Where Wrestling's Regional History Lives!
 |
|
You are here: Home>Tape Reviews>Shoot Interviews>Arn Anderson
|
Where Wrestling's Regional History Lives! |
|
|||||
|
- Brandon Truitt
How he got started- Arn (then wrestling under his real name, Marty Lunde) worked some TV matches on TBS for Georgia against Bullet Bob Armstrong and Brad Armstrong, Bob's son and Road Dogg's more talented brother. Bob liked him and, when he went back to Pensacola, invited Arn to work for him there. He worked for them for a few weeks in Southeastern Championship Wrestling, then he sent Arn to Bill Watts' Mid-South territory when he was done with him. He worked in curtain-jerkers for 5 months in Mid-South then, when Matt Borne (Doink the Clown) was leaving Mid-South for Georgia and needed a tag partner to come with him, Junkyard Dog thought about Arn because Arn looked like Ole Anderson and figured he could pass as an Anderson family member. Watts set up everything with the Georgia office and he headed out there. Ole as a booker- Tyrant, loud, intimidating, VERY knowledgeable, very fair, had tunnel vision, and was the one guy he was the most afraid of in the business. Watts was the same way. Teaming with Ole and Tommy Rich against the Road Warriors- Arn and Borne were being groomed for the National Tag Titles slot but Borne messed up (which is a pattern of his from many accounts) and got released. The Road Warriors got their spot because Ole needed a hot team badly. Arn, Barry Darsow (Demolition Smash), Joe Lightfoot and others wrestled against the Road Warriors and Rick Rude for the Road Warriors' first 10-day tour in the company and it nearly killed them. No matter what he went through for the rest of his career, nothing was as bad those 10 days. The Road Warriors- They were instantly over and everyone saw money with them immediately. Putting Paul Ellering with them was a stroke of genius. Other people he worked with in Georgia- Tommy Rich, the greatest babyface of his time. Larry Zbyzsko was smart about the business. Paul "Mr. Wonderful" Orndorff gave him some of the best advice he ever got... "You've got potential. Stay in the gym, keep your body right, learn how to talk, and learn how to wrestle. They can't deny you." Was he discouraged because of his body? Not discouraged because of it. He was more concerned with learning to wrestle than getting ripped and shredded. His mentors back then- Tim Horner was his first teacher and taught him every night for five months. Ole, Borne, and Ted DiBiase. DiBiase helped him a lot while Arn was a curtain jerker in Mid-South and DiBiase was a main eventer there. When it came time to leave for Georgia, Arn asked DiBiase how he could thank him and DiBiase told him "If you ever get as good as I think you will, do the same thing for another young guy", which happened to be Bill Goldberg in Arn's case. Moving to Southeastern Championship Wrestling - Ole was doing nothing with him after his run against the Road Warriors was done, so he went to Pensacola and worked there for about a year and a half. He worked with all the Armstrongs, Jimmy Golden, Ron Fuller, Robert Fuller (Colonel Parker, Tennessee Lee), Jerry Stubbs, the Tonga Kid, and others. He worked on TV a lot and got to do plenty of interviews. Around that time, Ric Flair came down and made him an offer to bring him to Charlotte. He and Ric had been friends whenever Ric would come through Georgia and Arn would be his driver (driving the champion around was supposedly an honor back then). Dusty Rhodes- Was a bit awestruck meeting him after he had watched him for years. Dusty said he'd give him the ball and, if he got some yardage, his position would go up. It did after his first series in Mid-Atlantic against Manny Fernandez. Memories of beating Wahoo McDaniel in the TV tournament finals- It was his first major title and that winning the belt was about as important to him as wrestling Wahoo, who was a legend by that point. Memories of working with Magnum TA- Some of the most intense and stiff matches he's ever had. He wanted to be the best wrestler in the world and he'd let you know that in the ring, but it was all money. He would have been one of the greatest of all time if he hadn't wrapped his Porsche around a tree in 1986. Locker room reaction to Magnum's accident- "It killed us all." It was the biggest injury they'd seen at the time because the style was more conservative back then. The doctors had said they didn't think he'd even make it through the night. There was a lot of closeness with everyone in the territory, even if they were rivals in the ring. More... |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
