Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Tom Phillips Is Making An IMPACT After Being Released From WWE

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

Tom Hannifan (@tomhannifan) is a play-by-play broadcaster and TV host best known for his time in WWE where he worked under the name Tom Phillips. He is currently signed to Impact Wrestling as their main commentator with D-Lo Brown. Tom joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his time working for WWE, what his plans are now as a sport broadcaster, the pressures of calling matches on live TV, what he learned working with Michael Cole, making his Impact debut at Hard To Kill and more! 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 going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Blaine! Well, hey, how's everything going with you? Welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. Thank you for being with us on this one as we talk to the silky, smooth voice of Tom Hannafin, who you'll know better by his WWE name, Tom Phillips. And I think I speak for a lot of people.

When I say it was really surprising that he was released for. from WWE last year. I mean, he is so good at what he does. And congrats to him, by the way, with his new job as the lead play-by-play announcer for Impact Wrestling. Give him a follow on social media. It's under his real name, Tom Hannafin.

I'm also under my real name, Chris Van Fleet. And if it's your first time here, please take a second to click subscribe or follow wherever you're listening to the pod right now. Our fan of the week is Jason Diaz. he says, awesome show. I love how it just feels like a conversation. Even being superstars, sometimes larger than life personas,

they just feel like they're speaking with a friend. Doing a great job, Chris, and I wish you many years of success and happiness. Well, thank you for that, Jason. Thank you for leaving a review. I read one on every single episode. So please help us spread the positivity. Help us spread the word by leaving a few words or just a few emojis on Apple Podcasts. CastBox also takes reviews.

And Spotify now has ratings. So if you're listening on Spotify, please go in there, click the five stars. It will take you approximately one second to do that. All right, let's dive into this. Such a great conversation. Please welcome Tom Hannafin. Tom, I recently found out that we share the same birthday.

No. Yes. Wow. So it's you, me. Andre the Giant and Malachi Black, if I'm not mistaken. May 19. Yeah. Wow.

I did not know that. We are kindred spirits. So I'm 89. Well, you're you. I'm 83. God, you look so much younger than me. That is not true. You are so handsome.

It's really annoying. It's just great lighting, but I appreciate that. Listen to your silky, smooth pipes. This just sounds so good. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. It's the microphone. Yeah, that's just the microphone.

Yeah. And I think that a lot of people were surprised when they heard you on Impact at Hard to Kill. But it was like, this just goes to show how talented you are. You just like you went right into it. And it's like you had always been there at Impact Wrestling. Well, it's nice to you to say. Yeah, I think because I was kind of off the grid there for about six months. And that was by design, I was, you know, I was talking to Renee about it.

And it's like the amount of content that you have to be up to speed on every single week in WW. It's like six regular weekly shows that you have to watch every single week and not to mention the travel, the grind of it. It's a lot. So once I was released, I was like, oh, I don't have to watch all this stuff. It was, you know, elective if I felt like it and I happened. But at the same time, it was just the opportunity to be like, oh, I don't have to do all this. I don't have to spend all this time doing this. So it gave me a second to breathe and step away from wrestling and then also realize it was like, it's this.

This is a passion of mine. And I spent a lot of time working really hard at it. So I'm like, all right, I still want to be in this. Yeah, well, you were the constant in WWE for almost nine years. And I think what was so good about your style is you fit right in on Raw, Smackdown, 205 Live, NXT, like, and we didn't even really notice, oh, yeah, Tom doesn't normally call this show. Yeah. And, dude, one of the best experiences I had was NXT, UK, which is criminally underrated as a product on the air. and just having a brief opportunity to be over there,

working in the United Kingdom with the extraordinarily talented group of people that they have there. Everybody on that show wants to be there. And that was an opportunity for me where I was the end of 2019. I've been taken off Smackdown, so it was like 205 Live in NXT UK for a while. And then the Rumble in 2020, I came back on Raw. So it was this really brief window that I got to enjoy it.

But yeah, man, I just pride of myself, as I mentioned, on staying up to date on everything because at one point or another, I had to cover everything. So, you're up to date on all the WWE shows. I can't imagine there's time to watch anything else, let alone another wrestling program. So you go to Impact Wrestling. You're familiar with a lot of the people there

because they're your former colleagues. They have different names now. Perhaps their moves have different names as well. It was like you had always been there, though. So like, how much research did you have to do? How much prep did you have to do to make this seem so seamless? It was kind of 50-50 because I was legit. I legitimately a fan.

I legitimately grew up a big fan of the Motor City Machine Guns, Samoa Joe. I love the X Division. I remember now Nick Aldous, but Magnus's entire World Title run and just being like, oh, this is a really fun heel run, Rockstar Spud, who I now got to work with in WWE. James Curtin is a good friend. So it was just all these experiences where I'd seen this show for years. Like when I was talking about Rosemary in the Ultimate X match, I remember the origins of decay and Abyss and Crazy Steve.

And Abyss is another friend of mine. So I was just like, yeah, I think I'll shout out Abyss. I think I talked about Abyss three times on the paper view, which it has got to be a record. So it's just fun, man. I got a lot of people tweeting at me. It's like, oh, you must have been fed stuff. I'm like, no, I put in a lot of work on this.

And there were some things, because this is the 20-year anniversary of the company. I understood the gravity of, okay, the triple threat for the impact world title. It had been 15 years since that title was introduced, and it happened to be in a triple-threat match. So it's like, well, that's convenient storytelling. You can just weave this in. And this company exists for a commentator in wrestling nirvana. I can talk about anybody and anything. It's really cool. So I think we've all heard the stories that Vince is in every commentator's year in WWE. So who's in your ear and impact? I'll get fed the occasional, I mean, granted, I've worked one taping at this point in the pay-per-view. So I'll get fed the occasional note from

like the match producer, if there's something. important like, hey, look out for this or this is a thing to put over in particular. My executive producer is Josh Matthews, which if you had told me that, you know, a handful of years ago, I've been like, what? It's pretty wild because he and I crossed paths briefly in WWE and I was just getting started and his time there was coming to an end. So it's just kind of wild how you just keep running into the same people, but it made it really easy for me to transition. It's like, you know, a quarterback going from one system to another, and it's the same playbook. I was like, oh, yeah, I know exactly what he's aiming for.

