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What Happened When with Tony Schiavone


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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. :lol:

 

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.

 

It loses a bit of steam by the end (which happens in every damn watch-along), but Tony Schiavone marking out watching RVD throw chairs into Lance Storm's face, loosing his shit over Francine and doing absurd commentary over the MPro match was gold. I love the fact Tony is a Raven fan too. (and damn, that PPV was fun, I never thought I'd watch it again)

 

EDIT : damn, I forgot Terry Funk won with an inside craddle. Rewatching this, I'm so glad I was an ECW fan. It's still great shit and I got a kick out of Tony loving the main event. For a guy was was "bitter" about pro-wrestling for so long, it's so cool to hear him enjoying the hell out of this nonsense. We're living in amazing times for pro-wrestling (despite all the bullshit), honestly.

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On the other hand, the latest WCW watch-alongs really haven't been that much fun. They are way too long considering they spend about 50% of the time actually doing "watch-along", the gimmick has jumped the shark to me. So, unless you really want to rewatch some of these shows, it's just too much time spent for not enough fun facts and insights to me. The format really works well with terrible shows or as novelties like with Barely Legal.

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Well, there is that too. Anyone knows where this guy came from BTW ? I know he had a podcast with Flair or something, but his whole "I'm just a wrestling fan" gimmick is quite tiresome when you figure he's super connected to the point of actually marrying one of Flair's daughter now (if I get everything right). I know he's in the mortgage business (which is pretty fucking low in the totem pole of acceptable human activity to me tbh (no offense to anyone on the board who would be involved in that too :P)), but how did he get involved in pro-wrestling podcasting anyway ?

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The first time I heard of him was the co-host of Flair's podcast. Flair would say he was a superfan friend of his and would joke about how rich and loaded he is. He was far more restrained on the Flair show and did a decent job at reigning Flair in when he would ramble.

 

I kind of just skim through What Happened When at this point since they barely talk about the shows anymore. I don't give a shit about Conrad's fake beefs with The Steiners and JJ Dillon and it feels like 60% of the show is plugging t-shirts.

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The first time I heard of him was the co-host of Flair's podcast. Flair would say he was a superfan friend of his and would joke about how rich and loaded he is. He was far more restrained on the Flair show and did a decent job at reigning Flair in when he would ramble.

 

I kind of just skim through What Happened When at this point since they barely talk about the shows anymore. I don't give a shit about Conrad's fake beefs with The Steiners and JJ Dillon and it feels like 60% of the show is plugging t-shirts.

 

Past having first hand knowledge from certain wrestlers on certain things, the only place I'd put Conrad's knowledge against anyone on this board, is about belts. The guy obviously has a lot of money and has purchased a lot of wrestling memorabilia and he legitimately knows more about belts than probably any of us.

 

Everything else though?

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Past having first hand knowledge from certain wrestlers on certain things, the only place I'd put Conrad's knowledge against anyone on this board, is about belts. The guy obviously has a lot of money and has purchased a lot of wrestling memorabilia and he legitimately knows more about belts than probably any of us.

 

Everything else though?

 

Very obviously. I mean, his take on workers is that Shawn & Ric are the greatest wrestler ever and every other quality worker is "one of the most underrated wrestler ever".

 

I also find the whole "I own that belt/robe" pretty offputting to be honest. Ok, you own stuff. You gives a fuck ?

 

The issue with the Schiavone podcast is now that Conrad got Bischoff, he's got no point even trying to get any knowledge out of Tony. I really enjoyed Tony's crass sense of humour when it was happening organically in the middle of giving overviews on WCW. Comedy watch-along where half of the show is basically not addressing the issue, I have no time for.

 

I'll probably wait until there's a show I'm really intrigued about to get back to it.

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There was a Barry Windham Vs. Stunning Steve Austin best 2-out-of-3 falls match going on, for the television title, which was a pretty damn good match, & Tony could just not even give half of a shit. He feels burned out again already.

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I turned this week's episode off long before they got to the Main Event.

 

It was bad enough that Conrad had his friend "The Casio Kid" (who is apparently a "morning man" disc jockey in Alabama) hooting and hollering in the background, laughing hysterically at everything Tony and Conrad said. But they bottomed out nicely when Tony started joking about Nikita Koloff's wife dying of Hodgkin's disease - while Conrad and The Casio Kid whooped it up.

 

Because somebody dying of cancer is hilarious, apparently.

 

I guess Bobby Heenan was right about Tony Schiavone after all.

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There was a Barry Windham Vs. Stunning Steve Austin best 2-out-of-3 falls match going on, for the television title, which was a pretty damn good match, & Tony could just not even give half of a shit. He feels burned out again already.

 

That just reeked of Tony playing up the shit on things and say outrageous stuff part of the show. He also went on a riff about how the show was too long, when it was half as long as the PPVs they've covered.

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I turned this week's episode off long before they got to the Main Event.

