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.
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.
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.
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.