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Of course, when someone who has bestowed so much on professional wrestling fans returns to the scene, it’s only natural to wonder whether this weekend could be the start of Mike Tenay’s return to professional wrestling. It should be noted he’s had offers from many promotions grand and small over the years, including Game Changer Wrestling which attempted to lure him out of retirement to call a lucha show during a Wrestlemania weekend some years back. Tenay has deflected those attempts to return to the game and for the first time, explains why. Life has changed for him.
“I think in the bigger picture, you just nailed it, that that part of my life has changed. I think that in all the people that I've known in my lifetime, I think that I've enjoyed retirement more than any person I've ever met. I look at it almost like a pay off or a pay day for the ridiculous travel schedule that I had for so many years. The WCW travel schedule was a lot of different cities in a very short time period. The 52 weeks a year is something that fans don't take into account. We would often run into other broadcast teams from other sports - baseball, football, hockey, basketball, and they would be absolutely amazed that there was no offseason in professional wrestling. I think just because it's the norm, wrestling fans don't even think about the fact that there's no offseason. When you look at the consecutive weeks that Michael Cole has put up, which is absolutely amazing. I think he mentioned the other night when I was watching the show that he had missed just [three] weeks in the 20-plus years that he was there. When I look back on my career, the 20-plus years with WCW and TNA, I never missed a show. There were a couple of shows where the storyline called for me to [be] written out, but I was actually at those events; I was in the TV truck. So, I never missed a show with either company in all of those years.”
Tenay continued, explaining that commitment to the road if you worked in professional wrestling.
“The commitment that you have with that schedule is unbelievable. Fortunately, in WCW, we moved to Atlanta for that time period. But during all the years, I think it was 15 or 16 years or whatever it was with TNA, I was living in Las Vegas. Every single week. I would fly to either Nashville or Orlando. In Orlando. It was fun. Live shows the Universal Studios tapings, on opposite weeks I would fly to Nashville where we would do both in-studio voiceovers and I was part of the creative team, and we would have creative team meetings. So, there was never a time where I wasn't on the road. Those flights from Las Vegas to Orlando and Las Vegas to Nashville and then back every single week, they can take a toll. So, I think that, I think that I moved on to the next chapter in my life. A lot of it primarily because it was such a commitment to travel and travel these days is even more difficult even than it was back then.”
Tenay was removed by then-TNA Management from his role as lead announcer in 2015. So, the obvious question is would he have wanted to remain in the position - and would he want to return now in a role if it was offered?
“Would I have liked to have continued in the role?,” Tenay responded. “Yeah, probably for a couple more years. I reflect back on it and the funny thing is, I've spent more reflection in the last couple of weeks, in terms of preparation for what I'm going to say on Saturday night, I've done more reflection in the last couple of weeks about my career than I have in the years since I've announced. In my head I kind of moved on, and it's actually been nice to reflect back and think of so many funny stories. Things that went down through the years in terms of and I know it went on forever on that but in terms of me coming back, would I ever? It's the weirdest thing... I never wanted to have multiple retirements, come back, retirements. Pretty much everybody does in the history of professional wrestling. I felt like it was kind of a clean break. I follow everything religiously. I don't think it would be that tough of a transition if I did want to come back. I don't know if every company wants an old guy on their TV show. At the same time, would I rule any possibility of a comeback out? I would say no, I wouldn't rule it out, but it would have to be under my terms. I don't know that any company is willing to have it under my terms. It's nothing that I really feel in my heart like I need to go back and do. Again, in this reflection of the last couple of weeks, I think I'm kind of happy with everything that I did. And I liked moving on from it. Right place, right time, I can't say I never would do it, but it's not something that takes up a lot of my time thinking about thinking, ‘Gosh I need to get back to doing wrestling announcing.’”
As far as today’s Impact broadcast team of Tom Hanifan and Matthew Rehwoldt, who have morphed into the modern day Mike Tenay and Don West, Tenay is confident in their work.
“Believe it or not, yesterday, Tom Hannifan had reached out to Scott D'Amore and had just asked if maybe he could talk to me because I had never met Tom. Our paths had never crossed before. I had a wonderful conversation with him and I made it very plain to him how, for the first time, and again, you can use this, for the first time in a long time, I feel like the broadcast booth is in excellent hands. I just sense a stronger commitment from the team than I'd seen in years and I really like the direction that they're going and I think the two of them together really have a bright future. I always enjoyed their work when I listened, and Tom even asked me, "Oh, I know you probably don't have time to watch the show." But you know, I'm just a maniac that watches everything now. DVR allows me to get it at a good speed. So, I'm looking for certain things when I can get to them, but I keep my eyes and ears on pretty much all the products that are out there these days and even the subscription ones, the New Japan World and I love watching. CMLL is a really guilty pleasure for me, so I do watch a lot and the direction that those guys have taken with the broadcast, I think they'll only get better with more time together like pretty much all announce teams do.”
As someone who spent so many hours outside the wrestling bubble, then found himself on the inside and is now back outside, Tenay remains beyond passionate about watching professional wrestling, processing what the different products bring to their fans, providing his own perspective on what professional wrestling, in 2023, can be.
“You get so immersed in it when you work inside, I think especially at the level that I did that in many instances, it becomes difficult for people to watch wrestling with me. Because the natural inclination, and I get such a kick out of listening to Jim Cornette's podcasts because he and I, we've always hit it off so well through the years and the years that I spent working with him were just really, really well remembered in my life, the time working with him and I'll hear him do a review of a show and he will point out things and I know that he and I watch TV wrestling in the same way and it becomes difficult if you're sitting there and you're watching with me and you don't necessarily want to go down the rabbit hole into the granular and see the level that I'm watching but I'm looking at everything from the TV camera angles to the way the show is shot, the way it's produced, the audio, all the checkmarks. So, I still appreciate watching, I realize that I look at it with too sharp of an eye in many instances.”