 

It was bad enough that Conrad had his friend "The Casio Kid" (who is apparently a "morning man" disc jockey in Alabama) hooting and hollering in the background, laughing hysterically at everything Tony and Conrad said. But they bottomed out nicely when Tony started joking about Nikita Koloff's wife dying of Hodgkin's disease - while Conrad and The Casio Kid whooped it up.

 

Because somebody dying of cancer is hilarious, apparently.

 

I guess Bobby Heenan was right about Tony Schiavone after all.

Casio is a DJ on a local station and he is awful. I would be listening to the station on morning commute and just wanting to hear music and Casio pops in sounding like an effeminate Huckleberry Hound and I would feel more miserable than normal. Every other station is morning zoo I can tolerate but has music I don't care for or Rick and Bubba who are even worse than Casio.

 

Can you give me the exact wording of the joke Tony made? I could not get ten minutes into this episode.

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I should clarify, Vic. Tony and Conrad (and the Casio Kid) never specifically made fun of Nikita's wife dying of Hodgkin's Disease, they just made fun of her dying. I know she died of Hodgkin's Disease because I once saw an interview with Nikita where he talked about how she got sick and died within a year, and how hard it was watching her suffer. It was years ago I saw that interview, but I never forgot it because it was pretty heartbreaking.

 

From Mike Mooneyham:

 

Nikita Koloff experienced a major change in his life when he married Mandy Smithson, whom he had met a couple of years earlier, in 1988 in a ceremony held off the coast of Florida. Mandy, though, had been diagnosed the previous year with Hodgkin’s disease, a potentially fatal form of cancer. Nikita quit wrestling two months after the wedding to be at his wife’s side. Mandy died on June 14, 1989. Despite the grueling radiation and chemotherapy treatments, the two never gave up hope. Although Mandy’s condition gradually got worse, “not one time did she complain,” says Nikita.

 

As for the context of "the joke" - you know they do the gimmick when they're doing a watch-along where Tony voices over promos, saying something goofy? Kind of like their version of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but not anywhere near as clever or funny?

 

So Nikita is on his way to the ring, and Tony does a Russian accent and says: "I married Ms. Alabama, and she died on me."

 

Conrad says: "And apparently, you like to make fun of this." Tony started laughing, Conrad asked: "What did she die of?"

 

Tony: (Laughing so hard he can barely answer.) "What did she die of?"

 

Conrad: "Maybe Nikita gave her the sickle, the Russian sickle." (At this point "The Casio Kid" is screeching with laughter in the background loudly.) Conrad and Tony start laughing hysterically, and Conrad adds..."Not sickle cell anemia, the clothesline!" (The Casio Kid continues to howl and repeat what Conrad is saying."Sickle cell anemia! The clothesline!")

 

At that point, Tony starts laughing so hard he can't talk for a few moments, like he can't breathe. He finally says that he is probably going to hell for saying that, or getting hit on the top of the head by lightning, so he's sorry to Nikita...

 

"But it's so funny!"

 

Classy.

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Okay that is pretty fucked up. I can't think of a scenario where that is okay. I have a deep gallows humor about my own life. But would never joke like that about someone else's loss. It's not even clever in a mean way.

I do know how Nikita's first wife died. It was very publicly covered in the wrestling magazines at the time.

Peace out Tony.

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Ok. That's not making fun of someone dying. That's making an absurd wordplay in the context of someone's death. Now, wether you find it funny, offensive, smart, idiotic, mean-spirited is all up to appreciation. But that's not making fun of someone dying. Delivery can also make it way worse or much lighter than it is on paper. (for reference, I have not listened to the episode either and have no intention to since I could not finish the previous one already)

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Conrad himself said specifically that he thought Tony was making fun of Nikita's wife dying about two seconds after Tony did it.

 

Conrad makes the joke then bust Tony's balls for laughing. That's just phase two of the joke. It's pretty usual, really, when you do a borderline joke that you know is actually an awful thing to say, just adds another layer by playing outraged at the people laughing.

 

EDIT : oh wait you're talking about Conrad's line after Tony's first sentence ? I must admit that first one totally flew over my head because it's not even a joke really. It's not funny, it's like, ok, whatever. But so it's Conrad setting up his own joke actually by telling Tony he's making fun of Nikita's wife dying. I guess if people should be mad, be mad at Conrad because he's the one making the actual joke.

 

And how can you possibly talk about the "context" when you just admitted that you didn't even hear it?

 

The context of the death. She died of cancer. The wordplay refers to cancer. (I actually had to google sickle cell because I did not know that term)

 

BTW, I'm not saying I find it funny. I just like nuances.

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I will freely admit something rather personal here. My mother died of cancer the day after I was born, depriving me of a normal upbringing. Her mother, my grandmother died of cancer when I was a teenager. Both her sisters, my aunts died of cancer. My father is currently battling cancer and is losing the fight. And 10 years ago, guess what disease almost killed me?

