Insight with Chris Van Vliet - A SuuuUUUuuuper Interview with Tony Chimel About His 38 Years in WWE

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Tony Chimel (@thetonychimel) is a ring announcer who was a WWE employee from 1983 until 2020. He joins Chris Van Vliet 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 [e-mail] 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

All systems are gathered. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Blit! Here we go. Welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Vleet. Thank you so much for being with us for a super conversation with the legendary Tony Chimel. Tony spent 38 years as a WWE employee doing pretty much every job imaginable. Of course, we know him best as a ring announcer, but he was also part of the ring crew.

He was driving the ring truck, setting up the ring. Most recently, he worked in production, and he was released after 38 years with the company. Needless to say, he has a lot of stories, and it was an honor to have him on the show because he really hasn't done many interviews at all. Find him on Twitter at The Tony Chimel, and he's also accepting bookings for all. autograph signings or to be a guest ring announcer, you can send him an email for that at book Tony Chimel at gmail.com and take a screenshot. Let us know that you're listening to this episode. Let us know what you love the most about it. Make sure to tag us as well, the Tony Chimel. I'm at

Chris Van Fleet. And if it's your first time here, please hit subscribe on the podcast app of your choice so you don't miss out on anything else that we have coming up. Our fan of the week is the Friends in the Corner podcast, they left this review that says, Chris does a great job of cultivating a comfortable and welcoming environment for his guests and delivers great interviews. I have my own interview show, Friends in the Corner podcast, and I've learned so much from listening to Chris and observing how he interacts with his guests. I hope you don't mind, Chris, but I borrowed the three things I'm grateful for question, and I asked my guests at the end of every show, and I'm amazed by the responses. Keep it up and cheers. Well, thank you so much for taking the time.

to do that. This is the perfect example, by the way, of how you can leave a review and also promote whatever it is that you want to promote. So if you want to promote your podcast or anything else, I'm happy to do that. Just leave a review on Apple Podcasts. We shout out one on every single episode for free, of course. And I think we just hit 2,200 reviews on Apple Podcasts, almost 500 ratings on Spotify. Spotify has a brand new rating system. So if you listen on either one of those, it'd be so appreciated.

If you could just take a few seconds out of your day, I know it's a busy day. I know you've got a lot going on in your life, but if you can just take a few seconds as a way to say thank you, I would be forever in your debt. All right. Let's get into this.

Loved this conversation. I know you will as well. Please welcome the one, the only, the legendary. Tony, Chimel. Tony, this is like a Hall of Fame behind you. This is incredible. Oh, well, thanks.

What all do we have here? Just some pictures behind me, just some pictures that I've collected over the years. I got the poster or whatever from when I, they gave me when I was at WW for 35 years. I got some other pictures from the microphone thing is when I. I was there, I think, 15 years or 20 years. Oh, wow. A picture of me and the rock holding the belt. A picture of me, Keota, Davey Coates up there,

some other plaques from, from WrestleMania's. This is a picture of four generations of the Chimel. That's me, my dad, my son, and my grandson. So I like that one. And that's a picture of Andre and Hulk at WrestleMania. with Joey Morella, my best friend, referee, and they're in the middle. Wow. And this is a wall of just all kinds of just amazing memories.

Look, what a career. What a career you had in WWE? Yeah, yeah, it was nice. It lasted a long time. And I never thought 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. 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. Well, that's what I'm thinking. I mean, you know, I was ready to go. You know, when it first hit, I remember I flew back. I got a show in Washington, D.C. I flew home. And the next show, I think we're doing in Detroit. So I was getting on a plane and I was talking to my boss. I'm like, are we doing this show? Are we not doing the show? And he was just like, you know, just go like you're going to the show. If you hear from me, you know, then we'll let you know what if anything changes. So I took off.

I flew here from Florida to Charlotte. And when I was in Charlotte, I got a call saying, hey, the show is canceled and then turn around and went home. So. And didn't work another show after that. Wow. I think obviously fans know you as a ring announcer, but you've worn like three dozen different hats. for WWA. What was the most recent job that you had? I was working in the production office and doing that, and I would basically help make sure

that everyone had rooms that are supposed to have rooms and areas where they're supposed to have areas, and trucks get unloaded, and stuff gets set up, and we take care of runners for the show, and I deal with thousands of dollars and stuff like that, and go to settlement and pay the bills and deal with labor bills and all that other stuff. So what was the title for this job? Production manager. Oh, amazing.

And were you doing? Yeah, I never specifically really ever had a title, which kind of bothered me, you know, because a lot of people would have titles and then they'd be like, well, I'm now the director of blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, who was the director before you were there? and they would say, nobody.

I said, so they just invented the title. Yeah, basically that's what it was. Were you doing this job when you were a ring announcer as well? Yeah, there was, yeah,

yeah. Wow. Yeah, most of the time the ring announcing gig was like, you know, the second part of my job.

Wow. So if we take this... Yeah, I never just ring announcers. Which is interesting because the ring announcers now are just ring announcers. Yeah.

Yeah, I know. If we take this way back, Tony, what was the, like, it was ring crew that you first got in. That's what you were doing when we first started working with WWA. Yeah, back in 83, I was just working on the ring crew with Joey Morella. And that's basically all we did was drive a truck, go to the town, set the ring up, hang out. When the show was over, tear the ring down, and drive to the next town. Although I guess we've got to take this back even further to like, for people who don't know what Joey Morella is, is a very famous father.

Yeah, he's a girl monsoon son. Yeah, and that's basically how I got into it because I grew up in South Jersey and they happened to live about four or five houses right where there are a neighbor. So that was pretty cool having Grill a monsoon and their family is neighbors. Yeah, especially when it leads to not just a job, but like a career that you did for your entire life. Well, I never really thought it was going to be like that. But yeah, that's what it ended up being, you know.

How did it end up like, how did it start? Was guerrilla just like, hey, we're looking for some people. Do you want a job? No, well, when we were in like high school and maybe like a year after high school or something, Gorilla owned part of the business. I think Gorilla owned it, Arnie Skollin. There's a guy in Harrisburg named Phil Zatko, I think, and Vince's dad owned the business, the WWF or whatever it was called.

And Gorilla had a ring. So on weekends, and maybe during the summer, we would drive to Baltimore, we'd drive to Washington, we'd drive to Scranton, wherever the show was, and we would set the ring up and do that.

