All Elite Wrestling commentator Tony Schiavone recently spoke on his podcast, “What Happened When,” about a number of professional wrestling topics, including his reaction to Monday Night Nitro being a weekly live show.
Schiavone said, “I thought it was a pretty good idea. I thought that live wrestling was the way to go. I like the fact that you’re doing something live, because as Dusty Rhodes would say, you’re living on the end of the lightning bolt if you’re doing something live. So I thought it was pretty good. I remember bits and pieces of it. I think I remember just a couple of meetings. I remember Eric talking about how live was the way to go, and how he wanted to really make a statement as far as being the competitor for the WWF back then. But [I] also remember Eric and I having lunch, and I think we had it a couple of days before at the Mall of America. And Eric told me that he thought in his mind that there was a total of a five rating point that is available out there, and then hopefully we will be end up getting a three, and they will be getting to two eventually. And I guess as we moved along and in the height of the Monday Night War, the ratings point was bigger than five. It totaled more than five. So I think Eric had an idea of what he wanted to do, but I don’t think he realized how big it would get.”
On whether wrestlers complained about working on Thanksgiving:
“Well, it was great working on the holiday. You always had big crowds, and therefore you had big payoffs. So Thanksgiving was a very, very special time, and a great time to work. You know, they work Christmas Day, too. And they work New Year’s Day. They worked all the holidays back then. There were always big payoffs, because they’re always big crowds.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