 

Herpes.

 

No, just kidding. I had cancer. As I said, that was ten years ago but it took three major surgeries and a buttload of painful treatment to get me to this point. And I have never fully recovered physically, and suffer the aftereffects to this day - and will for the rest of my life. (I'm missing part of my right lung now.) It almost killed me, and given my personal history and my family's history, I suspect it will probably get me in the end. The disease seems to have a real beef with my family, for some reason.

 

So yeah, in the interest of full disclosure I openly admit that when it comes to making jokes about people who have died of cancer, I am probably more sensitive than the next guy. I think it is in really poor taste, and it is unnecessary. I totally get that there is a school of thought in comedy that absolutely nothing should be off limits for jokes. I also know we are living in an age where people get offended at the drop of a hat, and start angry twitter trends demanding apologies for even the smallest slights. In my opinion, there has to be some happy medium somewhere.

 

All I can say is that the whole thing just struck me as unnecessary. I didn't see why Conrad or Tony had to go there, and I thought it was beneath both of them. It's sad to see that what was once an entertaining and informative (at times) podcast has now degenerated into nothing more than a place to hear dick jokes and jokes made in bad taste while a comic flunky hoots and hollers in the background. I had kind of hoped both Tony and Conrad were better than that, but clearly I am the idiot. I keep forgetting this is the wrestling business and it seems to produce nothing but people to whom class and decency is a foreign concept.

 

As I said, I fully maintain the joke was in poor taste, but I also admit I have a strong personal bias when it comes to cancer jokes. Maybe if my own background were different, I would have laughed at the joke, but I'd like to think I wouldn't.

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All I can say is that the whole thing just struck me as unnecessary. I didn't see why Conrad or Tony had to go there, and I thought it was beneath both of them. It's sad to see that what was once an entertaining and informative (at times) podcast has now degenerated into nothing more than a place to hear dick jokes and jokes made in bad taste while a comic flunky hoots and hollers in the background.

 

This is where I'm at too. I really have enjoyed the podcast a lot in the past. A few more comedic episode was really fun from time to time. But that turned into a complete joke. I'm probably gonna check it out again for PPVs I care about in the hopes it's gonna get better again (one recent not-watch along before the wedding was really good again), or if they do another ECW episode or something, but I'm definitely gonna cherry pick a lot.

 

As far as the joke itself, I agree with the bolded part. On paper, I don't find the joke offensive and may be even funny if delivered right. But the issue is that, is that the place ? I'm the kind of guy who would joke about literally anything, but I always take the "audience" in consideration before I say anything. If I'm not sure if something can be found offensive or too gross, I refrain myself until I get to know the people I'm around because the goal of to make someone laugh. Personally, I have no limit as long as it makes me laugh. That's why one can see me by myself laughing at my own bullshit in my head, and thinking to myself at the same time "Man, I'm so awful !". I dunno. Funny or not funny is probably not the right question. Unnecessary strikes me as the right word if you have to disagree with it.

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I will freely admit something rather personal here. My mother died of cancer the day after I was born, depriving me of a normal upbringing. Her mother, my grandmother died of cancer when I was a teenager. Both her sisters, my aunts died of cancer. My father is currently battling cancer and is losing the fight. And 10 years ago, guess what disease almost killed me?

 

Herpes.

 

 

 

This killed me. Bravo.

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Not too long after listening to the show (and turning it off after the Nikita joke) I sent Conrad an email. I basically just said that I was a listener of all three of his shows, and that I was disappointed in he and Tony for making that joke. I told him that judging from his responses to people who criticized him on Twitter, I assumed he would either ignore my complaint or be rude and sarcastic with me, but I wanted to let him know I thought the joke was in poor taste.

 

I was pretty surprised to get a rather lengthy and detailed response from Conrad this afternoon.

 

He said that he didn't know the details surrounding Nikita's wife's death and he was sorry I was offended. He said he was sorry that he alienated me as a supporter and listener of the show. He actually shared some personal details with me about how cancer has affected his life and things he has done to try and combat the disease, but that he was not sharing those details with me for credit, just that he understands and shares my feelings about cancer.

 

He says that he and Tony have agreed that their personal philosophy on humor on "What Happens When" is "Tragedy + Time = Comedy" and realized that doesn't work for everyone, that they've made a ton of "over the line" jokes through the course of this show, and he understood that when one hits a nerve, it disappoints fans and that was not his intention. He reiterated that he and Tony are trying to entertain, "by any means necessary" and would never intentionally hurt anyone's feelings "in real life."

 

Conrad wasn't apologizing for making the joke, but he said he was sorry it disappointed me and that wasn't his intention. I know he is a very busy guy, so his taking the time out of his day to write me a very detailed and personal response was a sincere gesture on his part. I am still disappointed in Conrad and Tony, and I don't think I am ever going to listen to What Happened When again - that show is clearly going in a direction I don't like. But I appreciated his response and the gesture.

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