We would get paid, I don't know, 50 bucks or something like that, you know, and then do the show. And to us, it was great. We were young, you know, either in high school or right out of high school, we got to get out of town, go see Baltimore,

go see Washington, didn't go see these other things and hang out basically and do a job and get paid for it. And then I think when Vince's dad died, Vince, I guess bought out Gorilla, Phil Zadgo, Arnie Skollin, and Gorilla didn't have the ring anymore. And then a few weeks after that, I guess Vince called up Gorilla and said, hey, does your son still want to set up the ring? He can set the ring up for me. and guerrillae asked joey and i joey they were allowed to he was allowed to bring one other guy with them and that joey said you know how do you want to do this and i said yeah and we drove up to

stanford and filled out i guess our w-2 forms or whatever and became employees of the company i think i was number 33 employee oh my gosh so how do you go from setting up the ring to getting a mic in your hand and being a ring announcer well the first first time it ever happened we were in setting up we're doing the ring in uh in i think it was um strasburg pennsylvania and we set the ring up and the show is about to start and uh joey comes to me and he's like you know they want to know if you just want to ring announce you know and i said ring an ounce i said i've never done that before no i don't want to do it he's like they need somebody the guy didn't show up they want you to ring an house and i'm like look i'm dressed at

like sweatpants and a t-shirt here. I mean, like, what do you want me to do? You know, and you know, then I think it was Arnie or something. It said, we'll pay you 50 bucks. I'm like, okay, I'll do it. You know, so he's like, all you got to do is don't go in the ring, just sit by the table at ringside and announce the guys as they come out. So that's what I did. I just did that. And that was it. And it didn't really move on from there. But after a while, as the business started to get bigger and bigger and you did more things. And we were like at the show and we wouldn't just be hanging out in the parking lot with the ring truck or anything like that or just sitting in the stands. We would actually be there like timekeeping or taking jackets or, you know, playing to music or something like that.

And you get to know and see what these people are doing and how they're doing it. and I think they, I forget even how it evolved after that, but they were like, hey, you know, Chimble's at the show. Why do we have to fly in a ring announcer or go pay somebody? You know, we can have Chimel do the announcing, you know, and I just started doing it at smaller venues. And you see how the other people were doing it and stuff like that. And that's how I just got started doing it. They must have thought you did a good enough job if they wanted you to do it again. Well, yeah, I guess so.

I mean, you know, it was weird at first. And, you know, I would do it some shows. Some shows they already had a guy there that would do it or something like that. And I wouldn't announce all the time and stuff like that. But I remember one time when I was overseas, Bruce Pritchard saw me ring announce. This was later a few years after I was doing it. And he saw me ring announced for the first time and thought I was pretty good. And I think he said something to the office.

And I was like announcing the TVs a little bit after that. So props to Bruce for that. Do you remember who the first person was that you announced or the first match that you announced? No, it could have been Mike Sharp or somebody back in the 80s, you know, at a house show. It could have been Tony Atlas. I don't, you know, Ivan Putzky. I don't know. I don't remember.

How long do you think it took you, because you have a signature style. Nobody sounds like Tony Chimel. How long do you think it took you to get your trademark style down? I don't know. I've always had this voice. I mean, you know, my wife. I would argue your voice now doesn't sound that much, doesn't sound that much like your ring announcing voice. Right.

Well, when I get into ring announcing voice, I'm like just being a little bit louder and doing stuff. But my voice is usually pretty deep and like this. And my wife always tells me, stop yelling. I'm like, I'm not yelling. I'm just talking, but I'm loud, you know. So. That New Jersey. I don't know.

It's more comfortable. You get the more, you know, you want to get your little shit in and stuff like that. So, you know, I just make up little styles and stuff like that. And, you know, hit this syllable a lot more than that syllable or make this one go a little bit different than that one or stretch this one out a little bit longer, you know, stuff like that. And, you know. Would you be practicing? Like, would you get all the names all the way to the hometowns? you started out and then you were practicing like okay i could carry this syllable over or you know

no i just went in there and did it i just went in there and did it you know and i mean when i was in its infancy when i was first doing it it was just like you know you just pretty much announced the guys i mean i have a little bit of you know you want to sound like you have some energy so i would bring a little bit of energy you know and and just do that you know i I just want to say Tony Atlas. I say, Tony Atlas, you know,

something like that. Yeah. You know, just make it, you know, because you want the crowd to get with it. And, you know,

when you announce the guy's name, either cheer loudly for him or boo the hell out of them. So I love that you're on cameo now because I'm guessing nine out of 10 of the requests you get are people that want you to announce their name or announce something like that for them,

right? Yeah, well, it's cameo. I like to call it chimio. but yeah I guess some people know it as cameo but we'll refer to it as chimio from now on yeah it's on chimio and

I like doing that I just did get a request a little while ago where some guy was saying that he collects belts or something like that I'm going to do this probably tomorrow but he collects belts and he wants me to introduce him as the belt collector or something like that so you know yeah that's what they do and you know i'll pretty much announce anybody whatever they want it's not an issue i'm happy to do it and you know i've done i've done a few who like to do more i'm going to guess after doing this

podcast and everyone's going to hear this you're going to do a lot of podcast introductions because of chimio i've got a couple of those i did one for teddy long and who else did i do um oh i think uh horn swoggles or horn swogles buddy something like that i did a i did a i did an opening. Well, there's going to be like a dozen more. But yeah, I'd do it. I'd do it for you. Amazing.

Right. Well, geez. What's, have you done a wedding yet? Have you had a cameo request? No, I haven't done a wedding. I haven't. Well, actually, I haven't. That is incoming.

But it was, it wasn't like, it was when I was still working and somebody just wanted me to introduce the wedding party and stuff like that. So I did that. How many times in, Chimio, I love calling it Chimio. How many times on Chimio are you saying super? Well, if they request it, I'm more than happy to say it. I think I did it on one, and they weren't expecting it,

and they came back with that. That was really good and unexpected. I loved it. But yeah, I'm more than willing to throw in a super or two if they want it. I'm guessing that the first time your voice cracked announcing the rated R superstar, it wasn't on purpose. Well, the whole thing,

how that started was I used to travel around with Jimmy Cordaris referee. And, you know, we were to talk and solve the world's problems and just solve every problem, you know, in WWE or whatever. And, you know, we would just be talking about stuff. And if somebody said something stupid or somebody did something stupid,

we would say something like Wilde Coyote, super genius, you know. So when the Mexicools came to WWE, I started introducing Super Crazy. And I did him as super crazy. And then they left. And then when Edge became the Redid R superstar, I started introducing him as the Red at R Super. star and he loved it. And, you know, he would love it every time I did it and I was happy to do it and I was glad that he loved it. And he would always say when he, like after he retired, he'd show up every once in a while and he would come to a show or be at a show.

He'd like, Chimwell, you got your suit. You're going to introduce me tonight. I'm like, really? I didn't even know you were coming, you know. But that was fun and always a pleasure to do that. It was like the first, the first rendition of this was more, you know, I guess, calmer, I guess. And then you would work it up as you continue to do it. Yeah.

Yeah. The more I, when I played with it, and then the fans really liked it and they got on board, the more I went with it. And, you know, the more I did it and the longer it got and the higher it got and the better it got, you know.

And then when Beth Phoenix went into the Hall of Fame, Was that a legitimate surprise? For me, well, for me, you mean for edge? Yeah, for edge. Well, yeah, when they asked me, I had no idea. And they asked me, and I was like in the middle of working in the production office. And I'm like, I think they asked me like the day before it happened. Beth came over and was like, hey, I want you to do this.

