric Bischoff's "Bischoff on Wresting" podcast was tanking at the same time. It seems pretty obvious that he and Eric worked a "Twitter feud" to whip up interest and now they're going to be debuting "83 Weeks" later this month using the STW formula but discussing WCW and some AWA and TNA. Like I said, I'd bet that ECW show is yet to come.

 

I am guessing the fact that Tony has re-established a fan base and his show is having a degree of success (although nothing compared to STW from what I understand) they decided to keep it around. The problem is that with 83 Weeks coming up, they don't even need to keep up any form of pretense that What Happened When is going to be discussing the inner workings of JCP/WCW. It looks like the show is going to be devolving into nothing more than a comedy show, a weekly watch-along where you cram in as many dick jokes as you can. And to me, that sucks. Just because Tony didn't have the level of access or knowledge that Prichard did to what was going on behind the scenes, doesn't mean he didn't have some level of insight. And to be honest, his sophomoric humor aside, I find his personality much less abrasive than Bruce Prichard's. I was really hoping we would still get some kind of insight or discussion from Tony Schiavone about wrestling, even though 83 Weeks was kind of taking WHW's place in Conrad's grand plan. But based on the episodes done since The Schiavone Wedding, that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

So I guess from this point on, if you want to hear about WWE behind the scenes, you listen to STW. If you want WCW, you listen to 83 Weeks. And if you want Conrad being annoying and non-stop dick jokes, you get WHW. That sucks, but I guess that is how this plan is going to shake out from here on.

[BrianB]

It depends on the subject matter and time frame for what Tony can remember and talk about. The Bunkhouse Stampede 1988, for instance, he remembered quite a bit. I'm guessing you'd enjoy that show. Generally speaking, it seems like Tony recalls a lot from the JCP days and some from the early Jim Herd era after he came back.

 

But I'd agree that I'm expecting WHW to mostly become a watch-along and humor show, since Conrad has his mortgage business, STW, the weekly network show, and is launching 83 weeks too. Kind of a shame, but it'll probably make for good listening every once in awhile. Tony is a way better personality than most wrestling industry podcasters.