Tony Schiavone on WCW’s Downfall, WCW Issues, David Arquette, More

A recent episode of Neal Pruitt’s Secrets of WCW Nitro podcast show had Tony Schiavone as the guest discussing a variety of WCW topics including WCW’s downfall, communication issues within the company, the infamous David Arquette angle, and more.

On the topic of WCW’s downfall, Schiavone stated Turner Broadcasting played a role in WCW’s eventual demise due to too many people with a lack of understanding of the wrestling industry trying to control the direction of the company.

“Turner [Broadcasting] didn’t realize what it had. What happened [eventually] was…what I always thought would happen when I went back to Turner Broadcasting. I thought they would screw it up, and that’s what happens when you get too many executives in television putting their hand in something they don’t know anything about. At least they had the foresight – Bill Shaw did – to [ultimately] put Eric Bischoff in charge.”

While discussing more issues within WCW, Schiavone stated one of the biggest was the lack of communication within the company and it showed at times with the on-screen product. He gave an example of a planned run-in spot by the Ultimate Warrior during a Hollywood Hogan versus Bret Hart match that did not occur due to backstage miscommunication.

“I thought that [the booking committee] should have had more communication with production. I always thought here was a lot of miscommunication there. Conrad [Thompson] and I just watched an event – a Nitro from 1998 – where apparently the Ultimate Warrior was supposed to do a run-in for a Hogan match [against] Bret Hart. He never did the run-in, and the reports were that ‘well, it was a miscommunication in the backstage area’. I remember thinking ‘boy is that the tip of the iceberg!’.

I just don’t think that we had the communication skills that [we needed to have]. Then again…once people were put in place to [communicate], they kept things from us, like we were in a missile silo and [we couldn’t get] the codes!”

On the topic of David Arquette winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, Schiavone stated the original plans did not have Arquette winning the title and instead was something Vince Russo did as a last minute change.

“David Arquette was [originally] not gonna win the championship. The [booking] meeting adjourned, and I was sitting to the right of Vince [Russo]. Vince looked at me and [said], ‘what are you thinking?’ I said, ‘nothing…what are you thinking?’ I remember him turning to me and he [said], ‘so you want David Arquette to win the world title’? I said, ‘well that’s a thought! Did anybody think of that?’ He said, ‘well let me give that a thought’.”

Later in the interview Schiavone was asked which dream match during his time in WCW he wanted to see the most but never happened. Schiavone answered a real match between Hulk Hogan and not the bait-and-switch done instead by WCW.

“I really would have wanted to see a [real match] between Hogan and Bret Hart. I say that now because the Hogan-Bret Hart match that we promised to them…we never did deliver because they did an angle out of it with Sting. I certainly would have loved to have seen that. They wrestled for like 3 minutes, and then Hogan dropped him on his knee, [Hart] pretended his knee got hurt, Sting came in and took over the match…and then Bret and Hulk Hogan attacked Sting.”