And I'm like, well, I don't have a talks. And, you know, I said, I'll, you know, wing it and we'll do it. You know, my boss was like, yeah, chin won't go. over there and do it if you have to do it and you want to do it go do it i mean don't worry about things in the production office and so i did it edge had no idea but i think once you saw me walk out there on the stage and do it you know and when they were going over through the rehearsals of the hall of fame and all that i think they were they were telling vince like hey this is what's going happen in this part of Beth's speech and he's like, what? And he looks over. He's like,

Chimel, what are you doing? And I'm like, well, this is what I'm doing. I'm going to know, he's like, okay. You, you know, you worked there for 38 years, which is crazy to think about. What was your relationship like with Vince? Vince was always good to me. Vince was always good to me. He was just like a, he was just like a regular guy. I mean, that, you know, owned a company, but, you know, he knew me for so long, you know, he would always say if he saw me in the hallway or something like that, he's like, Chimel, you're still working here?

And I'm like, yeah, I'm still here, Vince. Or I'd say, well, I'm not really working, but you're paying me. And then he would say, well, I'm going to have to go look into that. I'm like, no, relax. I'm working, you know. So it was always good. I mean, he came to bat for me at one time really big that I liked. When I was ring announcing, I would get paid a certain amount of money.

We'd get paid a certain amount of money to like ring an ounce or time keep or take jackets or something like that. And I was getting paid to ring an ounce and then time keep as well, ring the bell. So after a couple years of that, they said, you know, hey, we're not paying the timekeeper anymore. You know, we're not giving that money out. So I lost like money for doing that. So I went to my boss at the time and I said, hey, can I get a little bit more money for ring announcing since I'm not getting the money for the timekeeping as well just so it evens out? I make the same. And he was like, Chimel, where would you be working if you weren't working for WWE?

And I said, you know, I don't know. I'm working for WWE, though, you know? But he always, my boss always told me, he's like, if you have a problem with what I'm doing or the way I'm handling things, you can always go to Vince. So I went to Vince, and I said, Vince, this is a deal. I was doing this, both of these jobs. They took one away. Now I just wanted my old payback. It's just for rain and ounce.

And I'll still ring the bell. But, you know, and then I said, you know, and then he told me, you know, if I wasn't working here, what would I be doing? And then Vince said, please tell me he didn't tell you that. I said, yeah, he did tell me that. So I was tearing down the ring that night at TV and my boss comes over and he said, we'll talk about your pay on Monday when you get home. And it worked out. Vince must have pulled him aside, said something to him, like take care of them or whatever or do what you're supposed to do. and I'll never forget that.

Vince did that for me. I'll be very grateful for that. That's a great story. That was very nice. Yeah, he was always, you know, good and always joked around with me and, you know. So my first Hello Fresh box just arrived, and I am loving this. With Hello Fresh, you get fresh, pre-measureed ingredients and delicious seasonal recipes delivered right to your door.

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Was it an intentional move for you to step away from ring announcing, like as they were bringing a new talent in? Or did you want to keep doing it? Well, I did and I didn't. I mean, at one point, you know, when you're there for 25 or 30 years, and I'm basically teaching the Lillian Garcia or the Justin Roberts or whoever else was coming down the pike, and I'm teaching them, basically what they're telling you without them telling you is you're teaching this person because they're going to be doing your job. So that's why I always wanted to do something else.

And as my boss, my boss before when I left or when I got let go, Sean Selman, he would always say, make yourself valuable. And that's why I wanted to do something else other than ring announce, you know? And that's why I was always on the ring crew or doing working in the production office and stuff like that. So I always wanted to do something other. To me, the ring announcing part was, okay, well, that's during the show. What are you doing the eight hours before the show? know, and the two hours after the show, you know, I mean, so there was a point where I didn't want to be on the road 20, 24 days a month, doing all these house shows and stuff like that. And I just,

I didn't want to do it. I was like, you know, it's enough. My kids are like, you know, teenagers now. And, you know, I didn't get to see him grow up. And it'd be nice if I was home, maybe, you know, 15 days a month instead of, you know, eight days a month or seven days a month, you know? And I was okay with not ring announcing as long as I could just work into production offers or just do the TVs and stuff like that. The house shows are such a grind, especially back then because they would just run so many. And it was like every, you know, you do Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then TV, Monday, Tuesday. You'd fly home Wednesday.

My kids and wife hated me on Wednesday. They're like, you're so cranky, you're so tired, you're so this, you know. You'd be home one day. You'd have to get all your shit in, whatever you're going to do on Thursday, you know, and then you'd be leaving again on Friday, doing the same thing all over again. And then they'd run overseas tours twice a year, you know, just to Europe where they were like two or three, you'd be on the road like 17 days straight, you know. And then, you know, not.

to mention the side little four or five day runs to Mexico or Japan or, you know, the Middle East or something. And it just, you know, it was a great living, a great job and a great time. But I mean, you know, after 25 or 30 years of it, I was like, Grety, you know, like, hey, I don't mind you go ring an ounce and, you know, I'll point you out. Don't tell you how to do it and what to do. and who to listen to and who not to listen to, you know, stuff like that. As much of a grind that it was, now that you can look back at the 38 years you had there, it must feel pretty great knowing there's a certain generation of wrestling fan that you were the voice of their childhood.

Yeah, yeah, I get that a lot. I get that kid that just asked me to do a chimio for him. He's like, I grew up watching or listening to you. ringing outs and watching you ringing outs. I always wanted you to ring it so can you do it? So yeah, I'll do it. Yeah. So that's pretty cool. I mean, you know, and I'll introduce you as the rated our superstar if you want. I don't care. So when when COVID hit, you were first furloughed. So you were still like possibly like there was a chance you could work there and then relate later release. Is that how this worked? Yeah. I never not wanted to work. I'd be I was willing to get on

a plane from day one to go anywhere, to go do anything. And, you know, when COVID first hit, I was sitting at home. And I was, you know, at that point, I'm like, well, this would be great if it lasts a couple months or something, you know, in a couple weeks or six months. If I'm collecting a paycheck sitting at home, this is pretty good, you know. And then they, you know, then they started running shows in Orlando. And I told my boss, I said, I'm willing to go there. You know, and they're like, well, it's a really laid back and cutback thing.

And we're just bringing in a couple people, you know, and this and that. And I really didn't think much of it. And then months go by. And I'm like, well, still, can I come? You know, I kept on wanting to get in and do it. And they were hiring or they weren't hiring, but they were letting the independent contractors work as opposed to the employees. And then I got furloughed. And then after a while, you know, now you're sitting at home and you're furloughed and I couldn't really do anything.

And then after a few months of that, I got to call again. I got a call again from Kevin Dunn that said, you know, hey, he said, I got good news and bad news. And I'm like, well, what's up? And he's like, well, the good news is you're going to be getting your paycheck back. And I said, oh, well, that's cool because I got an email stating that some people are going to be coming back in October, some people in November. some people in November and some people in December. And I was told via email from human resources that I was going to be one of the people coming back in December.