So it made it seem like. Josh was the voice of impact for so long. So he very much knows what the tone is there. And the story that you guys are trying to tell on commentary. Yeah, it was really easy. And just he's trying to execute a product that I'm familiar with. And at the same time, the vibe that I got, you know, just from the talent, setting, the way the show was executed, it felt like an XT, Circa,

2014 to 16, something like that. You know, it was kind of this unpredictable world where anything can happen to anybody can kind of show up. You know, Charlie Haas showed up. I was like, lots of lay, mind blown. And I just saw the promotion for when we're doing Fort Lauderdale this coming weekend. Jay White's going to be there. GOD is going to be there.

So I was like, this is really neat, man. So it's just, it's just different. I think a lot of people want to compare things. And it really can just be apples to oranges. But it's different, but it's been so much. much fun so far. I think that for most of your professional career, you've been Tom Phillips, who's just kind of a made-up stage name. So you're starting to figure out who you actually are as a wrestling broadcaster, but just as a broadcaster at large. So if we take this back, Tom,

how did wrestling find you? Yeah, I've told this story before, but right when I graduated from Penn State, I was trying to get a job like anybody in broadcast journalism. So, I was applying everywhere. And there was a job lead that came over a website, STAA talent, STAA Talent.com, highly recommended for any college students because it just has great job leads. And one of them was WWE.

And I did like a double take. I was like, it's a billion-dollar company. This is surprising just based on what the other leads were on the website. So I was like, all right, you know, give it a shot.

I was a fan of wrestling as a kid. As I mentioned, I had been watching TNA, obviously sporadically, but then I was also watching Monday Night Raw. I was watching Nitro. So I was not like a diehard fan by any means. I will

be very honest about that. I played the video game. The video games Nintendo 64. I had WWF No Mercy. I still own that. I still play that every once a while. One of the best wrestling games of all time. Great game. Great game. And then WCW

versus NWO revenge on N64. So I was like loosely into it. I think like a lot of people I went to high school and college, lost it, came back to it. And I came back to it by joining the freaking company. So it was just insane. I still am thinking about how I got so lucky to get hired there at 23 and everything I learned, everybody I interacted with. It's just, I don't understand it sometimes. When you were in college, what was the dream? Like when you looked big picture, who did you want to model your career

after? The dream was to get to someplace like an ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, you know, to be on one of those major networks. I think at the time I remember when Sports Center was taped, you know, way back when when we were kids and I would just watch that on a loop and I would be just so entertained by the different anchors and such. So I love doing play by play, but I'm able to do a lot of different things thanks to what WWE taught me. So there's a number of different guys that I can point too, but I always just saw myself as like, oh, I'd love to be calling, you know, the NFL, college football, the NBA, college basketball. Like, those were my passions growing up.

And that's just kind of at 12 years old, I was just like, oh, I'm going to do that now. And it's just, gosh, the bravado and the naivity of that to just be like, yeah, I think I want to do that. And God bless my parents are being like, go do it. Now, but this blind faith, I mean, I think that's where a lot of people, a lot of people in broadcasting get by and going, well, there's not a lot of jobs. out there. But I have what it takes to make it. And that's kind of what my story was too. Yeah. A lot of times, and you know what it is, it's persistence and being stubborn. I remember

right when I'd graduated this before I'd gotten even the audition with WWE, things were tough. I was working at a restaurant. I was not making a lot of money. I was calling games for a division three men's women's basketball team making 50 bucks a game. You know, I was like, I don't know how long I can do this for financially. It was Juniatic. college in Huntington, Pennsylvania, it's about 35 miles south of Penn State. So I was like, I don't know how much longer I can do this. And my late grandfather at the time of me, out of love, said to me, you know, if you thought about going back to school, maybe trying a different, you know, different major, getting a new degree. And he wasn't trying to say that to be like,

oh, you failed. He was saying it out of concern, you know, maybe something different for you. And for some reason, that was definitely something in me that just kind of, I was like, no, I'm going to do this. Like if you tell me that I can't go and accomplish something, it just frustrates me more. It ticks me off, frankly. Then I'm like, I'm just going to go pursue that goal anyway. So I'm grateful I've had moments like that throughout my career. So I'm really curious about like, so WW, you reach out to WWE or you apply. They get back to you. What are they, what materials are they looking at of yours? They did not want to see any conventional play by That was the edict.

And granted, now Michael Cole, people understand this has been in charge of the announced team for a number of years. This predated that. So I was speaking with the production team in Stanford. So they were like, don't send basketball or football, play by play or anything like that. So I just recorded with a friend, a two-minute video of me just kind of pitching myself. I wrote a script and then I had to put a little B-roll over top of it of me calling some stuff for Big Ten Network student you just to show like, I've had some chops. Look at me or whatever.

And I got very fortunate. The secretary of the gentleman in charge had found my disc and was like going through. It was a CD at the time. You remember that? I had found my audition or my application and showed it to her boss and was like, hey, you should take a look at this. So she and I still stay in contact. I'm very grateful for her.

But yeah, it's just kind of, that was in June 2012 that I did the audition with Josh Matthews, ironically. And do they bring you into Stanford for this? Yeah, it went up to Stanford. It was with Josh called a couple of matches. You've probably heard Renee and a bunch of other broadcasters talk about. They hand you like a broom and it's like, hey, sell me this object. You can actually see it on YouTube.

Renee is selling like a battery pack. And they give it to and they go, you've got 30 seconds make a pitch. I was handed the same thing. I was like, that was probably terrible. I felt really good about the play-by-play stuff. but that was like not my strong suit. And that is something that it's broadcasting 101. You have a 30 second hit.

