Wrestling memory lane, ribs included.
What Happened When turns professional wrestling history into a running hangout, with Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson bouncing through old World Championship Wrestling, NWA, and Jim Crockett Promotions memories. It is chatty, teasing, and loaded with names, eras, entrances, anniversaries, and side roads.
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What Happened When is built for wrestling fans who like their history messy, social, and full of names that arrive before anyone has finished setting up the point. Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson use World Championship Wrestling, the NWA, Jim Crockett Promotions, and related wrestling eras as the home base. Then the conversation wanders. That is part of the appeal. Recent episodes move through The Outrunners, Booker T’s early years, QT Marshal, Sonjay Dutt, Dalton Castle, and Colt Cabana’s Ring of Honor classics without turning the show into a museum tour. It feels more like a long table conversation after a wrestling event, where someone remembers a broadcast partner, someone else throws in a jab, and the actual insight shows up a few beats later. The tone is warm but never too tidy. The show’s recurring openers are packed with old wrestling references: Starrcade, the Omni, the Bunkhouse Stampede, Flair and the Horsemen, Dusty, Hogan, Nitro, the New World Order, Thunder, Russo, and the simulcast era all flash by like house lights before the bell. Once the episode settles in, the pace stays loose. There are anniversaries, guest stories, crowd reaction details, entrance memories, and plenty of self-mocking banter about the show itself. Colt Cabana’s Ring of Honor talk, for example, turns on the comedy of a crowd bit as much as on the match around it. Dalton Castle’s championship moment gets treated with real excitement, but the show still leaves room for its usual comic detours. That balance matters. What Happened When is not trying to be a clean encyclopedia of wrestling history. It is a hangout with people who know the rooms, the names, the rhythms, and the jokes. Some listeners will come for World Championship Wrestling nostalgia. Others will come for the way the show turns guests into co-storytellers. The best moments land when the teasing gives way to a useful detail about how wrestling actually works: how a crowd is nudged, how an entrance gets remembered, how a character stands out in a promotion, or how a broadcast life accumulates stories. It is insider-friendly, occasionally crude, and proudly unvarnished.
Made for: For professional wrestling fans who already speak a little World Championship Wrestling, NWA, Jim Crockett, and Ring of Honor shorthand. It especially fits listeners who prefer banter and backstage texture over neat documentary narration.
What sets it apart: The show’s edge is its lived-in conversational feel: history arrives through jokes, guest memories, old names, and half-polished recollections. It sounds less like a recap desk and more like wrestling people remembering how the business felt from inside the room.
From Starrcade '83 to March 26, 2001, Tony Schiavone was the voice of professional wrestling below the Mason-Dixon Line. Though the Monday Night Wars may be over you can still relive the memories of Jim Crockett Promotions and World Championship Wrestling. Hear for yourself why What Happened When with Tony Schiavone is a hilarious trip down professional wrestling's memory lane. Join Tony and Conrad every Wednesday morning at 6am ET
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Match replays become detailed conversations about wrestling craft, promotion history, crowd behavior and the decisions behind memorable performances.
What Happened When turns match replays into working sessions on professional wrestling history. Tony Schiavone and Conrad talk through the action while tracing how promotions, performers and crowds shaped what appeared on screen.
Vintage wrestling becomes a watch-along where Tony Schiavone's memory meets Conrad Thompson's gleeful needling.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Dalton Castle's title win gets a vivid, confetti-covered look back at legacy and wrestling theater.
Dalton Castle's Ring of Honor World Championship win gives the episode its firmest spine, turning one huge night into a compact story about identity, loyalty, and arrival.
Colt Cabana looks back at how ROH's pure-wrestling world still found room for character, comedy, and a memorable entrance.
Colt Cabana's ROH memories turn one Ring of Honor match into a small study of how wrestling characters take shape. Jimmy Rave's toilet-paper entrance becomes more than a visual gag: it opens into a backstage account of performers helping steer a crowd toward the reaction they…
A Hammerstein replay becomes a warm look at ROH history and Ian Riccaboni's commentary chemistry.
A Ring of Honor rewatch finds its best material in the craft around the commentary table and the lived-in history of Hammerstein. The replay centers on a powerbomb that cuts off a hurricanrana attempt and drives the wrestler into the mat, but the larger appeal is how the…
A loose PWG watch-along with real warmth for DVD-era indie wrestling history.
Tony Schiavone moves from missing Bug, who made it 14 years, into the pleasure of settling in for a match, and that tonal swing gives the episode its shape: personal, casual, and always drifting back toward wrestling.
A championship match opens up Ric Flair's ambition and Jim Crocker Promotions' Carolina roots.
Tony Schiavone's voice gives the episode an immediate period feel, carrying a world championship match back into the Carolina wrestling scene Jim Crocker Promotions was trying to shape.
A mortgage professional offers to help listeners consolidate credit card debt and lower monthly payments.
Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson celebrate Schiavone's 40th anniversary in wrestling by watching his 1983 debut episode on Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling.
Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson are joined by Excalibur to watch and discuss Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's 2011 'Steenwolf' event.
Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson discuss the history of World Championship Wrestling and Jim Crockett Promotions in this episode of What Happened When.
Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson discuss the history of World Championship Wrestling and the NWA, with a focus on anniversaries and key moments.
Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson discuss the history and legacy of Jim Crockett Promotions and World Championship Wrestling.
Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson introduce a podcast episode about the early years of professional wrestler Booker T.
Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson discuss the history of World Championship Wrestling and the NWA.
Tony Shimani and Conrad Thompson discuss Sonjay Dutt's career and the golden era of wrestling promotions.
Dalton Castle joins Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson to talk about Bozo the Clown, David Arquette’s Bozo collection, and why a miniature Bozo sits on his counter.
Tony Schiavone and Colt Cabana spend much of What Happened When episode 475 talking about Ring of Honor’s early years, Colt’s 2002-2007 run there, and why he saw ROH as a place to learn wrestling while making very little money.
What Happened When Episode 474 centers on Ian Riccaboni guiding Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson through Ring of Honor matches including Will Ospreay vs.
Tony Schiavone and Conrad Thompson introduce a Christmas-themed episode of their wrestling podcast with special guest Eddie Kingston.
Tony Schiavone interviews Excalibur about PWG wrestling, with a brief ad intro about credit card debt relief.
Conrad Thompson and Tony Schiavone preview the first Saturday Night's Main Event from May 1985.