– Tessa Blanchard, daughter of WWE Hall Of Famer and original Four Horsemen member Tully Blanchard, is getting a tryout with WWE this weekend.
– The latest edition of “WWE Top 10,” which you can see below, takes a look at the ten kisses that “rocked” WWE the most.
The following are highlights of a new Post & Courier interview with WWE Hall Of Famer Arn Anderson:
Being a Horseman: “Being a Horseman isn’t something you put on in the morning and take off at night. It’s a state of mind. It’s excelling to the best of your ability. It’s four individuals thinking singularly, acting collectively.”
Fans supporting him all these years: “For me to still be recognized after all these years of not being on TV, by anybody anywhere, is still a thrill and I really appreciate it. You know the guys who did it for the money … they’re not around. You knows the ones who did it for the glamor … they’re not around. But when we went through that curtain, we tried to outdo each other. Tully and I would try to outdo Barry and Ric, and Ole and I went out and tried to outdo Tully. We were feeding our own egos to see if we could do it, but it basically was for the fans. They were the benefactors. They got the best show possible. It was for them, and we always knew that. Without them, nothing happens.”
Learning from Tully Blanchard and J.J. Dillon: “I learned from them. Both of them, in their own way, were a lot better than I was. I was very fortunate and very lucky to have been in their presence. There was a time that – I don’t think, I know – we were the best in the world. And I have no problem saying that. It was each man carrying his own weight. J.J. was a smart man, a great talker, a great organizer. Tully was a great performer – as good as anybody out there – and a great partner. So it was a very special time, and it will be great to relive that at this event. It will be a celebration of just that.”
What might have been if he would have been able to continuing competing: “I would think for sure I would have had at least five more years. Without the last neck injury, even running on fumes for the first two, I could have gotten by. But who knows? Maybe 10 more years. Thirty-seven is not that old. The crazy thing is that I had those terrible neck injuries, and I wasn’t one to come off the top (rope). I really feel for these guys today.”
Working with Dolph Ziggler, who he says has potential to be a top WWE money maker and is one of the best in the business: “Dolph has got to be one of the toughest men to put on a pair of boots. But he’s going to be like Cactus Jack (Mick Foley) in another five years because that kid beats his body up more than anybody on the crew. I do know this. In my dealings with him, when I’m his producer, he gives everything he’s got. He does some really phenomenal, athletic stuff.”
Check out the complete interview at PostAndCourier.com.
The following are highlights of a new Busted Open Radio interview with WWE Hall Of Famer J.J. Dillon:
On Daniel Bryan’s injury and pushed wrestlers having to leave due to injury: “It’s happened numerous times over the years on both sides of the extreme. Look at Magnum TA and what a future Jerry Allen had in terms of ‘the skys the limit’. He had the look, the speed, the size and on a rainy slick night his car slammed into a tree, slammed his head into the car and broke his neck instantly ending his career. It’s not only the dangers that one faces in the ring because of the natures that wrestling is. There’s as much danger traveling. During the glory years of The 4 Horsemen, Arn Anderson had continual problems with his neck. It got worse and worse and he felt a numb in his arm. It kept getting further and further down and finally it reached his hand. Arn was so committed to the Horsemen, he said numerous times that it was a level of excellence and commitment that doesn’t come along every day. Arn continued to go out there every day and as a result, the nerve damage continued to progress that he needed surgery and when he finally had surgery, the damage wasn’t reparable.”
On injured wrestlers coming back from injury who were popular when they left: “I think you have to look at each case on an individual basis. Daniel Bryan, there’s a guy that, from an outside perspective, it would appear that there’s a guy who didn’t set the mold of what you would expect Vince McMahon and the WWE to give a push. He had that ‘it’ factor. The fans wouldn’t give up on him and WWE had to elevate his status because the fans demanded it. It’s sad that a guy finally gets his chance and was on the climb to who knows where and how long and then this injury comes along. Doctors will look at a guy and sometimes a guy will get a second opinion from another doctor and the doctors will sometimes not agree on the situation. The one reality of the whole situation is not only in WWE but in the whole genre of Pro Wrestling, you don’t have the depth of talent that was there years ago. You don’t have another guy you can plug into that spot and keep the momentum going. It’s the sad state of reality of the business today. Take a look at Ronda Rousey. She caught the world by storm. What happens if she goes down from injury. There is no one left.”
On Daniel Bryan and WWE creative: “From the times I’ve seen him, he has that it factor and connects with the fans. One thing about creative is there were a lot of ideas over time throughout my career and the ultimate judge and jury is the fans. You would take a guy who had the right talent and didn’t have the right situation for him and you’d put him in a situation that’s kind of like just being in limbo just to keep him out there. Sometimes it catches on fire like you couldn’t imagine. That’s one of the things about pro wrestling, sometimes you have the right pulse and sometimes you don’t. Vince McMahon picked more winners than losers, but no one is perfect.”