You have 60 seconds, whatever, and you have to make this interesting and compelling and deliver information. So I learned all that at WWE. But at the time, I was 23-year-old kid who was like, I don't know what to do. So that was tough. I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent here. But what's so interesting about working in broadcasting for so long is now you have a really great idea of what 30 seconds, 15,

seconds and 60 seconds looks like. Yeah, it's like when I hear, oh, I've got 10 seconds. I'm like, God, that's an eternity. Like it, you know what I mean? That feels like. Ten seconds is like half a sentence, which I don't know if everybody realizes. Yeah. And it's just, it took me a long time. And again, I learned so much from Michael Cole. And I really respect his style because he is largely a minimalist. You know, he doesn't, he doesn't say gigantic, you know, artistic phrases or anything like that. he's not trying to write a poem or anything. He's delivering information when it has to be delivered quickly and succinctly. So that comes back to that same mentality.

So honestly, when I'm told in my ear, oh, you have 10 seconds, I'm like, that's not bad. That's a nice runway. I'm really happy about that. So, but that's, again, nine years of doing that every single week on live global television, you kind of get used to it. So when you originally got hired, what did they tell you that you were being hired for? I was being hired predominantly to start in Stanford, working in the studio, was on a show called Bottom Line.

I think that probably is still in existence. I don't know, but the way it was described to me is that it's an international wraparound show, basically. They put it in markets. Like, you'll never see it in the United States. It aired in Canada a bunch. Probably still is on the air. But it was just kind of a recap of the big events that week on Raw or Smackdown.

So I was doing that for a while. And I was with Renee. And Renee, again, taught me how to work in a studio. how to work with a prompter and work from prompter to off script. And there were just so many things. It was baby steps. And then slowly after that, again, NXT at 2012, 2013 was morphing from the game show into, I don't even know what to furtough it anymore, but what Triple H envisioned it for at that point.

So I was getting an opportunity to go down, do backstage interviews, and then maybe call a few matches here and there and do some play-by-play. So it was very incremental. When did you feel like you had been? given like a big opportunity. Like when did you feel like you were being thrown to the wolves sink or swim? Big opportunity. I would say the first time I got called up to Smackdown and I was like, in retrospect,

I had no clue what I was doing. I had no idea what I was in for because all I was thinking was like, oh, you just called a match. And it was like, no. There's so many other layers to this. And thankfully, the powers of be gave me a lot of opportunities to fail and to learn and to grow for years. And I think that's something that people in any walk of life, they look at success as, oh, it's just going to go straight up.

And it's like, no, you need to fail. You need to learn something and mature and get better from that. And it took me a while to learn those lessons. But I'd like to think that I had a great deal of success in WW. Do you have one moment where you're like, I can't believe I said this, did this like one real, like live gaffe? Yes. There have been a bunch. The one that's just funniest to me, I can't even remember when it was.

I think it was a Samoa Joe match. I can't remember who he was wrestling. It was like me, Graves and probably Byron, because we were all three of us tied at the hip for so many years. And I got tongue tied, and I invented the calf bone to which Graves was right on top of me. It was like, that's not a thing, Phillips. It's a shin. And my head just bounced off the desk. I was like, yep, I'll see myself out.

So many of those opportunities were like, I'm fired. I'm fired. I'm fired. I think that unfortunately a lot of people don't appreciate or understand that this is a television program. I think that they look at it like, this is a wrestling show. Yes, it's a wrestling show, but it's also a live weekly television program every single week. And I don't know if everybody really can figure that out. Yeah, you always hear internally, it's like, hey, we're making movies.

That's what WWE prides himself on is. It's an entertainment company. So so much of what they're trying to do, they're trying to make a live movie, basically. They're trying to get the star in the right position and blocking has got to be perfect. How do you get all the camera angles? They want it to look as polished as humanly possible. So then on top of that, commentary has to be on point with every little incremental step in the show. And that's a real challenge.

And I've talked about it before is that it's live narration. And it's, I always think of it as like, imagine you're doing a scripted TV show, any scripted TV show. It's like, we'll give you the gist, but we're not going to show you the script. But there is a script. Oh, you're not going to see it. It's like, hold on a sec. I have lines. Like, oh, yeah, but you're going to have to learn that as the years go on and understand

what fits where. So it's really, really challenging. And that's just professional wrestling as a whole. You need to know where to put certain stories. So what does your day look like? Let's say raw, for example. So you show up on Monday. What did your day look like leading up to being live on TV?

Start off with the production meeting. and just kind of get the general idea for the show, and those things can change and fluctuate through the day. So you can't really get tethered to too many concrete ideas. It's the thing that I learned, you know, as I began my career, my notes pages were gigantic, and then they slowly, slowly shrunk because you just had to know things

off the top of your head, and you had to be able to adapt. You had to understand that this segment could change entirely. The talent could change. The finish could change. The traffic in regards to what we're going to do, what ads are we throwing to, what community outreach program were we promoting that much.

So many different things that if I'm tied to something in my head of like, oh, this is my lead in or this is what I'm going to say, you're dead in the water. You have to be able to adapt. Give us a few of the words that you were not able to say on air in WWA. I think the obvious ones are, you know, you always refer to the fans as the WWE universe. So you don't call them fans.

You don't call them the crowd or the audience or something. it's to build an idea of community, and that's how WW brands it. So even if you heard me calling hard to kill for Impact, I think at the point where a prosthetic leg was thrown in the ring in the Impact World Title Match, I said a member of the Impact Zone. So I'm still stuck in it, and it's still like, oh, I can say crowd, I can say fan. And it's just little things like that. Obviously, pro wrestling, they avoid that because they avoid that.

So now I can talk about that pretty openly. So there's just little things that because of the way they want to position their product, they ask us not to say. So it's like, okay, you're signing the check. That's fine. I had heard that it was always first name lasting. You had to say John Sina, Roman Raines. It was never Raines hit a spear or Sina with the F.U. No, no, I never experienced that. One thing I was taught by Cole and a number of other tenured announcers was just don't refer to guys strictly by their first name. Because if it's in any form of combat sports, you wouldn't say, you know, if it's Jorge Mosvidal, you're not being like, oh, Jorge hit him. It's like, it just sounds too casual.

