During the latest edition of his “ARN” podcast, Arn Anderson commented on his gas station parking lot angle with Erik Watts, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his gas station parking lot angle with Erik Watts in 1993: “The underlying story between that whole thing was Bill Watts had already decided that Bobby Eaton and myself – at a time where he was cutting everyone’s salary, cutting them in half – he was cutting Bobby and mine’s in half too. That’s a lot of money. So, I’m thinking, ‘Well, there’s no way I’m gonna get my money back.’ So, the next best thing is to get some time off with at least half pay, and I’m not having to spend anything to make it. I came up with that angle myself. As it turned out, because you wanted to get the most out of the angle, I was off four months. During that four months, Bill Watts became unemployed. I was hoping for something like that to happen, Dusty came back in the booker spot, I started back, and everything completely changed. So, what I did was I bought myself four months off with that angle.
“A lot of people said it was hokey in a parking lot and all that stuff. I was just looking for something different, and it was definitely different. The real rib to the whole thing was there was one police officer there who was supposed to make sure that no one intervened or anything like that. All the other police officers were driving by and saw the angle going on and had no knowledge of it. They were there shooting. That was the inside on that deal. The guy that was trying to pull Erik off of me was a civilian. He was legitimate and wasn’t part of the gig. So, there were some parts that were cool and legitimate. I don’t know if in a street fight you put an STF on somebody, but that was his hold and what we were trying to get over. Bill was happy with it. He thought it was excellent, and it did a lot for his kid I would imagine. Plus, I got the four months off.”
On Watts being pushed as a top star in WCW: “You want to know the truth? It’s really not his fault. He was brought in as the boss’s kid and pushed to the max. You can imagine the look on Rick Rude’s face when Watts told him he wanted his kid to beat him. Can you imagine how that conversation went down? Me, I was just trying to make the most of it. The reality is, that’s one of those deals where the company gets heat with the fans because they don’t buy it. As elaborate as that was and the intricacies of everybody in the parking lot is beside the point. At the end of the day, did they believe Erik Watts’ character was gonna have Arn Anderson in an STF in a parking lot screaming bloody murder? I’m not sure that they bought that.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)