Tony Chimel - WWE's Legendary Ring Announcer On His Intro For Edge & 38 Years In WWE (Interview From February 2022)

Insight with Chris Van Vliet

Chris Van Vliet

Entrepreneurship, Mental Health, Business, Health & Fitness, Sports, Wrestling

4.9 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2023

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tony Chimel (@thetonychimel) is a legendary ring announcer who was an WWE employee from 1983 until 2020. He joins Chris Van Vliet in this interview from February 2022 to talk about life after WWE, his new job at Trader Joe's, how he came up with his iconic "Rated R Superstar" introduction for Edge, the many jobs he has behind the scenes including driving the ring truck, growing up on the same street with Gorilla Monsoon's son Joey Marella and how he got started working in wrestling, his friendship with longtime referee Mike Chioda, and he tells a great story about a crazy bet with Jonathan Coachman. To book Tony Chimel email booktonychimel@gmail.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about CVV and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	All systems are good.
0:01.0	Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Bligh!
0:07.0	Pony, this is like a Hall of Fame behind you.
0:13.0	This is incredible.
0:14.0	Oh, well, thanks.
0:16.0	What all do we have here?
0:19.0	Just some pictures, behind me, just some pictures that I've collected over the years.
0:24.9	I got the poster, whatever, from when I, they gave me when I was at WW for 35 years.
0:32.6	I got some other pictures from the microphone thing is when I was there, I think, 15 years or 20 years.
0:41.7	Oh, wow.
0:42.7	A picture of me and the rock holding the belt.
0:46.8	A picture of me, Keona and Davey Coates up there.
0:49.6	Some other plaques from, from WrestleMania's.
1:00.5	This is a picture of four generations of the chimmel that's me my dad my son and my grandson so i like that one and uh that's a picture of andre and Hulk at
1:07.6	russlemania uh with joey morella my best friend referee, and they're in the middle.
1:14.9	Wow. And this is a wall of just all kinds of just amazing memories. Look, what a career.
1:20.4	What a career you had in WW. Yeah, yeah, it was nice. It lasted a long time. And I never thought
1:27.3	it would be like that, but never started out like that. But just one thing led to another. And, you know, next thing you know, it's 38 years later.
1:36.6	38 years. You know, I would have to think and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd have to think that if COVID didn't come around, you'd probably still be working there.
1:45.4	Well, that's what I'm thinking.
1:47.4	I mean, you know, I was ready to go.
1:50.4	You know, when it first hit, I remember I flew back.
	...

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