Yeah, or Tom with a great touchdown pass. Right. It sounds too friendly and like you guys are tight. And it's like, no, Mosvidal hit him. You know, that's how you're supposed to deliver it. So you either go full name, nickname or last name. That was the way I always taught it. And I completely agree with that. What do you think is the biggest thing that you learned from Michael Cole in all the years that you worked with him? Well, I did not have a ton of patience, and he was very patient with me, but it was just to be patient and to keep working and to not get too frustrated and not give up on a circumstance. Because there were a lot of things that I would get put on a show, I'd get taken off a show, moved around. It was kind of a carousel there for a while, and it was just where they needed me at the time.

And I was so freaking young, man. I just kind of thought, oh, you know, I'm going to come in here and they're going to do all this stuff. And it's just, I had to learn a lot. So for him to be patient with me and then to teach me patience over the years and granted, I'm still not perfect with it. Nobody is. But I would say that was my biggest takeaway. I think that Michael Cole is just so good at what he does and like really underrated. I think that, I mean, he's been there, what, 25 plus years now?

And he is the voice of WWE, at least the modern voice of WWE. And what anyone, I feel like he doesn't get the respect that he deserves sometimes. It's the syndrome of you think you know, but you have no idea. You just don't comprehend what he is dealing with in the course of a broadcast in regards to how to organize things. I've said this before, but he never allows a broadcast to feel clunky or disorganized or, oh, that isn't supposed to happen or they messed up that thing or whatever. That's what great live broadcasting is all about, whether you're watching the NFL on Fox or wherever you're,

whatever. It's to make it seem as clean as possible. And that's largely on a broadcaster who is supposed to operate as an extension of the production team. So he is outstanding when it comes to that. His emotion is always on point, which is something he drilled into my head for years. And there are plenty of things where I'd hear it and be like,

oh, I didn't hit that. and if you don't have the right emotion and inflection in your voice for certain moments, it just doesn't mean the same thing. And it gets across to the audience that you don't care about it, that you're just straight up and down about it, that it didn't matter to you. Right. I also don't think that people realize what Michael Cole is doing behind the scenes.

Like, he's kind of the guy who's overseeing all the talent that's being hired as well. Yeah, he is obviously in charge of announcers. And I've been there six months. So I imagine that's probably the case still. But yeah, he's doing a ton. It's not just call the show and go home. He is a very, very busy man. And to his credit, he would always get back to me with a text or a phone call or something

like that, never too busy for his people, which I always appreciated. But you were also kind of stepping into that role. Like you were the person who was interviewing new announcers or new on-air talent that might come through. So look, from the outside looking in, it seemed to me that you were like the air apparent to Michael Cole, that you were coming. of just doing the things that he had done when he was coming up. I appreciate that.

And that was the model that I had to work off is this is, as you mentioned, the modern day play-by-play guy for WWE. So it was like, okay, yeah, follow that path, do a lot of the same things he is doing.

And yeah, I fell into a lot of habits that he executes in a broadcast. So it was a matter of like, I'd get tweets all the time. Oh, you sound exactly like Michael Cole. I was like, A,

that's sort of a compliment. That's a huge compliment. But B, I understand. understand the core of that is that your mannerisms, your phrases, your deliveries can sound similar. So it's like, great, you need to separate yourself. And I think that's the beauty of this opportunity now, and you've mentioned it before. I can separate from Tom Phillips and be Tom Hannafin and figure out who I am as a broadcaster, which is scary, but it's really exciting.

There's been so many releases over the last few years in WWE. And I think when your name was brought up as someone who was released, like, there was a lot of shock. People were like, I can't believe Tom Phillips isn't going to be there anymore. I felt I felt like you were untouchable. Oh, thank you. Yeah, that was very much, it was a surprise. It was very emotional day. It was very heartbreaking.

But you understand this is a business and they were, you know, budget cuts for a number of reasons. The pandemic has hit a lot of businesses in some really difficult ways. I kind of understood how things were going. Adnan Verk had been brought in, if you recall that in April. and then they made the move, obviously, to Jimmy Smith. So I kind of saw the way things were going, and that's okay. That's just business, and that was the thing I took a while for me to separate is my personal feelings versus what happened from a business standpoint.

So it's just a lot has changed. When you were the voice of Raw and they go, we're going to try something different, we're going to bring in Adnan Verk, what were your feelings towards that? my first response was man adnan's a heavy hitter and adnan i'm proud to say as a friend and we talk every once in a while um i have a tremendous respect for him because again speaking of my time just as a fan watching esPN i had seen what he'd done on sports center i'd seen what he'd done college football halftime shows and such so i was like this guy's good like this guy has chops to handle traffic which before anybody can say oh i'm going to go call wwe because i call a good

match from a boxing or MMA standpoint. It was like that almost doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter because if you can't handle the flow of a two, three hour live show, a pay-per-view, you're dead. So I knew that he had the skill set to handle that traffic. So I was very much like, okay, this is serious. And I took it as like, all right, now I've got to go to 205 live, continue what I'm doing from a management standpoint, producer standpoint on NXT.

And I've got to find what I have to do better to compete. look i grew up watching adnan verk in toronto and when i saw him on raw i was like oh that's that's our guy but i was also i was just surprised because there was a lot of shakeups that were going on in the raw commentary team at that time but again i've said this before but your style just feels like wwee style just feels like you and michael cole have that style of like this feels real when we listen to it i love that because we got very we get very attached to everything you get attach to the people you're working with and you know what it means to them personally to be able to be in a certain storyline or moment or have a great match with somebody maybe they idolize or just somebody

they respect. And once you start caring about those things and you're just reacting as opposed to thinking of, oh, God, what am I going to say there? That's the sweet spot. I always look back on the culmination of Kofi Mania as one of the more emotional moments that I've had is because I'm friends with those guys, the New Day guys, and it was just such a special moment, obviously, for Kofi, but for Brian Danielson and everybody involved in the making of that moment. So you care because it is a team effort at the end of the day. There's going to be a lot of aspiring wrestling commentators that are going to listen to this interview and they want to hear your story, but they also want to know, like, how did they get there?

