February 28, 2020 will live long in the memory of veteran sports broadcaster and MMA commentator Michael Schiavello.
ONE Championship’s Australian play-by-play man has called the action at Olympic Games, K-1 events and some of the biggest martial arts shows and promotions in Asia, but his stint behind the mic at “ONE Championship 109: King of the Jungle” was something of a first.
He was commentating in a virtually silent, almost empty room.
The event, held at Singapore Indoor Stadium, was forced behind closed doors due to the coronavirus outbreak in the region as ONE decided to keep the event going rather than cancel it. It meant the sports world had its first major behind-closed-doors event of the coronavirus era, and Schiavello was on the call.
“I actually think that we may have been one of the first sports organizations on the planet – not just mixed martial arts – to announce we were going to do an empty stadium show,” Schiavello told MMA Junkie.
“Not long after Chatri (Sityodtong, ONE CEO) announced it, Serie A and different soccer leagues began to follow suit, and there were other sports that then came on board and started doing empty arenas. I believe ONE Championship was the first organization to say, ‘Hey. We’re not going to cancel. We’re going to go on.’ We’re just going to do it in an empty arena after discussing it with health officials and government officials in Singapore.
“I give full credit to Chatri, because it’s not just about making money (like) a money making machine. With Chatri and with ONE, it’s about the fans. It’s about hope. It’s about inspiring people, people that are down on their luck, people that are having a hard time. And especially in Asia, where the coronavirus emanated from, they were suffering before the rest of the world. (It was about) giving these people something to hold on to, something where they can sit in front of their TVs on a Friday night and be entertained.”
More than just a paycheck
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Schiavello said that those among ONE Championship’s skeleton crew knew they had a responsibility to put on a great show for the fans stuck at home, they but also said they felt a great sense of pride in being able to give fans in the virus-hit region a period of respite and entertainment.
“The beauty of it was when we were all there, we all knew we were doing something above and beyond each of us getting a paycheck,” Schiavello said. “We knew we were doing something for the greater good. It was already a worldwide pandemic that already had most of Asia in fits of anxiety and panic. People losing their jobs, people going to the hospital and losing their lives. Our contribution was, ‘Hey. You know what? We can give you an escape from this terrible reality for four hours on a Friday night. If we can do that for you, that makes us feel good that we’ve given something back.'”
Staying safe during the pandemic
The behind-closed-doors nature of ONE Championship 109 required stringent measures to be put in place to ensure the health and safety of those working at the show, and Schiavello explained how he and his fellow teammates were made to go through a series of checks before even being allowed into the Singapore Indoor Stadium for the event.
“When we went to the arena the night before for the rehearsals, we arrived one by one and they held up a thermometer to our foreheads, took our temperature, and the rule was if you had a temperature of 38 degrees (100.4 F) or more, you weren’t coming in. You were going to isolation to quarantine. You were going to the hospital,” he explained. “So we all had to take our temperature, sign a health declaration form, get a special wristband, then we were permitted into the arena.
“The same thing happened the next night. No one was allowed in the arena – only one cornerman. There were guys that flew out with their families. Rocky Ogden, who fought the main event that evening, flew out with his parents, his girlfriend and his coach, Wayne Parr. They had to stay in the hotel. Only Wayne was allowed into the arena, so even his parents could not come. Back then, it wasn’t a matter of 100 people or less; it was a matter of a totally empty arena for full safety.”
Keeping up the energy
The event gave the fighters on the card an unusual experience as they contested their respective matchups in an empty, almost silent arena. The only sound came from the fighters’ corners and from the commentary position, where Schiavello and co-commentator Mitch Chilson delivered their high-energy play-by-play during each fight.
Keeping that energy level high, despite the lack of crowd atmosphere, gave the Schiavello a unique challenge as he tried to maintain his trademark, high-octane commentary style, while also realizing he had to tweak his approach to make up for the lack of crowd noise in the arena.
“Being in that environment and commentating in that environment, it was very challenging, because you don’t have the crowd to feed off,” he explained. “You haven’t got the lulls and the manic highs and the crescendos. The pitch of the audience is like a symphony. It’s like an orchestra. You’re an opera singer, you’re a Pavarotti, and you’ve got the maestro conducting the orchestra, and when the orchestra starts to pitch high and crescendo, your voice crescendos in that high C. But when you haven’t got that maestro, that orchestra playing to you, you’ve got to create those crescendos and those lulls yourself, so it’s very difficult to be able to bring that energy and fill in that empty air that you wouldn’t necessarily need to fill in if you had an audience there.
“Mitch and I, we prepared for it, and we decided we’d be a little somber in the opening that we did with Chatri. We’d lay the foundation. Then, from there, it was full-bore. It was no holding back, balls to the wall, giving it a full-pelt commentary like we usually do.”
It was an experience that Schiavello says he’ll never forget as he helped bring live martial arts action into homes across the world during a time when many of those watching desperately needed a positive distraction from the world around them.
“It certainly was different, and I am proud to have been a part of it,” Schiavello said. “I felt like for four hours on a Friday night, millions of people who were watching – particularly those watching in Asia – they got some relief from the panic, the anxiety, the sickness, and the frustration that they were feeling there and then.”
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