Over the years, WWE announcers have recounted instances of being produced by Vince McMahon through their headsets, including being yelled at if something went wrong.
Despite not having much direct experience with McMahon during his tenure at WWE, Tony Schiavone expressed that he would not have tolerated being spoken down to and would have considered walking out if faced with such a situation.
On a recent edition of his “What Happened When” podcast, Schiavone was asked who he hears in his ears at AEW.
He said, “I hear Tony Khan, but mostly I hear Mike Mansury, the producer of the show. If Mike is not producing, we’ll hear Darryl Marshall. Darryl was with us in WCW and then he went to WWE and he’s back now with us after working at Turner for quite a while. I hear the producer and I hear Tony Khan.”
Schiavone continued, “Mike Mansury is truly a phenomenal producer and has become a very good friend. I’m so glad he is with us. He, and Tony does this too, but Mike not only produces but Mike encourages us. I often had thought and heard the horror stories about announcers with Vince in their ear. I would have never been able to do that. I know how I am. You know what, I’m going to be very critical of Vince here, that’s the wrong thing to do. You do not talk down to your announcers or tell your announcers that they are a piece of a s**t or that they screwed up because you’ve got to keep their excitement level up. If somebody is talking down to you, you’re doing a disservice for your whole show. I can tell you right now, and this will never happen because the way things are now. Had I ever worked in WWE with Vince producing me the way he produced some of those announcers, I would have dropped my headset and walked off the show immediately. Guaranteed, I would’ve walked right out of the building. When I was with the WWE that one year, Bruce Pritchard was my producer. Bruce did a great job in my ear. You have to coach them, you just can’t talk s**t to them. Tony does not do that to me, he’s knows not to do that to the announcers. Sometimes he will raise his voice up, he’ll be excited about what’s going on.”
WWE’s Michael Cole recently revealed how he stood up to McMahon when the billionaire would say inappropriate things to him on commentary.