Like you were on the inside, you were the person that was looking for the on-air talent. what do you look for? How can you become a better commentator in wrestling? I always looked for people who showed adaptability. I always look for people who had a really conversational style. Now you hear that and you're like, well, what does that mean? It means not sounding like a newscaster or it's like, well, this morning, the cat fell out of the tree.

Like, no one talks like that. This is how people talk. I always, I've talked about like Mike Tariko and Michael Cole. that's their normal speaking voice, is that they're just delivering, and it's amplified a bit. If you sound like a weatherman, it just feels so unnatural,

because I know I'm like, just talk normally, just do that. And there's some bad habits that I think get developed within the professional wrestling world that I understand what WW wanted, and you just know it's not going to necessarily translate. So every once in a while,

I try and take an opportunity to be like, hey, this is positive, but maybe trying to change this if WWE is your end game. And it's just not for everybody. I've heard a lot of commentators wrestling and otherwise say less is more. Can you speak to that? It's what I was saying before about being a minimalist, is that you don't need to speak wall to wall within a segment. Again, something cold taught me, but just you can let moments breathe a little bit.

You can just wait. You don't have to talk through every last thing. You don't have to call every last move. It's okay. And especially if you don't know, don't say. say anything. It sounds so simple, but there's also that pressure like, oh, I'm going to say something. I haven't spoken in a moment. And it's just, it's okay. And you do have to remove your ego to an extent, especially if you're being the play-by-play guy. I had the good fortune, as I mentioned, of working

between Byron Saxon, a great baby-faced commentator, and then Corey Graves, a great heel commentator. It's not about me. It's about getting those opinions out from Graves and Saxon. So I have to be to use a basketball terminology, the point guard who doesn't score. It's just you have to get assists here and there. And then every once in a while, if we get you for a spot up three in the corner, it'd be nice if you hit it. So that was always my mentality is just try and keep the ball moving. I'm so curious because you worked with Corey Graves so closely.

The news just came out that he's now cleared for in-ring action again. Do you think, as his friend, do you think we'll see him in the ring? It'd be cool. It'd be really cool. You know, the opportunity's there. obviously WWE is going to have the final choice on that. So we'll see what happens. But honestly, I know how deeply Graves cares about this.

I know how much time he's spent in his career, not just on the commentary side, but people do forget how long he was grinding away on the Indies and how many experiences he has with the legends of this business. He loves this business. So if it happens, it happens, but you know how the game works. Yeah. So going back to what we were saying,

you're like, Tom Phillips was so much a part of who you were for basically your entire professional career. After you get released by WWE, where do you think you, like, won ahead? Like, what are your first thoughts for that first week or month after that? The first week, month after I got released, were very odd because all of a sudden, you live with a suitcase next to your bed. I was like, oh, I can put that away. I don't have any, like, tickets on. my phone for, you know, going to whatever city or something like that. So just everything changed in terms of my just day-to-day life. So it took me a couple weeks and months, honestly, to just kind of get used to it's like being settled and being home. The biggest change for me,

honestly, was that I had a company phone. So events for WW are literally happening 24-7. So you're largely on call, just in the event that such-and-such announcer is at a live event in Germany and there's a problem and they need to call you. It's like, okay, great, I'm available. So it was understanding that, hey, when it's the weekend or it's a holiday, don't call anybody, don't email anybody. And I had to really stop myself and be like, oh, it's okay to have time. It's okay to have personal time and to just slow down a little bit, but still be, you know, persistent the way I pursued things with job opportunities. But my first thought was to dive into the play-by-play world. I've got my football, basketball, hockey tape. It's just been a matter of getting that together.

And then it's understanding, like, what do I want to do? It's just wide open. So obviously, wrestling is a part of my portfolio now. And I love what I'm doing an impact. But they've given the opportunity. It's like, hey, if you want to do other things in sports and entertainment, knock yourself out. I have always wanted to do voiceover work for EA sports or 2K. I've been playing their games for years. And I speak to them every once in a while. And It's like, I would love to do this because the amount of money my family has poured into both those companies. I feel like I owe them a little bit. Well, if the original goal was to work for ESPN or Fox Sports, CBS Sports, we've seen the transition made by Jonathan Coachman, Todd Grisham. I don't

think people talk about it as much, but my good friend, Arta O'Call, aka Kyle Edwards, who's now crushing it with ESPN. It does everything. It's amazing. So the groundwork, it's happened before like the groundwork's there so it's like if if you want to do that i'm sure there's some people you could talk to to at least say how does this transition work yeah and i've definitely done that and credit to charlie arnold as well which he's doing at ESPN so uh no i have had all those conversations and those are continuing conversations so i'll uh i'll keep the specifics of that to myself but no that has been my focal point is that i believe in myself i believe in what i did in WWE and what I learned in WWE means that I can hang at the top level.

So I think I can do anything. I believe I can do anything. And now it's just going out and proving that correct. I love that. Of course you can do anything. Anybody can do anything. But the fact that you have the confidence in yourself and your own skill set, I just love so much.

It took me a while. It took me a while. Like there's one thing to understand having confidence in yourself to do anything in life. It doesn't matter what your field is. But obviously this past year has been extraordinarily challenging for me from a mental standpoint. So you do have those questions of like, can I do it? Can I really compete at this level? So it's not just something that I rolled out of bed with.

And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm good. I can do whatever I want. Not every day is going to be great. And it's just a matter of working with the people that are important to you. Would that be professionally and then personally leaning on the people that care about you and love you? and just keep moving forward. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. That's been the best thing for me this past year.

One of the best things about commentary is you really start to hit your stride in like your 40s and your 50s. Like you look at the people who are calling any of the games, any of the football games on Sunday. They're all definitely older than you and I. So if you like- I noticed that. So you've, I mean, what I'm saying is you've just got nothing but time in front of you now. Yeah.