And he was calling me in like November. And he said, well, we're going to have to, we're going to get your paycheck back. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. Yeah, because I'm going to be coming back soon. He's like, well, we're going to have to let you go. And I'm like, what do you mean? I got an email saying that I was going to be.

coming back in December. And he said, who sent that to you? And I said, human resources. And he's like, forward me that email. So I guess he wanted to talk to somebody who ever sent that email. But, yeah, he called me and said, you know, that's it.

So I had like a year severance package. Oh, so when he said you're going to get your salary back, he meant you're going to get severance? Yeah. Yeah. Because you're getting let go. I don't know. If there's good news and bad news,

I don't even know if that's really that good of news. Well, yeah, I know. Well, to him, the good news was I'm getting my paycheck back. Yeah. You know. So what are you doing? What are you doing in life after WWE now? Well, I found out that there is life after WWE because you figure I started when I was 22, you know, and now I'm 60, 50, you know, I was 59 when it happened, but 60.

and you know I found a job at Trader Joe's which I never really knew about I heard of Trader Joe's but I didn't know what it was I thought it was like an antique store or like a Pure One import store or something like that you'd never been to Trader Joe's before never been and I know they're all over the place the fantastic grocery store I get that and I'm seeing that now because when I first told my daughter that I'm working at Trader Joe she's like oh dad that's great you got to get this you've got to get that. And I'm like, what are you, you know, what are you talking about? But you got to get the everything but the bagel spice. I got that. Yeah, that's a, I put that on my head. Of course, those's day one. I give it to you on the orientation tour. But yeah, it's really good. And, you know, there's a lot of similarities. I mean, at at WWE, the thing was always, you know, they want to put smiles on people's faces. And at Trader Joe is they just want to wow the customer, make the customer feel happy. And I've always been a, big customer service guy.

And traveling for a living, you don't get any of that crap with the airlines. You get crappy customer service with hotels and stuff like that. And at Trader Joe, you call the store, they answer. If you're in there and you're looking for something, any of us helps you out and finds the place. If you're in Home Depot, they're going to tell you, yeah, it's in Isle 58 and send you down that way. They're not even going to walk you to where you want to go.

And it's nice. I mean, the customers, they're like. cult followers. I mean, I didn't get it at first, but now that I've been there for a year, I'm like, well, I'm like one of them. I go here for certain things and for shopping and, you know, the wine prices are really good and they got a good wine selection. Yeah, well, I don't drink that, but a lot of people do. No, it's four bucks now, I think, but it's really good. And a lot of people love it and they swear by the store and the people are great, the bosses are great, the manager's great. Everybody's great there. They're real good, you know, and I just happened to fall into that job,

too. I was taking my wife to work. She was a hairdresser, and she worked a few stores down or whatever. And when I was driving her there, she's like, hey, why don't you go into that Trader Joe? There's a big sign out there that says they're hiring. So when I went there, I filled out an application. I handed it handed it in and a guy came out and got me. And he's like, are you really Tony Chimmel from WWE? And I'm like, yeah. He's like, man, I'm a big fan. I watch you all the time and, you know, this and that.

And he brings me in and we start talking, you know. And I kind of figured then I kind of had the job if he knew me and stuff like that. It's like, your availability says like 5 a.m. to 12 midnight. He's like, can you really work those hours? I said, dude, I've been sitting on the couch for eight months. I am ready to work. I will work when you tell me to work. I will show up early and leave late if you want me to.

I'll do whatever you want. I just want to work and get a job. So that was, you know, that was good. And the people there, like I said, are nice. I love the store and it's a great place to me. So what's your job? So I kind of land it on my feet. Huh?

What's your job there? I do. We, everyone does everything there. We write orders, we help with customers, we cashier, we stock shelves, all that stuff. So how many times have you been recognized since you started working there? There's kids in the parking lot that said, hey, are you Tony Chimel? And I'm like, yeah, there was a couple. And now, like, a lot of the coworkers, you know, they found out, you know, through other workers and stuff,

oh, that, you know, you used to do this stuff. And they're like, you know, they'll come into work. He's like, hey, I googled you. You're like famous. And I'm like, no, I'm not. Not really. But, you know, they're like, I Googled you. You were at WWE and you did this and you did that.

And I'm like, yeah. Yeah, you are famous. You have a Wikipedia page and you do cameos. Sorry, Chimios. Yeah, Chimios. And the Wikipedia page, I don't know who writes that, but half of that stuff is wrong. But whatever.

What in there is wrong? I don't know. To tell you the truth, I think it says I'm from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. which is incorrect. I actually grew up in Willingboro. I'm going to pull this up right now, and whoever is listening to this is going to fix everything because this will absolutely happen.

Okay. Yeah, it says you're from Cherry Hill. Yeah. Says you were trained by Bill Watts. Yeah, that's wrong. Bill Watts, trained by Bill. You know, I remember Bill Watts for one thing, band playing cards backstage.

We hated that because after we did the ring, and before the show started, we would all love to play cards. We'd sit down, shoot the shit, play cards. I mean, we were playing cards with Arnie Skollin and Gorilla. They all played cards. And when Bill Watts came in, it was like an Edith came down, like two weeks later. He doesn't want cards being played backstage. And we were like, what the hell?

Why? This guy sucks. But anyway, it lasted about, I don't know, a couple weeks, and that was it. We were back to the car. Well, it sounds like we need this removed from your Wikipedia that you were trying. Bill Watts. He never trained me. I only knew him for maybe a couple months because he was with WWE not very long.

Who should we say trained you, Gorilla? Train me as what? I don't know what that even means. I mean, you know. What else could be incorrect here? You know, in your personal life, it says you were taken out by a stretcher after being super kicked by Sean

Michael's ringside during his I'm wearing match with Brett Hart at Russell. Yeah, that's true. That is true. Well, then most of this stuff is correct then. Oh, it says that when you were furloughed, it ended your 31 year tenure. We need to fix that. Geez, I'd see. I never go on that garbage.

But anyway, yeah, I was actually, from the time I started collecting a paycheck to the time that I ended collecting a paycheck, it was like 38 years. 38? Well, yeah, I mean, you have a banner behind you that says 35. So 31 on Wikipedia is very wrong. Right. Yeah. Obviously, I would guess announcing Edge was probably your favorite. Who was your second favorite?

I always enjoyed introducing Sina. Sina was a good guy. I'm trying to think. I mean, they're all, you know, they were all good. You were on the Rock show. Yeah, the Rock's always good. I mean, some names are a lot easier and you can get more stuff out, you know, than others. I mean, but I don't know if I had any.

You know, Edge was always great to announce. I know that because I'd get my shit in. Same with Sina because I'd always stretch out the John, you know, Sina to do that. But, yeah, they were all good. You know, Undertaker was always a good one, you know, that because the whole place would be dark, you know, and you could pretty much do whatever you wanted to do. No one's going to see it, but, you know, they would all hear it, you know.

