Tony Chimel Made WWE Commentator Do Push-Up For Vince McMahon

In an appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, former WWE ring announcer Tony Chimel told the story of once racing former WWE personality Jonathan Coachmen in a one-mile foot race prior to taping SmackDown in Pittsburgh. Chimel had made a bet with Coachmen that Coachman couldn't beat Chimel in a minute, a bet Chimel ultimately won.

"We're setting up at State College there, and now we're ready to do the race and they bring out like, camera guys" Chimel recalled. "(Michael) Cole was doing commentary with The Rock and Kevin Kelly. They were doing commentary on this thing. I don't know where the tape is of this, but it's probably worth some money, whoever's got it now. But I decided to start the race at the same time with Coach.

"I was down to like a seven-minute mile at this point. And I'm like 'geez, if he can run a six-minute mile, he's going to have to run a six-minute mile. If he can run a six-minute mile, God bless him, you know?' By the way, the girl's track team was out on the track and when we went down there, people were explaining to them what was going on. 'Hey, can we just have this track for like, 10 minutes? We want to do this race, it's a fake belt.' The girl's track team was like, 'yeah, go ahead. Use the facilities.'

"So they did that, we started the race, we go around the first lap and Coach is about, maybe 20 feet ahead of me maybe 30 feet ahead of me, and Bruce is timing us on the first lap. We go around and it's like 1:25. So now we're going around the second lap and Coach is still just a little bit ahead of me, you know? And I'm like, 'well, he's going to have to start opening up.' We go around the third time, and he's still like 20 or 30 feet ahead of me. And I'm like, 'geez, this is the fourth lap. He's going to have to start opening up.'

"I'm like, 'I feel good,' you know?' So we're coming around, coming around, and now we're like around the stretch of the race and I'm like, 'I feel good, I'm going to start kicking it.' So I start running, running, running, running. And Coach got to the finish line, he ran a 6:35 race, I ran a 6:36 race. He beat me by a second. He beat me by a second, but I won the bet."

Tony Chimel also revealed what would've happened if he had lost a bet, and what happened to Coachmen due to him losing the bet. Both scenarios involved pushups.

"If I lost, I would've had to do a push-up every time he said 'give me a push-up,'"Chimel revealed. "And I would have to say this: 'I'm a fat piece of sh-t.' But I won, so Coach owed me 100 push-ups whenever I said 'give me a push-up.' He had to say, 'I am Tony Chimel's b-tch.' So every time he did a push-up, he had to say, 'I am Tony Chimel's b-tch.' So of course he did one at the finish line right there, then I had a victory lap with me, Chioda and Shane McMahon in the golf cart and we did a victory lap around the track."

Tony Chimel winning the bet led to a lot of funny occurrences for him and Coachmen at WWE tapings. One notable occurrence, according to Chimel, took place during a production meeting involving Vince McMahon.

"The next day, we're doing Smackdown in Pittsburgh and I happen to go to the production meetings then, and Vince says, 'Chimel, I heard you won the big race yesterday,'" Chimel said. "And I'm like, 'yeah, I did.' And he's like, 'Any chance you can have Coach come here and do a push-up on the table?' And I said, 'yeah.' I said 'Coach, get your a– up there and do a push up in front of the boss.' So he does a push-up and says 'I am Tony Chimel's b-tch.'"

Another instance where Chimel had Coachmen honor the bet was during the middle of the tapings for SmackDown. According to Tony Chimel, he and Coachmen had agreed to not do anything related to the bet during work but ended up doing it after an insistence in the back.

"They're in between taping the shows and stuff and Mark Yeaton, the timekeeper, is like 'Chimel, they want you to call Coach out and make him do a push up in the middle of the ring,'" Chimel said. "I'm like 'I can't do that, we're at work. We made a thing that we couldn't do it, you know?' And he's like 'Chimel, they're on headset, they want you to do this'. And I said 'I can't, we made a thing that we're not going to do it while we're in the middle of work and stuff.'

"So next thing I know, Michael Cole comes down the ramp, gets in the middle of the ring, and starts explaining the race and the whole thing that happened the day before, in front of like 15-20,000 people in Pittsburgh. And he calls me in the ring and then he calls Coach out, and then I made Coach do a push-up in the middle of the ring. Yeah, that was pretty good. So he did it with the microphone there."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription