Court Bauer Talks Scrapped Angle With Vince McMahon's Brother, Tony Schiavone's Announcing Return
WrestlingInc.com owner Raj Giri interviewed Court Bauer promoting Thursday's MLW One Shot event. Bauer is bringing back veteran announcer Tony Schiavone to call the matches at the show. Giri asked if Bauer had any trouble convincing Schiavone to return to sports entertainment, which she hasn't broadcast for since 2003.
"I called him, I asked him, and he said yes," Bauer explained. "Wrestling is so chock full of politics, and for those that move on in the business and go on to life outside the business, they're not participating in the conversation. And when it's focused on them and they're not participating in it, in wrestling everyone has enemies and everyone has an agenda and there's a lot of politics. And I think Tony really was a victim of that. A lot of people thrashed him, and if look back, he was kind of vilified."
Since leaving pro-wrestling, Schiavone has been a broadcaster for the Atlanta Braves and the Georgia Bulldogs football team. In January, Schiavone also started hosting the What Happened When podcast with Conrad Thompson on MLW Radio in which he discusses stories from Jim Crockett Productions and WCW.
"Fast-forward to 2017, all those people have vanished and he comes back," Bauer said. "He has a podcast that runs up the iTunes chart to one of the top podcasts in the sports category. All of a sudden he's selling t-shirts, there's merchandise featuring his wife's name, and he's had this new chapter in his career in pro-wrestling. So it's been really special to see that for Tony."
Giri also asked Bauer for more details about a scrapped storyline that would've involved Vince McMahon's real-life brother. Earlier this month, we reported that a storyline that centered around Vince McMahon's presumed death was supposed to introduce Roderick McMahon to the WWE Universe. It never came to fruition due to the real-life death of Chris Benoit. Bauer said McMahon was open to the storyline.
"None of us know anyone's family situation and you don't know if there's any sensitive issues or concerns, so you don't know how that was gonna be received," Bauer said. "He was receptive and then I guess he made the arrangements to have his brother and their family in some capacity participate in the funeral. The hope was, like with anything with the McMahon family, is it takes a life onto itself and it would then take a direction in which we would now reveal more McMahon's."
Bauer imagined that the involvement of Roderick McMahon would've created a power struggle that would've been good for TV. Even though they didn't know how well Roderick would do as a pro-wrestling personality, the writers were excited for the possibilities.
"Roderick was kind of like our holy grail in a lot of ways in that, 'Vince has a brother?' Imagine Vince having someone he grew up with, what would that rapport be like on screen? Two brothers. Vince was always the patriarch and now, not exactly. There's another McMahon. It would've at the very least given Vince something in terms of a power dynamic to play off of. It was really endless and I think for a lot of people that read our discussion about this, I bet their imaginations ran away with where that could've gone. Maybe it could've been a flop, just don't know."
MLW announced last week that Darby Allin will face "The Flying Gambino" Jason Cade at MLW: One-Shot at Gilt Nightclub in Orlando, FL this Thursday, October 5th. Living at one point in an abandoned warehouse in the slums of Seattle, Allin, who is mentored by Sami Callihan, would find success on the underground skateboarding scene leading to appearances on ESPN and MTV. Tickets are available now MLW.com. Also scheduled for the show thus far are Ricochet vs. Shane "Swerve" Strickland, MVP vs. Sami Callihan, Santana Garrett vs. Mia Yim, Jimmy Yuta vs. MJF and Jeff Cobb vs. "Filthy" Tom Lawlor.