What you guys do. You know, introducing Booker was always good, especially when he was King Booker, because I would introduce him as King Booker. And then he would come out to the ring, him and Charmel, they would come out to the ring. And the first time this happened, he would be like, tell them, all hail King Booker. So I'd be like, all hail, King Booker. And then they would boo, you know, and stuff like that. Like, tell him again. You know, all hail, King Booker.

would boo louder. And it just kind of started to snowball. And, you know, after a few times, he would make me do it more and more and more and more. And they'd be backstage, like, watching it on the monitor saying, how many times is Chimel going to say, hey, all hail King Booker? And it got up to like 32 times I'd be telling the people. All hail King Booker. Hey, you up in the cheap seats. All hail, King Booker, you know. And that was good. And him and Charmel were great to work with. And that gimmick was really good. and you know she would make me get down on my hands and knees and like and she would sit on my back why Booker would cut a promo in the ring or something you know but all that stuff was good

I thought the stuff you did with Mr. Kennedy was so fun too yeah yeah he was a good guy to do that stuff with and all that and uh that was fun you know working with him and and doing his announcement and stuff like that. And when we would be overseas doing it, you know, every time he would come out to the ring, you'd have a bottle of water. And right after I announced them, you'd make me hand of the mic or something like that.

And then he would spit water in my face. Well, after about like four or five times doing this, I was like, listen, why don't we do this? You've been doing the same thing for like five shows now. So why don't you do this? When you go to spit the water in my face, I'll put my hands in front of my face. Okay?

So you can't spit the water in my face. So once I put my hands in front of my face, I said, kick me in the nuts. I'll sell the nuts. And then you spit the water in my face. And he's like, I like that, Jim. Yeah, we'll do that. So he enjoyed that. I have so much respect for what you do because you did it without an earpiece.

Like the fact that you would memorize all of the names, all of the nicknames, all of the weights, all of the hometowns. How do you do it? Well, because you were announced, like if I had to go in there now, I wouldn't know anybody. But when you're doing it, that's what I'm saying. When you're doing it five days a week, you know, I'm announcing the undertaker, you know, at 275 pounds or whatever it is.

I thought he was 298. Come on, Tony. Okay, whatever. That's what I mean. I don't know now, but I knew then. you know i mean it's pretty much the same guy and you might you know i would always in my mind if i write it i would remember it more so when we were backstage going over who's coming out first who's coming out second you know uh whatever i would always write down where they're from and they're and their

weight even you know i did it a hundred times but sometimes even especially at tvs whether going after i'm done announcing them at the beginning now I'm looking at the next match and what I have to do before I announce the winner of that match. So I'm always like one step ahead of everything and knowing what to do because you never wanted to be stuck for that. But I do have probably the greatest wildline in the history of professional wrestling, which was the gravy boat match. I don't know if you could you could Google that. I know there's some guys still at work that have that.

But that was a girls match. Oh, I remember right around Thanksgiving. Yeah. Did you ever hear it? The announcement? I probably watched it live at that time. Okay, because I never ended up getting the announcement right. But what it was supposed to be was a gravy bowl match for the women's championship.

Okay. So I introduce it. And I, at our house at Thanksgiving, what we called a gravy bowl was a gravy boat. So I introduced it as a gravy boat match. Okay. And they said, no, that's wrong. Do it over again.

You know, so I did it as the gravy, as a gravy bowl match for the women's championship. Or I said women's. Whatever the wrong one was, I said it wrong. Women's or women's. Anyway. So now they're like, oh, you got to do the woman's right. So now I'm thinking,

bowl, not boat, women's, not women's, not women. And now I'm just like, in my mind, I'm like, oh, I got to remember this. Not to mention, now I got like the camera guy messing around with me. I got Michael Cole throwing pencils at me while I'm trying to do it. Okay. I'm doing a wildline right at the bell table, like after the match is over, why they're in a commercial break or something. So I'm speaking into a microphone, right, that I know is it going to go over the loudspeakers, but it's going to go right to the truck so the truck can hear it. So when I'm speaking into the mic

and nothing here is you get the fans in the front row saying, your mic's not on, idiot, you know? And I'm like, I know it's not on. It's not supposed to be on, you know? And that was just a total debacle. And Mark Yates and the timekeeper, just do it again. No, it's not right. Do it again. So I don't know.

I know there's people at work that have that on their listening device or phone. and they say every time they're playing their music every once in a while, the gravy boat match pops up on their phone. So you had the advantage on SmackDown of being pre-taped for so long, so you could do Wildlandt. Right, which in my mind and a lot of other people's mind, the tape show is the crowd is not the good one.

Because you want it so much, once you do it live, there's that's what it is that's done you know if you're doing it taped they can nitpick every little thing that you're doing or whatever they're doing i can't tell you how many times they would they would have a finish to a match or something and it didn't go right and then when they got backstage they would throw their guys back out and do a little you know one or two minute match and do the finish right so they can piece that together and it was just like you know if you did that's why rock always wants to do his is uh his interviews and promo is live because it's one take it is what it is and if you're going to stumble a little bit

you can always work your way out of it i mean not everyone speaks perfectly all the time you know so it's more you know it's not overproduced it is what it is what would you say was the biggest mistake that did make it to air was live that i made yeah or anybody made i mean i don't i don't i don't i don't I don't want to two my own horn, but I really didn't make too many messups. I mean. All right. Two, too. I like it.

But, no, well, there was some, there was one when I was introduced. It was a hand cue, so it wasn't a match. And Trist Stratus was walking down the ramp. And I was just supposed to introduce her. And Mark Yang points to me. And I'm like, making her way to the ring. And I'm like, oh, God, what? her name. I just like had a brain freeze and I'm like, what the hell is her name? And I'm thinking,

it's not Stacey Keebler. What the hell is her name? What is her name? And I just clicked in me. I'm like, Trish Stratis, you know, so I get, I come back out and I sit at the, I sit at the bell table and Mark is like, what did you do? Forget her name? And I said, yes, tell them in the truck. That is exactly what I did. I forgot her name. And what can you do? I mean, you know, Nobody's perfect. Not even a chimie-o. I love how on Twitter recently you've been thanking someone every single day. What is the, what's the thought process behind this?

Well, people that know me know that I can be a bit of a douche sometimes. So when I got back on Twitter, when I first came out and I got on. Twitter, you know, I didn't want to get on it because people say stupid stuff on there and you get in trouble and I was just like, I am washing my hands at this whole social media gaga, you know, and I just don't want to do any of that because I'm going to say something on there's stupid and it's going to end up costing me my job or something like that. So then when I got let go and I'm trying to promote Tony Chimel for whatever that's worth, I'm getting on Twitter and I was just talking to people and some people are like, you know, Chimel, you can't be Chimel on social media.

And I'm like, really? They're like, no, you can't. You know, you can't, you know. And so I was like, well, what am I going to do, you know? If I can't really be what I want to be, what can I do? And I said, you know, I can thank people. There's a lot of people that I can thank, a lot of people that everybody can thank for what what's happened to me, the great things that I've had and the great job that I've had and the great

friendships that I've made and all that. And so I just figured I'd start, I would just start, you know, thanking people and being a little bit appreciative of the things that I've got. And, you know, that is me because I am appreciative of that and all the people that have helped me in the great relationships I've had and stuff like that, you know, so, you know. You like tag people? You specifically? say what you're thankful for? Look, I love gratitude. As you can see behind me here, be great,

be grateful. I practice gratitude all the time. So the fact that I saw that and I was like, you're shouting, like, recognizing people and thanking them publicly. It's amazing. Sometimes I don't know. Sometimes whoever I'm thanking, I don't know what their Twitter handle is or whatever you call it. And, you know, I just, I don't know.

