Tony Schiavone Provides New Details On CM Punk's AEW Debut

This week's What Happened When went into plenty of detail on the Second City Saint's AEW bow.

by Andrew Pollard
Tony Schiavone CM Punk
Twitter @tonyschiavone24

Speaking on the latest episode of his What Happened When podcast, Tony Schiavone has given a few more details on CM Punk's huge AEW debut on last Friday's Rampage.

Schiavone explained how Tony Khan never once named CM Punk during the formatting of the show or when speaking to the roster. Instead, the format of the show simply said "Special Guest" on it - as did the locker room that was reserved for the Second City Saint.

As of the day before Rampage, Schiavone was actually supposed to introduce Punk to the AEW audience. Again, the format for the show read "Tony Schiavone Introduces Special Guest". That plan was obviously changed, and Tony is set to speak to Punk on tonight's AEW Dynamite.

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Continuing on, the legendary announcer added how Punk was accompanied to the United Center by Lou D'Angeli, aka ECW's Sign Guy Dudley. And when the Straight-Edge Superstar did walk out to open up Rampage, the entire locker room gathered in the gorilla position - where Schiavone was already sat alongside Tony Khan - to see what played out. Schiavone mentioned Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks as some of those watching on, while Britt Baker was said to be ecstatic at having CM Punk make mention of her during his promo.

In terms of instructions, all Punk was told was to mention Darby Allin in order to set up their match for All Out. Other than that, the Chicago native had total freedom to say whatever he wanted to say.

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After Rampage, Tony Schiavone went to dinner with, amongst others, CM Punk, Tony Khan, Tony Khan's partner, Britt Baker and Rebel. Schiavone got back to his hotel room at 2:30am, but decided against sleeping as he was already scheduled to get up at 3:30am to catch a 5am flight.

To wrap up on the topic, Schiavone said how this was the first night in years that he didn't sleep, and that it was all absolutely worth it.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.