Professional wrestling legend Arn Anderson recently took to his podcast to talk about several professional wrestling topics.
Here are the highlights:
When he knew his WWE run was ending:
Probably four years, somewhere in there, before I got canned. I was getting blamed for stuff that was perceived to be my fault, that wasn’t my fault. My opinion was not valued. You know, something I’m not sure that everybody knows — and I’m sure they don’t — is that besides our duties on the road when you’re a producer, and you’re traveling all those miles and going out on Friday and sometimes driving 1,000 miles before you get to RAW, and then you got another couple 300 that night, and you drive, and you gotta be there early for Smackdown.
And on top of all that, they would send the [script for the] show out, sometimes on Sunday night, so after you had already put in 1,000 miles. You had already did a show, you had driven to RAW, however far that was. Then you would get an e-mail, and you would have to critique the show. You’d have to read through a three-hour RAW, give your opinions, suggestions.
Same thing with Smackdown. Now it doesn’t matter that it’s 4 in the morning and you’re dead tired. But that’s all the producers. Very rarely in those last four years, was anything that anyone of us had offered — because you would get a sheet with the producer suggestions and names that go by them. And they never would use any of those suggestions. And I knew when my opinion was no longer valued. And [if] you would speak up, it would be taken the wrong way.
It was almost like it was Creative vs. the producers, which was the farthest thing from the truth. We were doing all we could to support their ideas. A lot of them we disagreed with, and we’d voice it. And it would get kicked around the room, but by the time it got back to the beginning, it would just be what was written originally.
Not ever feeling like a ‘WWE guy’:
I just felt like, you know, the last four years, I always kinda felt like I was one of those, ‘You WCW guys.’ I always felt that way… outsider looking in. Even though in total, 18 years with the company, you would think my loyalty would be unquestionable. I just felt like an outsider, on the outside looking in. I never was comfortable, I never was in that — and to be honest with you, I didn’t want to be in that inner circle with my head up Vince’s ass, or Hunter’s ass, or any of those guys’ ass around.
You know, I just wanted to do my job, help the talent the best I could, take the ideas that Creative came up with, whether I agreed or not agreed with it, try to make it work the best I could. And I just, you know, I was getting my head taken off for things that weren’t my fault. You know, I was made to feel suddenly like I didn’t know anything about the business anymore. It was like I suddenly was inept. That all that knowledge I had acquired over the years, and all the rules, and all the things I knew applied, didn’t apply anymore. And you know, you feel pretty stupid after a while, after getting hit over the head with that, ‘Oh, that’s stupid. Oh, that’s stupid. Oh, that don’t make any sense. Oh, that don’t make any sense.’ You start to believe it.
If Vince McMahon was the guy saying that to him:
Yeah, of course. Because that’s all that mattered. At the end of the day, it was an audience of one who we were performing for, across the board. Which was told to us guys. ‘You only have to please an audience of one.’ And we know who the audience of one is. So, if you’re not trying to give the audience what they want, if you’re just trying to tip-toe around what you know he wants and requires, it’s a difficult mine-field. It really is.
Also Read: Arn Anderson Reacts to the Cody Rhodes/Darby Allin Match, Impact Teases Big Announcement
H/T 411Mania for the transcriptions