I want them to see it, but I don't know everyone's Twitter handle. I sometimes look it up. or find it or I you know I can figure it out or something like that but it's it's nice you know it's really nice this story that you told recently about the greatest bet ever you and jonathan coachman is yeah it's just it is phenomenal yeah well how did this so how did this all come together with coach okay so back in the day, I didn't, this was before, I was, I was doing the ring crew and I was announcing, I think, Smackdown or something. And so during the Raw show, I would just hang out in the pre-tapes room and, you know, we would sit and watch Raw.

And it'd be like me, this was Cole before he was doing Raw and coach. And we would just be sitting out there. and I told coach, you know, I said, hey, coach, you know, I started working out and running on the treadmill and stuff like that. And he said, well, how much are you running? And I said, well, I don't know. I'm doing like a 10 minute mile or something like that. He's like, 10 minute mile. That sucks.

You know, and he starts getting on my case, you know, and doing that. And so we kept on going back and forth, back and forth. And he was like, you know, he's like, I could beat you by 30 seconds in a race, you know. And Cole got into it. And he's like, well, you know, we're doing a TV in a couple months in state college, Pennsylvania. And right outside of the arena, there's their track there. You know, you guys can have a race and bet, you know. So the bet was a coach would have to beat me by 30 seconds.

We could start at the same time or I would get a 30 seconds. second head start whatever I wanted, but he would have to beat me by 30 seconds. So I was I was actually starting to train and and practice and get in shape and stuff like that. And coach really wasn't doing much of anything. And you're training with Shane, right? Well, no, not necessarily, but there was somebody a secret, a secret promoter that was helping me and giving me some advice and bought me some new sneakers running shoes as well, which I don't know if it was Shane or not. It could be.

It might have been, but I don't know that to be true. But anyway, so I'm training for this race and getting advice from somebody whose last name may have been McMahon. And coach is doing this. So we have this press conference for the race coming up. you know, backstage. This is all why, like, you know, work is going on at TV. So we had this press conference and, you know, I said, well, I'm training, you know,

and I'm trying to do my best and I've been cutting down my time and I'm working out and I'm eating better and this and that and, you know, just hoping I can, you know, have a good race and stuff like that. And then coach gets up there and he starts blabbing his mouth and saying this and saying that. And he's like 30 seconds. I'll beat him by a minute. And the Rock was at the press conference, and the Rock is like, well, why don't you put your money where your mouth is?

Make it a one minute bet. Be it by one minute. So Rock called Coach out on that. And coach, he's like, okay, it's a minute, you know? So now he had to beat me by a minute. Wow. You know? So the day of the race comes.

And mostly everybody in the company wanted Coach to win. There's only a few people like Kyoto, maybe the person that bought me to sneakers wanted me to win. You know, Mark Yaten, I think, wanted me to win. But there wasn't a whole lot of people that wanted me to win. So we're setting up at State College there, and now we're ready to do the race. And they bring out, like, camera guys, I mean, with cameras. Cole was doing the commentary with the Rock and Kevin Kelly. They were doing commentary on this thing.

on a race between Choney Chimel and Jonathan Coachman. Yeah. And I don't know where the tape is of this, but it's probably worth some money, whoever's got it now. But so I decided to start the race at the same time with coach. And I was down to like a seven-minute mile at this point.

Wow. And I'm like, geez, if he can run a six- minute mile he's going to have to run a six minute mile if he can run a six minute mile god bless him you know yeah that's fast so we by the way the girl's track team was out on the track and when we went down there people were explaining to what was going on hey can we just have this track for like 10 minutes we want to do this race it's a big belt the girls track team is like yeah go ahead use the use the facilities so uh they did they did that and we started the race and we go around the first lap and coach is about maybe 20 feet ahead of me, 30 feet ahead of me. And Bruce is timing

us on the first lap and we go around. It's like a minute 25. And so now we're going around the second lap and coach is still just a little bit ahead of me, you know, and I'm like, well, he's going to have to start opening up. We go around the third time and he's still like, you know, just, you know, 20 or 30 feet ahead of me. And I'm like, geez, this is a fourth lap, you know, he's going to have to start opening it up. I'm like, I feel. feel pretty good, you know? So we're coming around, coming around. And now we're like around that stretch of the race. And I'm like, I feel good. I'm going to start kicking it. So I start running, running, running. And he gets, coach got to the finish line. He ran a six minute,

35 second race. I ran a six minute 36 race. So he beat me by a second. He beat me by a second, but I won the bet. Wow. And the bet was that. So the bet was. So the bet was, Because now that I, if I lost, I would have had to do a pushup every time he said, give me a pushup, and I don't have to say I am a fat piece of shit. But I won. So coach owed me 100 pushups whenever I said, give me a pushup. And he had to say, I am Tony Chimbles bitch. So every time he did a pushup, he had to say, I am Tony Chimmell's bitch.

So, of course, he did want the finish line right there. And then I had a victory lap with me, Keota, and Shane McMahon in the golf cart. There was a golf cart. And we did a victory lap around the track. And you had 100 push-ups in your back pocket that you could pull out at any point in time. That's correct. Now, we did have one thing that you couldn't use him. Like, if he's doing a middle of an interview on Raw or Smackdown, I couldn't say, hey, give me a push-up, you know, or something like that.

Or if I'm in the middle of announcing, you couldn't say, give me a push-up. there. But so the next day in state college, we did the show in state college. The next day we're doing Smackdown in Pittsburgh. And I happened to go to the production meetings then. And Vince, and we're all there in a production meeting. And Vince says, Chimel, I heard you won the big race yesterday. And I'm like, yeah, I did.

He's like, any chance you can have coach come up here and do a push up on the table in front of me? And I said, yeah. I said, coach, get your ass up there and do a pushup in front of the boss. So he does a push up and says, I am Tony Chimmel's bitch. And Vince was loving that. So then during the show, and this is when they had the show tape, you know, they're in between tape and the shows and stuff. And Mark Yates and timekeepers like Chimel,

they want you to call coach out and make him do a pushup in the middle of the ring. And I'm like, I can't do that. We're at work. We made a thing that we couldn't do it, you know? And he's like, Jim, well, they're on headset. They want you to do this. You know, I said, I can't. We made a thing that we weren't going to do it while we're in the middle of work and stuff.

So the next thing I know, Michael Cole comes down the ramp, gets in the middle of the ring, and he starts explaining the race. And the whole thing that happened the day before, okay, in front of like 15, 20,000 people in Pittsburgh. and he calls me in the ring and then he calls coach out and then I made coach do a pushup. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty good. Oh, my God.

