AEW's Tony Schiavone Calls This WCW One-Off The 'Worst Concept Ever'

The thirty-year anniversary of the premiere of "WCW Monday Nitro" is coming up in September. A part of WCW to be celebrated, the defunct-promotion will live forever through its infamy of a healthy mix of gems and blunders. AEW commentator Tony Schiavone, who was a WCW commentator for eleven years, sat ringside and witnessed many of WCW's questionable decisions. On "What Happened When," Schiavone recalled an underwhelming booking in WCW.

"When Kip Frey developed the tournament for the [WCW] United States Tag Team Championship, and we had JR and I on either side of this big bracket poster and we were talking about it and Kip was on the dais and I remember after it was all done he says, 'So what do you think? and I went, 'Well, it is just for the US belt; it's not for the world tag team belt.' He says, 'Why didn't you tell me that to start off with?'" Schiavone recalled. "I think it's a lot better than BattleBowl which to me is the worst concept ever."

Frey was WCW's Executive Vice President briefly in 1992, but was not responsible for the BattleBowl tournament and event that took place in November 1993. The thirty-two-man tournament started with eight tag team matches featuring the participants with the teams determined at random; the winners of the tag matches advanced to a free-for-all battle royal in the main event. The WCW World Heavyweight Champion Big Van Vader won the inaugural tournament and received a ring for his prize. The BattleBowl tournament was revived at Slamboree 1996, won by Diamond Dallas Page to give DDP a future shot at the world championship.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "What Happened When" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.