It's a good thing. And it's, I'm just a restless person. I'm, as I mentioned, I'm very stubborn, very persistent. So I'm kind of like, you know, I want to, I want to go do something. Let's let's go to work. And it's just, I have a chip on my shoulder. I feel very confident of what my abilities are. And I'm just excited for whatever that first foot in the door is, because not only do I

want to prove myself right, but I want to prove them right that somebody who believed in me that much because look at how much WWE believed in me for the better part of nine years. And all the things that I got to do, I got to see the world. So if somebody believes in me in that capacity to do it all over again, I can't ask for anything more. Is the chip on your shoulder because other people might be going, oh, you're a great wrestling broadcaster? And you're going, no, no, I'm just a great broadcaster. I think it's a couple things.

I think, yes, and that there is naturally a stigma. And you talked about the people that have crossed over and that are, have transcended wrestling and have been able to do things in mainstream sports and entertainment. So there is that, oh, well, I've never heard of anybody coming over from WW and doing that. It's like, okay, that's just not accurate. So it is proving that correct for the people that maybe feel that same way, either in a negative stance or even people who work in professional wrestling and broadcasting, they're like, oh, maybe I can't do anything else.

I strongly disagree because I think the things that pro wrestling asks you to do within a broadcast, nobody else asks you to do. No other broadcast asks you to run the gamut of emotions that you will do in a wrestling broadcast. So I think there's that. And then it's just, I take it personally where I'm like, I know that I can do these things. I know I have passions in a variety of capacities. So it's just going out and executing that. I don't know how else to put it.

What is your favorite? I'm not going to ask your favorite match. What's your favorite call of all time in WWE that you did? Gosh. Like in terms of a phrase. in particular. Sure, or a moment. I really love, I mentioned Kofi Mania before. I loved

the call that three of us had on the conclusion of that match. I will always remember takeover Dallas 2015, I think, with Graves calling Shinskay's arrival in NXT and Sammy Zane's last match in NXT.

The building just was shaking. Graves and I are freaking out. We have goosebumps and everything. So that was just one of the most fun moments I had, but there were a lot of different individual moments from it. I was like, I was really happy with that call. When Bobby Lashley won the WWB title recently, it was really happy with that one. So it's just for every good one, there's a hundred bad ones that keep me up at night.

That's just the way I look at it. But there's, that's just the way I approach things. It's like, I have a perfectionist mentality. So I'm like, okay, if I did this badly or think, even if I just think I did it badly, I'll watch it back and be like, oh, maybe it wasn't so bad. And it's just lighten up on yourself a little bit. I think that's just something everybody needs to do in general, just lighten up on yourself. I've heard that if you, as a broadcaster, if you don't go back and watch your stuff from like

six months ago and kind of cringe a little, like, oh, I thought that was good. Then you're not moving in the right direction. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's, no, like I said, my first run was Smackdown. Like, if I ever hear that, you know, flipping through my phone on social media and a clip is there. And I'm like, oh, no. And even stuff as recently as 2020 or 2019, I was like really happy with my.

last run on raw and what we were able to accomplish. But yeah, just, every week I was just trying to do it better. When did you first become aware that fans were noticing that when you were doing the backstage interviews, you were standing with your legs split so you could, you know, make, make superstars look taller. I would get screenshots, tweeted at me of like, what are you doing? There was one with Chris Jericho where he's doing, He's circling around me. There was several with Jericho and Kevin Owens. There was the one with Rowan, Ryback, and Dolph, which was on a kickoff show backstage.

And I'm like, how am I supposed to. It's a four shot. It's easy to hide in the two shot. And what I mean by that, four people versus two people in the shot. So I was like, okay. I'm like, well, I'm going to give this a shot. And the funniest one ever was because I realized it. And I was very aware of it.

So I was just screwing with people. So I did one with Wade Barrett, Stu Bennett, where I made him look seven feet tall. And then I did another one that same night next to a pack, Neville. And I made him look like a couple inches taller than me. And I had to be helped up. Nothing against him. Love you dearly, Ben. But it's just I made it my mission in life.

I'm like, I'm just going to screw it with people. And look, I understand the idea behind it. These are larger than life, superstars. He's a real life superheroes. We want them to look. gigantic. Yeah. And I think that makes all the sense of the world.

And even from a commentary standpoint, when I was doing stuff with Samoa Joe, Joe and I are about the same height, but Joe is obviously huge. Now, when you sit down in a chair, it eliminates a lot of that. So every time I get in the chair, I just naturally, I didn't even think about it. Just pop down the seat a little bit. And it's just like, great, make him look bigger or whoever I was sitting next. Even if it was Byron Graves, it was like, okay, like these guys wrestled at one point. They should be front and center and more important than I am.

So it's like, okay, even if it's a small, subtle thing for me to be, I don't know, not the focal point, even though I'm sitting in the middle. Yeah, we're going to do it. Did you ever think about taking some bumps or like getting trained? God, no, God, no. So there was one instance where we had to learn how to take a bump because I forget, I forget exactly what happened, but it was just a safety measure because if you're ever in the ring and you're doing an interview, for instance, and say there's an attack from behind on the talent. you then are kind of caught in the melee, so you might have to take a front bump or you might have to escape the ring. And mind you, for men, you're in dress shoes, are really slick. And then if you're a woman, you might be in heels.

So you've got to wear those little covers for the heels so you don't puncture the ring or you wear flats. A lot of them wear flats. So escaping the ring is not that easy. So I remember going to the performance center and worked out of there for many years living in Orlando. And it's me and a handful of the announcers. and I had to learn how to take a bump as to everybody else. So Michael Cole's watching. Matt Bloom is watching

longtime friend. And I took one bump and I forgot to breathe. I had tucked my chin, but I forgot to breathe. My legs stayed straight up in the air and the wind was knocked out of me. Cole and Bloom are laughing hysterically. And then they're

reminding you, it's like, hey, you just were knocked over by somebody there. So you have to sell. And I'm like, I am selling. And it was like, Vince ball and it was like, if I had any air in my lungs, I would scream at you. It was, it just sucked. And then I'm thinking about like the guys who take, uh, you know, these horrific bumps in the center of the ring, which is like the best place to land, which is where I was taking it. And then like going towards the corner of the ring and just the impact on your knees and all these different joints. I was like,

what is wrong with these people? But you understand it. And you understand the glory for all these superstar. So I'm like, it's just not for me. After spending so much time there, did you think, you know, I'm done with calling pro wrestling for a long time? For a minute, it felt like that. For a minute, I was, there was relief, admittedly when I was released. And there was, like I mentioned before, I'm like, oh, I don't have to watch all these shows. I don't have to be traveling every single week. There was that sense of relief coupled with a ton of other emotions. And then slowly as time went by, I was just like, this doesn't have to be over, but it's just finding the right circumstance. And I was very fortunate, as you mentioned before, I have a lot of friends at Impact Wrestling.