As far as what he still loves about professional wrestling, an entertainment form that’s been one of his best friends for most of his life, Tenay lays out one last lesson.
“I like being surprised in terms of, you know, what it is that I like these days,” he admits. “I like the unpredictability of it. I wish that more of the interview work was off the cuff. I know that it's sort of different in the two different companies these days and I certainly understand that. I always remember that when I started working for WCW, I would get a format to the TV show and it would say you know, segment three item one, coming out of commercial break, "Mike Tenay interviews Ray Traylor, Big Boss" or Mike Tenay interviews, let's say Wrestler A and it would say, "one minute and 30 seconds" or "two minutes" and that's all it would say on the format. It was up to Mike Tenay to know the direction in terms of storyline for that wrestler and the company. So, it was up to me to generate the questions. It was up to the wrestlers to generate the promo to sell tickets or to sell pay per views and it's so much fun to get back on a piece of paper where it's just one line, and you have four or five of those in an afternoon, and you go up to the wrestler that afternoon and you meet with him. Sometimes, you know, every wrestler is different in what they want to do. ‘You want to go over this? You want to talk it over? You want to practice? Whatever makes you more comfortable, is gonna make me more comfortable.’ I would usually give them a setup that we were going to use and let them think about what they wanted to say. And then you go and you do it. And it was so fun doing that for a couple of years.’
Today, however, is quite different from those off-the-cuff promos.
“Everything became obviously much more regimented,” Tenay notes. “You've heard this story given in many forms from a million different people. But you then had every wrestler walking around backstage with a piece of paper and their lips are moving. They're looking, they're looking off into the sky and they're trying to find a place to hide. They're walking around the corner. There's a bunch of bleachers that are in the back of this auditorium and they go behind the bleachers and they're memorizing. So, I liked the unpredictability. I always prefer more spontaneity.”
As far as the style today, Tenay is a fan, but also provides some concern at the same time.
“I think the athleticism today is incredible,” Tenay admits. “I've never been someone who thought they should put a governor on certain high-flying aspects of the business and I think it would be sort of hypocritical when I was decades ahead of the Lucha Libre curve, to be quite honest. I'm seeing that in Los Angeles, dating to the late ‘60s, when they would have all the wrestlers from Mexico, led by Mil Mascaras and we can go down to many, many more in that era, because the audience had switched and it trended so Hispanic at that point. So, they were just filling that need to take care of their clientele. So, I had watched that and I had seen it. So, I think it's hypocritical for me to say put a governor on what I see today. I love it, but the incredible injury rate has to be addressed at some point. And we can't just keep sticking our head in the sand when it comes to the injury rate and saying, "Well I've got this huge roster and I'm going to plug in this wrestler into this spot when this wrestler gets hurt," because storylines that are totally skewed and driven in a different direction and have to be rewritten.”
Tenay continued to break down his perspective.
“I love the high point aspects. I recently heard Steve Keirn on a podcast and he said something that makes so much sense to me that I'm going to repeat it here and I love Steve Keirn. I really like my phone conversations I have with him. We had a mutual friend who passed away a year or so back, Mickey Jay, who was a referee with all the companies. Steve said, and I heard this and I said, ‘Damn that rings true..’ He noted, ‘1960s action movies, Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood into the 70s - how many villains did they have and how many villains were they killing off in that era?’ You had your main protagonist and you had a few guys in the two-hour movie or an hour and a half which would conclude with the good guy going over, and then you fast forward to today, and Keanu Reeves is John Wick. They're fun movies, but put them in comparison to what we saw with Bronson and Eastwood in a similar vein, as far as the genre of action-adventure movies, and how many protagonists and antagonists that they have, and how many people that they blow away in the 90 minutes. So, the short attention span theater rings true because of just the way our society and our culture is today and again, we're not going back, we're not turning back. So that leap off of the 10 foot table or the two tables stacked up 10 feet tall, now has to be from the balcony. And then next week, you know, from the upper deck. And I get that. I'm not naive enough to understand that that has to be the way that it goes. Because it's like anything in professional wrestling - every week we play a game of can you top this, and I guess I wish that they would be able to make those high risk moves mean more by doing them a little bit less. I'm not totally the guy who says kids, get off my yard. I'm not that guy screaming yet. Because I know that they have to keep up and I know that they're trying to make a name and I know that they're trying to provide for their families. So, they're going to up their risk every time - I get that. But I think that management needs to provide a more safe environment and help themselves in the long haul by limiting the number of injuries by making those moves mean more than they do today. Don't do every outlandish crazy move as a transitional spot. Make them mean something and I think the business, I don't think it'll be harmed in the long haul because it'll still be so spectacular. But I guess that was really the thing I would say.”
As cliche as it might be to write this, with that, my conversation with Mike Tenay ended, at least for now. This Saturday, however, Tenay stands forth to not only reflect on a lifetime of opportunities and gifts given to him by professional wrestling, but also what he himself has gifted the industry and its fans back.
While his own accomplishments are second to none, this Saturday will also be a moment for Tenay to bestow perhaps his most important gift to Impact Wrestling fans, by paying tribute to someone who brought such life, importance and excitement to every moment of TNA Impact Wrestling, the late, great Don West.
While this weekend certainly will provide closure, it should also provide clarity - and that clarity is that Mike Tenay should always be commended for being one of the best of anyone in or around professional wrestling. Class dismissed.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
A special thank you to Billy Krotchsen for her help with transcriptions!
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