On a recent edition of his “The ARN Show” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Arn Anderson discussed Diamond Dallas Page working in WCW as a manager, his gimmick, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On DDP’s early career as a manager: “Yeah, he had some good talent to manage, for sure. Diamond Stud was — you know, the one thing that we lacked in was, like when Vince got a hold of Scott Hall, he immediately turned him into a must-see character. We as WCW, as a company, didn’t have the know-how yet to build star characters. And that was the really big difference. Vince could build characters, and he made him a must-see. That was the one advantage that he really had. And you know, Page — you got to look at certain things. Page is, you know, he wore cowboy boots out there, and he was already probably 6’3, 6’4 maybe 6’6. You got to be careful that he wasn’t bigger than the guy he was managing. But he had that smarmy manager thing that you know, Diamond Dallas Page, he was a strip club guy. That was the character, managing the strip joints. So that was the first impression, not knowing that he would have become a wrestler after that.”
On DDP being committed: “Well, he made it work. You know, he hung in there, he worked hard. He had some good guys to work with who were willing to, you know, shine him up. And that’s what you have, that’s what you do in our business. You go out and, ‘If that’s the guy you’re gonna go with, I’ll make him look like a trillion bucks.”
On his thoughts on DDP’s work: “I got along with him fine. He was just different. He had his own style, you know. It was not something that I would say or do, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t about me. It was about him.”
On DDP’s early gimmick: “Probably could lose the cigar. I don’t know how that fit on an interest. And I don’t know, whatever else. You know, he had on the sunglasses in the wild outfit and the whole shooting match.”
