Tony Schiavone Recalls Rejecting Pitch For Tank Abbott To Punch Him In The Midsection: ‘He Was Known To Be Pretty Stiff’

Tony Schiavone recalls rejecting a pitch for Tank Abbott to punch him in the midsection, noting he would have taken one from anyone else.

Schiavone has been an announcer for much of his adult life, and is a current commentator for All Elite Wrestling, but also previously worked for WCW in the past, which featured names like Tank Abbott, a UFC fighter who also dabbled in professional wrestling.

While speaking to WTVR CBS 6 in a new interview ahead of this week’s AEW Dynamite, Tony Schiavone was asked if he had ever been beaten up while announcing on pro wrestling. In response, Tony shared a story about rejecting a pitch to be punched by Tank.

“No, I’ve never been really beaten up. There was one time that one of our writers, this was years ago, this was back in (WCW), I guess maybe years ago, and he said, ‘I’d like this wrestler to punch you in the midsection,’ and the wrestler at that time was a wrestler named Tank Abbott, who also had been a UFC fighter, and he was known to be pretty stiff. I said, ‘absolutely not, anybody else, but I don’t want him to hit me.'”

Last month, Schiavone, along with Sting, would pay tribute to Ted Turner on AEW Dynamite. You can read more about that here.

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