During a recent appearance on the “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” podcast, Ken Anderson commented on WWE’s original creative plans for him after winning Money in the Bank at WrestleMania 23, the company nixing his World Title run due to an injury, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On WWE’s creative plans for him after winning Money in the Bank at WrestleMania 23: “The idea was I would cash in at next year’s WrestleMania. That was the plan. I only had it a month and a half, two months maybe, and they came to me. I was riding with Matt Hardy. We had left the building early, which was unlike us. We usually stayed until the very end. For whatever reason, we left early, and I got a call from Michael Hayes. He said, ‘Where are you guys? I need you to come back. Vince needs to talk to you in his office.’ So, I scurried back to the building and I was walking into his office. By the time we got back there, everybody had pretty much filed out, so it was an empty building. I remember Batista coming out of Vince’s office, and we passed each other in the hall and he just came up to me and gave me a big hug, and he’s like, ‘You deserve it, bro.’ And I played stupid, I was like, ‘What do you mean? What do you mean?’ He’s like, ‘Just go in there, I want them to tell you.’”
“I went in and it was Vince and Stephanie. They said, ‘Look, we had planned on having Taker as the champion for a really long time. Unfortunately, he’s injured, and he needs to have surgery. So, we are going to….’ He laid out the scenario basically and he’s like, ‘You’re going to cash in your briefcase, we’re going to have a new champion.’ And I remember him telling me – they were high on Batista at the time. That was their guy. They felt like Batista needed to chase for a while, and they said, ‘When we feel the time is right, we’re going to put it on Batista, but we don’t know how long that could be. It could be like a month, or five months, or six months, or whatever.’ I remember I just said, ‘Look, I appreciate you guys saying that, but this is business and I’ll do what’s necessary.’”
On his nixed World title run due to injury: “The very next time I wrestled, I got clotheslined and hit the mat and felt something pop in my triceps. I rolled out to the floor, and Finlay rolled out and looked at me and said, ‘That doesn’t look good.’ By the time I got downstairs, my arm was swollen, and I couldn’t bend it. It was starting to change colors already. I remember Hornswoggle drove me to the emergency room in Erie, Pennsylvania. The next day, Stephanie called me in my hotel room, and she was like, ‘Ken, you tore your triceps off the bone. We still need to get that title off Taker though. We’re sending Vince’s jet to pick you up. We’re going to take you to Penn State. Edge is going to challenge you for the briefcase, and then he’s going to go on and do what you’re supposed to do tomorrow night.’
“And I remember thinking at the time, ‘I’ve got a year to cash this thing in. Isn’t there some other way you can get it off him?’ But I didn’t say it. I sort of regret not saying it now. I gave up the briefcase. The next day, I flew to Birmingham, Alabama, and I was sitting on Dr. Andrews’ table. He’s feeling my triceps, and he’s like, ‘That’s not a tear.’ Sure enough, it was just a bruise, and a bunch of blood vessels burst inside my triceps. He said, ‘You’ll be out four to five weeks.’ That was it.”
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(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
