Former WWE Agent and AEW on-screen Coach Arn Anderson recently discussed the Hell In a Cell 2010 PPV. This was part of the ARN podcast and their ongoing look at the landscape in WWE from a decade ago.
One of the topics that co-host Conrad Thompson brought up was the Anonymous RAW General Manager angle that dominated the show at the start of the decade. The angle ran from June of 2010 until July the next year, with it being critically panned and lambasted by a huge amount of the audience at the time.
Arn Anderson on RAW GM Angle
It turns out that the talent and backstage personnel weren’t huge fans either, at least Arn Anderson wasn’t. “It was just when they were…everybody was drawing a blank on what to do next” Arn began on the podcast. “And we’re just running through angles.”
“Like I said, it all stems back to having that big show, that pay per view, every single month” Anderson would continue. “You have to understand. You’ve got to blow off your angles, then create the next week. You got four weeks maybe, or three weeks to get to the next show. You’ve got to start up a brand new set of angles and circumstances and build it and get it to a point to where people go spend $54.99 to get that show all again in three weeks, it leaves you in a position where you got to have something to put some band aids on different stuff.”
Arn Anderson would then address the RAW GM role specifically and the detrimental effect of having at least 12 PPV events per year. “And for that period of time? That was the band aid. When everybody drew a blank? ‘Well why don’t we do this?’ [We] go to that anonymous General Manager and have him to create something goofy.”
Anderson would finish by confirming that WWE didn’t actually have a plan for the RAW GM to be revealed initially. During the angle a laptop was placed on a podium next to the announce desk, and Michael Cole would read out the messages as they were sent through. “Because there was not a face to it. Then not only that, there was never I don’t think a plan for that to ever become anyone. So there was no grand scheme of things either.”
Do you agree with Arn Anderson? Do you have fond memories of the Anonymous RAW GM (if so, why!?)? Let us know in the comments
