AEW Announcer Loves the A's, Says They Should Stay in Oakland
With wrestling promotion AEW in Oakland to broadcast a live episode of their Friday show, Rampage, followed by a recording of their Saturday show, Collision, people were on the lookout to see if anyone mentioned the A's impending relocation to Las Vegas.
One wrestler in particular, Powerhouse Hobbs, was of interest since he is from Palo Alto and grew up going to wrestling events at Oakland Arena. Turns out he's an Atlanta Braves fan.
But all was not lost, because current AEW announcer and former voice of WCW Tony Schiavone, surprised everyone between shows when speaking to the crowd.
"I'm from Virginia, and my favorite baseball team of all time is the Oakland Athletics."
The crowd went nuts. But he wasn't done.
"Reggie Jackson, Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, Catfish Hunter, Ken Holtzman, Gene Tenace, Dave Duncan. The Athletics should stay in Oakland! You're damn right. And Las Vegas can kiss my a**."
Is this a way to be able to get a pop from the crowd? Of course. Does it seem like he was also being genuine? Absolutely. Not too many people would pull Dave Duncan when listing players from those great 70's A's teams that won back-to-back-to-back World Series titles.
Duncan was a part of the 1972 club and was traded in March of 1973 for the legendary Ray Fosse.
While there is video of these words, it won't be appearing on the televised broadcast for either Rampage or Collision. The way AEW works is they'll sell tickets to an event, but then provide a few hours of content that is recorded. When Schiavone took the microphone, it was in between the shows while the ring's branding was being switched for the next show which was yet to record.
Luckily, the video of his comments can be found below.