So he did with the microphone there. Do you have any pushups left in your bank, you know, if you ran into Jonathan Coach. I did tell him. I told him that I had the last two pushups said he owed me. And he was a great sport throughout him all, all the whole ones. The last two I told him, I'm going to save for when you're in the last. a delivery room and your wife is delivering your first baby. And the other one is when you're standing at the altar waiting to get married. But I told him, I said, you know what, you did 98.

That's good enough for me. We're done with it. You're good to go. Did you like have a tally and you were like crossing them off as you went? Oh, believe me. Coach or coach had the tally. He would know how many he had to do. So the one day, I come back off the road and, you know, I get a phone call and I'm like, hello? And she's like, Tony, this is Sue Aitchinson from the office. And I'm like, yeah, how you doing? She's like, we're here doing an event at the Pentagon with Hunter and coaches here.

And Hunter wants to know if you can make coach do a pushup at the Pentagon in front of all the service people. everything. And I'm like, sure, I'll do that. She's like, okay, just stay by your phone. I'll call you back when the time is right. So she calls me back when the time is right. And I'm like, she's like, all right, tell coach you do a push-up. And I'm like, coach, get down and give me a push-up right now. And I can hear it like in the loudspeaker in the back. Oh, my God. So he got down and gave me a push-up at the Pentagon. That is amazing. This truly is the greatest bet of all time. Yeah, it was. And it's so much more than money. I mean, you lose 100 bucks or 20 bucks and

boom, it's done. But yeah, this just goes on forever. I mean, I made him do one on the plane when we were all flying together, you know, he did one one time. I called him up. I said, what are you doing, coach? He's like, oh, nothing. I'm just in a limo here with JR. We're going to do an XFL football game. It's like snowing outside. And I said, oh, it is. I said, well, tell a limo driver to stop. Get out and give me a pushup. And I said, be loud about it because I want to hear what you're saying. You know? So they had to stop the limo.

He got out on the side of the road into snow and had to do a pushup and say, I have my gosh. Wow. So what was the time frame between pushup number one and the final pushup number 98? Oh, God. I don't know. It might have been, I don't know, five years. Five years.

I don't know. That is amazing. Wow. And you could just have to do one at a time. So it wasn't like, oh, he had to do 10, you know. With stories like that, do you miss working in wrestling? Not specifically WWE, but do you miss working in wrestling? Yeah, there's some good, just like any other job, there's things I miss, things I don't miss.

I mean, the people that I got to know. And I mean, a lot of the people there have been there for a long time. You think I'm there. I'm there 38 years. But, I mean, there's tons of people there that are there 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, you know. There'd be people coming into the production office or something when I'm working there. I'm like, who are you? And he'd be like, oh, blah, blah, blah.

I've been here for like four years. And I'd be like, yeah, you're new. That's why I don't know your name. You're only here four years. you know but if you're there four or five years you're the new guy you know these the people that have been there have been there for a long time all the camera guys a lot of the audio guys i mean you know you'll have people changing in it out every once in a while but you know a lot of people have been there for a long period of time would you want to ring it out somewhere like i think you'd be

a great fit at somewhere like impact wrestling i don't know i i definitely don't want to travel you know, 20 days a month. Yeah. If anyone ever wants to, wants to ask me, I'm willing to talk to anybody, you can go to booktonychimmel.com. Send me an email. Booktonychimel.com. Send me an email.

So your website's booktonychimel.com? My email is booktonychimel.com. Book Tonychimel at gmail.com, right? That's correct. Yes. Want to make sure we're getting this right for everybody. So it's. Yes.

Book there. I'm looking at your Twitter right now. It's book Tony Chimel at gmail.com. And what kind of bookings are you taking? Autograph signings. Like you said, I do the, I do weddings if you want me to do a wedding. Guest ring announcing? Like you'd be in an independent wrestling show.

If they wanted me to, I'm willing to talk, you know. So if anything they want to do, you know, I'm all for it, you know. I'm willing to talk to anybody. Granted, I got a job, but, you know, I don't work seven days a week. Yeah, how understanding is your job if you were like, sorry, I got to fly to Dallas for a booking next week? Well, I only work this job. I was talking to my boss when, you know, I was like, you know, one of the great things about working at Trader Joe's, it's like an eight-hour job. And I was explaining to our bosses there.

I'm like, you don't understand. It's eight hours a day. like, you know, I would walk into an arena at 7 o'clock in the morning and not walk out until midnight. Yeah. You know? And they're like, what? Really?

Like, yeah. And then you'd get on a bus and by the time you unwind and have a glass of wine or something, it's 1 o'clock in the morning and you'd get five or six hours of sleep and get up and do it all over again the next day and then fly home, you know? So you'd be on a bus. I'd sleep on a bus from like one or two o'clock in the morning until six, go. in the arena shower and then get ready. Do my day at 7 o'clock.

Do it until 11 o'clock or so on a Tuesday. And then go to the hotel, go to bed at midnight, and wake up at 3 o'clock for a 5 o'clock flight back home. So you're basically saying you're really happy you have 40 hours a week for your job now. Yeah. And it's nice, you know. I mean, but like I said, now I don't get the airline. that I used to get.

I don't get the hotel points that I used to get. You know, so there's a tradeoff. There's good and bad to everything. Do you get a discount of Trader Joe's, though? Possibly. That's pretty good. Yeah. It's just for me, though.

Just for me and or wives. All right. So book Tony Chimel at gmail.com is where people can find you for any bookings. You're available for any booking. Yeah. Yeah. What advice would you have for an up-and-coming ring announcer? Well, my first advice would be, if you're going to be a ring announcer,

try to get involved in something else other than ring announcing because they love when somebody can do something else. And I get these, see, I didn't grow up in the age where these kids go to college and they learn communications and they do all this other stuff and how to do that. and that's basically their career. I grew up with somebody saying, here's a microphone, and now it's this guy,

and you just kind of figured it out and went along the way. And I grew into the job as the job grew. Yeah. And did it like that. But, you know, a lot of guys, I'm sure like you, probably went to school to learn how to work all this stuff. Yeah, the communication studies degree.

Exactly. Yeah. There you go. I mean, I went to ring tech, you know. So, I mean, I don't know. WW University. There you go.