On the emotion he and the Four Horsemen had being inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame: “When I first started I was a fan. It was in the late 50’s and I thought I could become a professional wrestler and appear at Madison Square Garden. The Hall Of Fame at that point was Baseball in Cooperstown. There was no wrestling hall of fame. You just took it day by day and pursued your career and I’ve said it time after time that the fans made wrestling the way it is today. Their the greatest fans in the world and whatever success myself and the Horsemen had was because of the fans. We gave everything every night. It’s like in any other business, you have to give respect to get respect. At the end of the road, I wrestled full time for 5 years before I managed, then I continued to wrestle while managing. After 20 years I had over 3,200 matches. I have done it all and when you look back and you’re being inducted into the hall of fame, all of my children were there in attendance to share the experience with me. We were treated with great respect by the fans and the stars of today. The following day going in front of 70,000 people getting cheered and a standing ovation, it was a very emotional moment.”
On Ole Anderson not being inducted into WWE HOF: “Well there are political issues that go back to Georgia Championship Wrestling. If people do their research, they would realize that there was a negative tension between Vince McMahon and Ole Anderson. Ole probably wouldn’t accept it if they offered it to them. The Horsemen wouldn’t be the way they were without Ole. When Lex Luger came around we camouflaged his flaws and he came along at the right time. When Barry came along I think that was the elite group. With Barry you had the young looks, athleticism and skills.”
Check out the complete interview at BustedOpenNation.com.
J.J. Dillon Speaks On How The Four Horsemen Were Formed, Ric Flair’s Work Ethic
The following are highlights of a new WGD Weekly interview with J.J. Dillon:
How the idea for the Four Horsemen first came about: “It wasn’t really an idea that had been laid out in advance…Baby Doll was there with Tully and there was the deal where I orchestrated the thing and got Tully away from Baby Doll…Dusty came to her aid…and that’s how I’m with Tully. Flair was the World Champion, Ole and Arn were the World Tag Team Champions, and Tully was the National Champion, and he was the only one I was managing…One of the weeks, I don’t know if it was short on time or what, somebody said, ‘You guys have all the belts, all of you go out together. Just tell everybody where you’re gonna be this week. That’s what happened.
“Flair went out with the World Title over his shoulder, Ole and Arn went out with the tag belts, Tully went out with his belt, and I went out because I managed Tully. As the mike passed around, Arn Anderson took it and said, ‘You people at home take a good hard look at your screen, we’re all champions. Never have so few wrecked so much havoc on everyone,’ and he said, ‘you’d have to go back in the history books to the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse,’ and he held up the four fingers. It was just a statement that he threw out there. Then, the next thing you know, when one of us went out there in the studio, it became an interactive thing, holding up the four fingers…it was probably a couple of weeks before Jimmy Crockett said, ‘what is this Four Horsemen thing I keep hearing about.'”
What made the Horsemen such a special group: “I don’t think anyone could’ve ever imagined that it would become as big as it became and last as long as it did. But what happened was, it was a group of guys, who the chemistry was just there. Every night, even though we weren’t always in the same match, actually, I think Arn in his WWE Hall of Fame acceptance speech said, a guy would go out there and basically throw down the gauntlet and challenge the rest of us to go out and top what they had done. So, it was a friendly competition, and the ultimate winner was the fan, because they knew when we were on the card, they were going to see our best effort, every single night, in every town, no matter where it was or the size if the crowd.”
“The differences in traveling and other aspects of the wrestling business in his days on the road as opposed to today : “It was a different time in the business then. Because, we didn’t fly around, we traveled. The guys had opposite dressing rooms. The guys that we wrestled against, we had very little contact with, we would rarely even see them. In the small towns, like Amarillo, if you would go to a restaurant and see a guy who would be across the ring from you, you would go somewhere else. It was just how it was in those days, and I think that has a lot to do with why the fans had a lot more respect for us, because we commanded that respect by not giving them any reason to disrespect us. In the middle of the night on those long trips, we would pass each other, and here we would be on a stretch of highway between Colorado Springs and Albuquerque in the middle of the night. We would flash our lights to pull over, we’d get out and have a beer together and a hug and nobody would ever know. But it was the camaraderie driving in the car where more ideas were created that drew tremendous amounts of money…It was the kind of things we did, like that, and we drew money, and the business was fun…The trips were long, it was physically demanding…it was just pride that the people in the business and gave up their bodies for it had.”
Ric Flair’s work ethic earning him the respect of the fans: “Flair would give you the same effort if it was an arena with a crowd the size of 25,000 people or if we went to somewhere where the television show that week didn’t air because there was a problem and there was only 500 people. You would think, here is a night where he is just going to go through the motions, but that just was not Ric. He would give you the same match and that is what the fans came to respect.”
How he lived out his dream to wrestle at Madison Square Garden in 1984: “Eddie Graham came into the office one day, which he would often do. I was working in the office and I told him how I had dreamed of one day going to wrestle in the Garden, too. This was 1984, I broke in in 1971…father time was not on my side. Eddie never said anything, he got up and walked out. A day or so went by, and he walked back in and said, ‘you are booked on the next card at Madison Square Garden. They are going to send you a plane ticket, you will be booked on the card, you will fly up and then fly back. After our conversation, he called Vince McMahon, Sr., who remembered me and at the time, it was right when Vince, Jr. was declaring war on everybody and taking over. The father was very sick at the time with lung cancer…I called him to thank him…he told me that he remembered me fondly and that he heard I had this dream and he wanted to make it happen. I still have a copy of the program on my wall…April 23, 1984… they juggled the card around and I ended up wrestling Tito Santana, who was the Intercontinental champion at the time.”