And that was a really attractive part of it for me. And then on top of that, the way their schedule works was really attractive. And I was like, oh, this, this is something that, you know, not that it's on my terms, but it can be on my terms. It's something that I can enjoy this and it be part of my body of work. I have so many people that I'm friends with and that I respect, I think of Kaz and Peter Rosenberg, is two guys who, oh, I like music, here's that box. Okay, I like sports. Here's that box.

Who's wrestling? I have that. And I was like, that's a great way to go through life is that you make your passion, your profession, but you just find the time for it, you know? And it's something you've done with a million different things in this. You interview just about everybody. So it's just whatever you're curious about. And I think that unfortunately, it really hasn't happened where like if someone's a wrestling

commentator, they're able to. able to do a bunch of other things. But I think about like Joe Rogan calls UFC and nobody would ever go, yeah, Joe Rogan, let's put him in the box of UFC color commentators. Just like, that's one of, you know, 100 things that he does. There's no reason that you can't be calling impact and then also calling a college football game or something like that. I completely agree with you. That's the goal. So that's what I've been working on. So the pandemic has certainly made things challenging for everybody in broadcasting and entertainment. So, I definitely encountered those challenges and you're still seeing all these major companies trying to understand how do we do this going forward because it seems like COVID is here to stay for a little bit.

So there's still plenty of hurdles to get by and people I have to prove myself to and I'm fine doing that. It's just one step at a time. So you mentioned you have so much more free time. You don't have the suitcase next to your bed anymore. How have you filled this free time that you've had? I have lived in the gym since like April. like I go to Planet Fitness right down the road for me. I'm in the gym probably five to six days a week.

Working out on those purple machines there? Yeah, yeah. It's like the Lakers bought a gym or something. Yeah, it's great, man. Like for a while I was not going to the gym. I was being lazy. I wasn't eating well. I was eating like an 18 year old.

And I was like, it's hard to eat well on the road. No matter what you do for a little. Dude, it's hard to eat well on the road. And then also when you're just eating, you know, four slices of whole wheat bread with Nutella on it for breakfast, you kind of set yourself back. And you understand this because you're in great shape is that when you reach a certain age, you know, I'm 32. I'm not, you know, really old or anything, but it's you, your body responds when you are specific about macros and that sort of stuff. And I think people's heads explode when they hear that stuff. And I think of meat heads. It's like, no, if you really

want to see results, you've got to get into the detail. So that's what I've been doing for a lot of time. And it's just helped me from a mental standpoint, getting out any, you know, frustrations or anger or anything. like that. I just go to the gym and that's just my spot to just kind of chill out and get it all out. You know what I mean? Are we going to be seen some shirtless photos of you soon? I don't know. God, no. God, no. No, I'm just getting ready for the summer, I guess, so I can go down to Wilmington, North Carolina with my friends and enjoy myself. And just not be embarrassed, that's all. Yeah, because for years, admittedly, I was embarrassed of my appearance. So I was like, oh, okay, like now I have the time to devote to this.

And then also now with my schedule changing with impact, I'm committed to it. And it's not just, oh, well, this day is busy, so I'm not going to go. It's no, how do you make it work? And that's been something that's dominated my life for the last few years is that as opposed to just letting some obstacle or challenge or something because you're scared of it or it's hard get in the way, find a freaking solution. You know, brainstorm an idea.

Come up with something, but don't just be defeated. just find a solution. And that's the biggest thing for me, especially from a fitness standpoint. And for better for worse, look, I know what catering looks like backstage. And there are healthy options there, but there's also a lot of delicious options there. So good. The dessert tray is fantastic. But like for years, I just like you get the butterflies, like butterflies and nerves and such like that. So for years, I was just at catering and I'd be eating like chicken and rice. I'd just keep it really simple. And I'd sit next to Byron Saxon, who is just in phenomenal shape. And he'd be like, you're trying to lose weight or something like that? You're all right? I'm like, nope,

this is just going to agree with me and I'm going to be good. I'm not going to have any problems or whatever. So catering can, it'll get you. But I think one of the biggest things people don't talk about when you're on the road is, sure, your food is taken care of when you get to the arena. But what happens when you wake up in that hotel and there might not be a lot of options to, A, eat healthy or B, just eat anything. Right, because, like, room service is really expensive at some of these hotels. And then I love Waffle House. Oh, my God, do I love Waffle House?

Said like a true wrestling commentator. I think, again, Byron Sachsen and Matt Bloom introduced me to the joys of Waffle House. And now when I see one, I get really excited. And all my friends are like, why? It's like, no, it's heaven on earth. And then even late at night, you know, you've got the adrenaline up from a show. So you're like, I'm, I'm hungry. So you'll go and there's not a lot of good choices. Yeah, it's midnight. Yeah, it's midnight. And even if you're on the West Coast, it's like,

oh, in and out burgers right there. Ooh, let's do that, you know. And maybe you go to the bar and have a drink or something like that. So it's that coupled with lack of sleep by maybe driving town to town or flying home at an early hour. It adds up. It took a toll. Yeah. I don't know how you guys do it. Like one week of that, I think for a lot of people's like, this is crazy. To do it for nine years, that's a lot. And it just became like reflex after a while. And I think when Ron Smackdown separated, I forget what year it was, but basically when the Fox deal emerged, there was that separation of like, oh, it's not back to back Monday, Tuesday and plus a pay per view sometimes. It's like, oh, there's going to be a crew for this show and a crew for that show, which is, you know,

depending on who you are. So, yeah, like there were some positive. where it did lighten up a little bit, but if you're on house shows, et cetera, there's a lot of travel. It just adds up and you're away from your friends, you're away from your family. So like I said, it takes a toll. I should have mentioned this at the start of the interview, but where are we right now? It looks like we're in like a cabin in the middle of some wintery paradise. If you're just listening here, there's a stone fireplace behind Tom with a beautiful mantle. Yes, I see myself.

