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Joseph Carmine Bonsignore (born July 14, 1971) better known by his ring name Joey Styles, is an American former professional wrestling commentator. He is best known for his time with ECW and WWE. Before working for WWE, Styles was a full-time professional in the field of print advertising sales in New York City. He started selling digital advertising with WWE and is now selling digital advertising full-time in New York City.
Bonsignore chose to attend Hofstra University over other schools because they had a strong communications program with their own television studio and station, and because the Long Island, New York campus was close to Pro Wrestling Illustrateds offices. He hoped to get an internship at Pro Wrestling Illustrated, which he eventually did. That internship got him backstage at a World Championship Wrestling show where he first met Paul Heyman, his future employer.
Later, Heyman visited the offices of Pro Wrestling Illustrated and Bonsignore showed him a tape of his announcing with the North American Wrestling Alliance. That led to Heyman hiring Styles for ECW when he graduated from Hofstra in 1993.Loverro, Thom (2006). The Rise and Fall of ECW. Pocket Books. . p. 104
Towards the end of this period, Styles was credited as author of a column in Wrestling 93: Rulebreaker, a quarterly wrestling magazine and sister publication of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, supportive of heels.
At Barely Legal, he became the first and only wrestling announcer in history to call a live pay-per-view event solo. Later on in the promotion, he was joined on commentary by Rick Rude on Hardcore TV, Joel Gertner for ECW on TNN, and later Don Callis for pay-per-views. Styles also worked full-time in ad sales for News America Marketing, a division of News Corp in New York City.
After ECW, Styles briefly appeared in XPW but quit after one show, returning all checks that he had been paid.
In an earlier interview done by WWE.com, he mentioned that becoming the voice of Raw was a childhood dream come true. Styles also stated that calling WrestleMania was one of his lifelong dreams growing up. However, despite being the lead announcer for Raw, it was announced that he would not provide commentary for WrestleMania 22, which instead featured Jim Ross calling the matches for Raw. Styles learned that he would not be announcing at WrestleMania 22 when he arrived on Raw on March 27, 2006. The reason for Styles not calling the event is that Vince McMahon disliked pure play-by-play announcing and wanted a "storyteller" instead.
Jim Ross had a similar problem when he first joined WWE, and Styles has credited Ross for teaching him the WWE style of commentary upon his return. However, Styles was present at WrestleMania 22, losing his "WrestleMania virginity" as he put it, calling the Hardcore Match between Mick Foley and Edge. This was Styles' idea, as he wanted to achieve his lifelong dream of calling a match at WrestleMania and pitched the idea to Vince McMahon by explaining that he had called more Hardcore/ECW style matches than any other announcer in history.
On the May 1, 2006 edition of Raw, Styles announced that he was quitting by delivering a worked shoot promo, in which he bashed Vince McMahon, WWE, sports entertainment, and the fact that people "buy into this crap". To further the storyline, his profile was removed from both the Raw superstars section and the ECW One Night Stand subsite. Styles remained under contract with WWE after he quit Raw; however, making his next appearance at WWE vs. ECW Head-to-Head. Here, he provided commentary with Tazz and announced that (now former ECW Representative) Paul Heyman had reinstated him as commentator of the new ECW brand of WWE. He provided commentary for ECW One Night Stand 2006 on June 11 and went on to announce ECW's weekly show on Syfy. In April 2008, Styles began working on WWE.com, with Mike Adamle replacing him as ECW's play by play commentator. He stated repeatedly that he had retired from announcing full-time and was thrilled to continue to work for WWE as Director of Digital Media Content. Styles was soon after promoted to Vice President of Digital Media Content.
In 2010, Styles' announcing contract expired, but he remained with WWE as a non-contracted employee and continued to host "History of ECW" on WWE Classics On Demand TV service until it was discontinued in January 2014 because of the launch of WWE Network. Episodes of ECW Hardcore TV which aired in syndication from 1993 to 2000 and was hosted and announced by Styles are available on WWE Network along with all ECW pay-per-views. Due to music licensing issues, some of the commentary by Styles from ECW pay-per-views on the WWE Network has been re-recorded by Styles. Styles continued to host the ECW Unreleased WWE home video series. On November 11, 2014, Styles and Paul Heyman hosted WWE Network special ECW Exposed.
Styles appeared in WWE 2K16, announcing an ECW match between Steve Austin and Mikey Whipwreck in the Austin 3:16 showcase.
On August 8, 2016, it was reported that Styles was released from WWE and returned to advertising sales in New York City.
After his release from WWE, Styles went on record as saying he wanted "to be the Voice of the Indies" while still working full-time in advertising sales.
On November 12, 2016, Styles took part in Evolve's Evolve 72 event. Before the main event of the show, Styles made a joke involving Donald Trump and announcer Joanna Rose, stating Trump "would like to grab her by the...", without saying the word "pussy". Evolve's booker Gabe Sapolsky immediately apologized for the comment, before announcing that Evolve had terminated Styles. Two days later, Beyond Wrestling and Chikara also announced they were severing ties with Styles. After that incident, Styles retired from pro wrestling.
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