Check out the complete interview above.
The following are highlights of a new interview with former WWE Diva Debra:
Where did the “Queen of WCW” gimmick originate from? “Well, at the time I was actually married to (Nitro announcer) Steve “Mongo” McMichael…and my background was I’m an actress and I studied in New York with Lee Strasberg. So they brought me in over there because of my acting and I’m athletic, and I had also won Mrs. Illinois America and Mrs. Texas USA, and so Eric Bischoff was like ‘Why don’t we make you Queen Debra?’…Eric wanted a real bitchy, debutante Queen Debra, and I am from the South as you can certainly tell by my voice, and I’m definitely a pageant winner. I remember my first interview or the first time on TV he helped me a little bit, but then after that I knew the direction I wanted to go in and what they wanted and what the fans wanted, so I just would write my own stuff.”
You were involved with The Four Horsemen during your run in WCW. What was it like being around “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair? “Oh man, he was so much fun. You would never know what he was going to do, because you’re out there, you’re on live TV, and you just knew you had to go with whatever he was going to go with…We would all end up back at the hotel after the show, all of us, and it would be just everybody laughing, talking about the show, and then The Nature Boy, oh my gosh; you know he does like to just dance on tables without…he likes to take his robe off and there’s nothing up underneath it, but you just don’t even pay any attention, it’s like ‘That’s just Ric being Ric’…It was a good time
back then.”
Check out the complete interview above.
The following are highlights of a recent WGD Weekly interview with Tully Blanchard:
On what it meant and still means to be a Horseman: “When it was happening, you had nothing to compare it to, so you really didn’t and couldn’t know the impact. As we got into it, the promotion company and the reason that it is so well remembered, is it was not a promoter’s idea. It wasn’t Crockett and Dusty and all the powers that be sitting around and saying, oh, we’re going to put these four guys together and call them the Four Horseman…It was great entertainment, we sold out buildings…it was impactful, but I think it hit me the most, when I was in the car, driving to the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina and I pulled up behind a school bus. In street clothes, in my car, whatever and one of the kids in the back of the school bus looking out the back window recognized me and you could see him turn around and get frantic. Then there must have been forty little hands stick out the school bus windows on the sides with the four fingers. I can remember sitting there…and I’m going, oh my, this thing is coming cultish…and it was just amazing because nothing in wrestling had ever done that. Maybe Lou Thez or Ed “Strangler” Lewis back in the 30’s or 40’s, but modern day, nothing had ever impacted like that…it was just amazing to be a part of.”
On how he came to be one of the original Four Horsemen: “It was the World’s Heavyweight Champion, it was Ole and Arn, the World’s Tag Team Champions, who were related, Flair was a cousin of the Andersons and me, because I was wrestling the booker and the booker wanted to be part of the show, I go to be involved, so I was the fourth, I was the World’s Television Champion.”
On the reason the later versions of the group failed to live up to the original: “Later on, as WCW tried to resurrect the Horseman and the eighty five guys they put in there, and all the talent they put in there and never resurrected it, just lets you know it was about chemistry, it wasn’t just about talent. The chemistry that Ric and Arn and I had, and your throw Barry in there or Ole or Luger, and J.J. and there was a tremendous chemistry that happened, and a magic that happened that not everybody, if though they were great performers, could not generate that kind of magic in the ring.”
On the incident between himself and JBL when he was going to return to WWE: “I’d gone up basically as an interview, you know to see and scope out, or as Vince told me to absorb, because the wrestling business had changed. They were getting ready to do the taping in St. Louis. I never really had actually remembered meeting JBL, and he started telling me from across the room that I was a fake preacher and I was this and I was that and I didn’t belong there and that I treated him bad when I was a star and he was just starting…it caught me very off guard, because…I didn’t treat people bad. If I didn’t like you, I just said hello, and I didn’t mess with you, that’s just the way I was. I didn’t remember it, so I told him, well it’s very possible that I did treat you poorly, and I hope you can forgive me. That’s all that was said on my part and we departed.”
On failing a drug test when he was planning to return to WCW: “Arn and I just made a phone call and they had offered us a large sum of money if we would leave the WWF and reform the Four Horsemen. That’s what we were going to do. In that process, my life ended up getting changed, because we had that agreement with WCW, then I flunked a drug test and Vince suspended me on November 2 of 1989, as their drug policy was. So, I got suspended and Arn went on to do the Survivor Series. We were supposed to start that Saturday after with WCW and they reneged on the deal with me and hired Arn back at a substantially less amount than they promised. That lets you know probably one of the reasons why they are out of business, because they aren’t stand up people…Anyway, in that process, when Flair called me on November 13, at one o’clock in the morning and told me they weren’t going to give me the contract, I was all of a sudden in eleven days, I was a world champion and promised three quarters of a million dollars to unemployed. At 35 years old, I didn’t quite know how to handle that.”
Check out the complete interview above.