I'm sure you read all the time. Leatherbound books. I'm big on those. Yeah. No, I'm in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. So I'm a Pennsylvania guy. I've grown up here for most of my life. I've spent in Pennsylvania,

lived in Connecticut briefly when I was in high school and then college and then lived in Orlando briefly as well. But Pennsylvania's always been home. Family and friends are all right around here. So, yeah, I was just trying to get that, you know, northeastern winter vibe for you. This thing over your right shoulder, is that the thing that stokes the fire?

Yes, yes. Luckily there is a fire house. happening right now. Yeah. This is incredible. Makes me think that your podcast has nothing to do with sports and just about like, you know, bourbon and leatherman books. Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, that would go off the rails pretty quickly. Yeah, for a while I was doing the show, for for those listening that care, I do a podcast about Penn State football called Pader. And for a while, I was doing it at our family home up in Maine, which is fortunate. It's in a nice spot and there's a nautical themed everything behind me. And it's like, where are you? Like,

where are you shooting this from? And there's not really a good theme of, oh, I'm into football. And I think we've seen so much of that in the last year and a half of broadcasters being like, oh, like, here's all my awards and helmets and trophies. Oh, you mean this? Yeah. I was like, oh, and you're very convenient YouTube plaque. Oh, that old thing? I never noticed that. A little backlighting a whole thing. So, yeah, so it's just me in a ringlight and a fireplace. You know, we keep it simple. Look, I had never done an interview virtually before the pandemic started. I was always the guy who would get on a plane or I would get in my car and drive sometimes five,

six hours to do an interview. So when this happened, I was like, I need to adjust real quick. Also, remember when COVID was only going to last two weeks? Yeah, that was why I started trying to get into shape. It was like April 2020 and then like June 2020, I got on the scale and I was like, that's a problem. And I started on a mission to try and get in shape. So there's been a lot of silver linings to obviously the pandemic.

And listen, you understand people are struggling. But there have been some positives that we've all kind of adapted to and being able to use these from our homes and not have to leave. Who actually wants to leave their house? Yeah. Yeah. Well, after being cooped out for so long, it's like, yes, I would really like to live my house. Yeah.

But like, we're in our 30s. And it's like at the end of the day, when you go out and you go, go do something. You're like, I just want to go home and I just put it on my couch. You know, that's that's the dominating thought most of the time. My girlfriend and I stayed out to like 11 the other night and she's like, wow. What a late night for us. I'm really proud if I can make it to 11. If I, like midnight, I'm like, this is insane. This is ludicrous. The 22 year old version of me would have been like, what's wrong with you? Like, we don't even show up to the bar until 11 o'clock. Right. I was like, when does this bar close? Like, it better be open until two

clock in the morning. And now it's like, damn right. Doesn't really matter. Is it within 20 minutes of the house? Great. That's perfect. This very much, Tom, feels like it's a new chapter in your life and also in your broadcasting career, like not just in wrestling, but in all of the other opportunities that are in front of you now. Yeah, it's just, I talked about this on Renee's show, but it's just when you're working for a company like WWE, and listen, they're not singular in the way that they want to have their talent available on a regular basis. They take priority. There are a lot. of companies and a lot of different fields to do that. And it's just, okay, you respect that and you work your butt off when you're in that. So now on the other side, it's just, it's a brave new world.

And I think as you understand whether it's podcasting or just digital media as a whole, it's the wild west. There's a lot to be discovered and a lot for all these different outlets to kind of understand how to utilize talent, how to utilize platforms. So it's just wide open. It's really freeing. It's definitely daunting, but it's really exciting at the end of the day. So I'm trying to change things up. And look, the fact that this impact announcement happened at the start of 2022 means now you've got the rest of the year for this to be like the best year ever for you. I screwed up. I set the bar high to start the year. It's all downhill from here. It'll be August and it'll be like, did you do anything? It's like, no, I'm just, you know,

I'm just chilling, man. You know, I'm just doing impact. No, I'm going to try and add a bunch of different things this year. Just making a lot of changes personally and professionally. And I'm just really excited what this could be. And I'm loving it. everything I'm doing with impact right now. So I encourage everybody to check it out. Well, look, it's been far too long since I've seen you in person, like almost exactly three years. Yeah, you and I were talking about before we got started. You and I got a coffee, I think, before WrestleMania in New York, in the shadows of New York City, as we like to refer to it as. But yeah, you and me in Brooklyn went for a coffee. Yeah. And then, yeah, here we are three years later

talking, well, from different time zones remotely. Yeah, it's wild. It's a small world at the end of the day. Next time you're in California, let me know. I will. I absolutely will. You and a number of people. I'm looking forward to that. Look, this has been a great conversation. So glad we could catch up. And Tom, I end everything, every conversation with the same question because I'm all about gratitude. So for you, what are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? I am grateful for a fantastic family. I am grateful for a wonderful group of friends. that know me. I think that's a very challenging thing for a lot of people. And I'm grateful for a bevy of opportunities. So it's just take it one day at a time, man. Endless opportunities

for Tom Hannafin. I'm so excited for you. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity on here, seriously. Okay. Big thank you to Tom for joining us for this conversation. Big thank you to you, of course, for being with us on this audio adventure. You know, the deal that Tom signed with Impact Wrestling is for a year. So we will be hearing a lot of him in 2022. Congrats to him. That's a great fit for him. Give him a follow on social media.

He's at Tom Hannafin. You can find me at Chris Van Fleet. Snap a screenshot. Tag us both. Let us know what you think of this episode. And I'll leave you with the words of Henry Ford, who famously said, don't find fault. Find a remedy. Anybody can complain.

Be great. Be grateful. We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock, but there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of them?

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