So I mean, you know, it's, I would try to, but, you know, the guys these days, I don't, you know, I don't even know. It's like, what are you going to do? They don't really do that way, you know, if you're an audio guy and a ring announcer, mostly they just hire ring announcers because now they're doing backstage interviews and stuff like that. I never really did that. I mean, basically when you see a backstage interview, I don't know if it's changed in the last couple years. I really haven't watched much, but, you know, they would say, well, what do you

think, Randy Orton about the next match and just they say, ladies and gentlemen, my guest at this time is Randy Orton. That's really, yeah. And then he just, you hold the mic and he cuts a promo. I mean, I think they call it the glorified, are the, yeah, the glorified mic stand. Yeah, there you go. So, you know, so, so you're saying the first piece of advice is do something else. Make yourself well irreplaceable right if you can try to do that and another important thing is you're not more important than the talent that you're announcing so when you're making your announcements put over the talent not yourself you know and that to me is important you know and do that type of stuff and all these kids now are on all this social media stuff and all that I don't know I never got it I don't

I don't really understand it. I mean, I know it's the way of the world and I'm a dinosaur and I'm trying to learn as much as I can about it. But I just don't get a lot of it and people get in so much trouble with that stuff. It's like, I don't know. I didn't grow up with a cell phone in my hand. So I don't know. I didn't have a cell phone until I was probably 30 years old or something, maybe even older. But, you know, just try to don't be.

your own worst enemy, you know? And a lot of people are on this whole social media stuff. So don't be your own worst enemy. Try and do as much as you can, be willing to do as much as you can and put the talent over and not yourself, you know. And this is still what you're doing. Like, you want to work as much as you can work. And I love this. You have an insane work ethic. Well, I'm, I'm only 60. I mean, so. I love that, only 60. A lot of 60, year olds are going, geez, I'm 60. Yeah, my dad retired at 62. I feel it after, I feel it after being on.

See, that was the thing that I had to get used to at Trader Joe. So when I was in WW, I'd walk a lot and be on my feet and it'd be a long day. But there was a lot of times where I was sitting behind a desk for a couple hours, you know, or doing stuff like some downtime and sitting down. And you talk to some people, they're like, that's all you did, Jim, always sit all day, you know? but at Trader Joe's, I told him, I said the hardest part is being on my feet all day for the eight hours because that's pretty much I'm on my feet the whole time. And it took a couple months to get used to that.

And my feet still hurt when I get home. But, you know, I'm used to it. And, you know, hopefully I never want to really stop working, working. Believe me, during this whole pandemic guy, I was sitting on a couch for eight hours. And, you know, that wasn't. a lot of fun. That's why I'm available from five in the morning until 12 midnight. Book Tonychimil.com. Our book, Tonychimel at gmail.com. There we go. Yeah. All right. I have just two final questions for you. And I've thoroughly enjoyed this,

Tony. This has been such a delight talking to you and picking your brain about all this. We talked about gratitude earlier. And I start an end every day saying out loud three things that I'm grateful for. What are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? Well, I'm grateful for my wife. She stood by me, Dawn, through all this, dog. And how long have you been married for? We were married in 89. So, 33 years.

Dawn, how many years have we been married? She opened a door. She'll be 33 years. Hi, Dawn. Yeah, Chris says hello. But, yeah, she's sucked up a lot of shit. A lot of shit. And, you know, I wouldn't be anywhere without her.

That's why when I was doing my thank yous, I thanked her first because she deserves it, you know. Sure. She's been there by me all the time. And I remember once, I'm starting to get choked up a little bit, but I remember once I was coming off. She was like working a side job. She wasn't working to inherit this point because the kids were small. but I was home and I was supposed to be home for like a day or two and she was doing Mary Kay, you know, the cosmetic stuff and she had some party that she was planning or eating dinner

at the dinner table and one of my bosses called me and said, hey, Vince wants to do some TV commercial up at Connecticut. We need you to get the ring truck and bring it up here to Connecticut like right then at the dinner table. And she had to cancel her party, do all that stuff because my work called and those are the type of sacrifices that wives and significant others make. So, yeah, I'm really grateful for her. And my kids, my three kids, Jessica, Jordan, and Joey, they grew up with the dad who, you know, believe me, I was hands on and try to do as much as I can. But there's a difference between being home every day at five o'clock and, you know,

going over their homework or talking to them on the phone. and I would always check on the computer and stuff like that. But, you know, that's a big sacrifice for them to make, too. Yeah. You know. All right. So we got your wife. We got your kids.

What's number three? Grandson, little Liam, who's the best. Man. This kid will, he will try anything. And I mean anything. This kid, he loves wrestling. He loves baseball. He loves to sing.

He loves to dance. He's so well-rounded. It's unbelievable. And he does like anything. And he'll try in foods. He tries anything. He came down here on vacation. I'm like, Liam, you want to go when we go to eat, we're going to get some alligator.

You want to try alligator bites? He's like, yeah, I'll try it. You know, and he tries anything. He likes something. He likes some things and something he doesn't. But he's so well-rounded and he's so, he's, he's, He's a very good kid. And, you know, he's a blessing.

And, you know, I had to grow into the whole, you're going to be a grandfather at 52, you know. And, you know, my wife was like, when I first found out my son and his girlfriend were going to have a baby, I would, you know, a bunch of different emotions. But after about four or five months, Dawn is telling me, you know, you're going to have to tell the people at work that this is going to happen. You can't stop it from happening, you know. Yeah. And I'm glad I wasn't able to. And then I started telling people at work. And of course, you're going to be a grandfather, Chimel, you know, and this and that.

But you know what? He's such a blessing and such a good kid. And he's the best. So he's eight years old? There's many things that I'm grateful for. But those three, obviously my parents, I have a great sister, you know, great family around me and always had great family. So that to me is a big thing. So I did the math there.

Liam's eight years old. Yes. Great. Love it. I already mentioned the kids. He's thinking insane. And your kids, yes. I'm grateful for my wife.

They were number two. Yes. Kids were number two. After you, Dom. Yeah. Finally. Can we wrap this up with your best announcement? I'm guessing that might be the

rated our superstar edge, but can you give us some vintage Tony Chimel? Yeah, I'll do it. Do you want the rated R superstar? I think that's the one we got to go with, right? All right. Let me get a drink of water here. Okay. Got to prepare for this.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 11-time world champion WWE Hall of Famer, the rated R. Superstar Edge. Incredible. I think I just woke up the entire neighborhood. Come here, to talk you. Tony, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much.

I've just, I've enjoyed this so much. Well, thank you. It was fun. And everyone can reach out to you at book Tony Chimel at gmail.com. They can get your chimios. And we're going to be seeing you. the big event in New York, that's just a few weeks away now. Yeah, March 5th.

Yep, there we'll be there. I'll be signing autographs. I can get a picture with me. I can do an announcement for them if they want. And I can do some private signings of baseball cards or stuff like that if they want as well. So I'm looking forward to that. I've never been at one of these. So don't know what to expect, but I'm sure it'll be exciting.

Well, this is your first of many. I can promise you that. All right, well, I hope so. Tony, thank you so much. Thank you, Chris. Oh, man, what an intro. He is just so, so good at that. I don't know about you,

but I miss hearing his voice on SmackDown. As we mentioned, Tony is doing chimios. You can find him on Cameo for any shoutout that you might want. You can also find him on Twitter at the Tony Chimble and share this with a friend who you know would love this. Take a screenshot, tag us both at the Tony Chimmel at Chris Van Vleet. And if you want to book Tony Chimel for your next event, your next autograph signing, for your next wedding. Who knows?

Shoot them an email, book Tonychimmel at gmail.com. And I'll leave you with this great quote from Louis Giglio, who says, you don't have to know everything about the mountain in front of you to take the next step. Be great. Be grateful. We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do.

With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it. Get up in here.

Tim Rome show podcast. What should be? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.