Originally published at Arn Anderson details the "degrading" WWE segment he was a part of
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** The latest episode of Arn Anderson’s podcast was Q&A based. Arn opened up about the segment in-which Stone Cold Steve Austin “urinated” on him during an episode of RAW. According to Arn, both Steve Austin and Blackjack Lanza, who was a producer at the time were turned down by Vince McMahon when they tried to alter the idea. Arn feels that it may have been some sort of revenge on Vince’s behalf for Arn leaving the WWF in the late 80s.
“Yeah and two people that were heavily involved in it was Jack Lanza who was like the backstage producer and . It’s the same thing as if you went out, put Austin over and got him ready for Ric the next big pay-per-view. You put him over clean in the middle. Same concept, it’s just a different way to do it, to go about it,’ would be his argument. Could be punishment for leaving the way I did in ‘89.
He waits a long time. When he feels betrayed, he feels like you’ve wronged him and we were the very first guys to turn our notice in during that era and I know he didn’t like it and you couple that with some other things but, do I think that’s a possibility? Yup. I know that he waits a very, very long time if he feels like you have screwed him and I could possibly see that. It was just so degrading and demeaning. If you looked at it on the outside in, I’m a guy that — hey, you wanna know what popped up in my head when they told me about it? ‘We want Austin to pee all over you –’ my wife and kids. Yeah, their picture popped up right in my head but that’s the reason I did it and did it smiling, because they’re the ones I’m responsible for and people may think that-that’s not true but everything I’ve done in this business, every sacrifice I’ve made, every time I’ve had guys come to me I respect and go, ‘Don’t do that, you’re Arn Anderson. Sh*t, you don’t have to do that bullsh*t. Just tell him no.’ I went ahead and did whatever was requested, take care of my family, that’s my responsibility on this earth and hopefully I will be able to see it through and make sure that I keep taking care of them for a while but I honestly believe that could have happened because it was just so personal.”
Anderson expressed that Kenny Omega versus Pentagon Jr. from the AEW World Title Eliminator tournament is his favorite match that he’s seen this year.
“Favorite match this year? Yup, and people are probably gonna chew my ass out about it but I don’t care. I like what I like. A couple of weeks back, it was a part of the did all that. They slowed it down, they sold every spectacular thing that they did to each other. I felt it, I saw the match dipping back and forth between each guy, you know, being in control and I loved it. I thought it was phenomenal and the athleticism, the thought process and everything that you wanted. The selling, the storytelling, I thought was fantastic. That’s the best one I’ve seen lately.”
A question came up about AEW’s Will Hobbs and Arn spoke highly of him. He feels that Hobbs has a bright future and Arn added that he’ll do anything he can to help Hobbs progress.
“I got nothing but time for that young man. He came up to me his first day there , remember Zeke? Traps out the ass Zekiel? Yeah, they’re friends and he said, ‘Zeke sent you a message’ and all that and we starting talking and the kid’s got a great attitude and he is a big dude, as well. Moves good, powerful. I think he’s gonna have a good career. I think they like him at AEW. He’s signed I believe so, he has a very huge upside looking at him. He’s a good man from what I can tell, very respectful of the business. He’s been very respectful to me. I will help him any way I can.”
** Shane “Hurricane” Helms was one of two guests on this week’s ROHStrong podcast. Helms spoke about his time in WWE as a producer/agent. He reflected on the mass releases/furloughs from April of this year and said that while working in that position, he was under a talent contract and was not an employee.
“I mean, obviously that sucks, you know? But it wasn’t something that was unexpected, not from me. I know that company well and I had already been at home for a couple weeks already not doing anything and I knew that company wasn’t gonna pay me to sit at home forever, not doing anything, and I was in a transition period because I had a talent contract and I was switching over to an employee. I wasn’t even an employee yet, and because I was in that vague window of a temporary employee or whatever, low man on the totem pole and it didn’t matter how good I was at the job or not. Just on paper, I was the low man on the totem pole so that was one of the easy cuts for them to make.”
Helms was asked to share some of his favorite memories from working backstage in WWE. He recalled the lead-up to his conversation with Asuka about utilizing the mist and explained why he was hesitant to approach her about it.
“It was my idea for Asuka to start using the mist, and we had a lot of fun with that. This was a great story. So that was when her and Kairi Sane were turning heel that night and they’ve never been heel. Kairi Sane specifically never had and so I tried to think of something for them to do. It needed to be somewhat heelish but they haven’t — there’s no reason for them to go full murder-mode heel yet, you know what I mean? And they were already called The Kabuki Warriors. So for me, it wasn’t a big stretch. I hear ‘kabuki’, I think of old school Kabuki, there’s the mist. For me, that was my train of thought. But then I had this weird idea in my head. I said, ‘Is it weird? I mean, I don’t want to assume all Japanese wrestlers do the mist.’ You don’t want to stereotype either so I wanted — I had to dance around how to ask Asuka about this and finally I just said, ‘Let me just go ask her. Let’s see what she says,’ and she got super excited about it and she told me she had did it once before and I was like, ‘I knew it!’ And so now, I got to figure out — and I don’t want to give away the secrets of the mist but there’s certain items you have to purchase because of it, and so, and that was a very entertaining conversation in and of itself. But it came off super well. That was fun.”
** NXT’s Shotzi Blackheart was the most recent guest on Lilian Garcia’s ‘Chasing Glory’ podcast. Shotzi was candid about the sexual abuse/assault she endured during her childhood. She shared a message on social media after the interview came out and detailed how it felt to release those feelings that she kept in.
Elsewhere during the interview, Shotzi talked about how much she enjoys Alexa Bliss’ character work.
“Yes, I love her too. Being a theater kid, I really appreciate the acting and the theatrical side of wrestling and I think she has that down. I was saying forever like, she has the best promo. She really gets her character so I’ve always appreciated that about Alexa Bliss. I’m like, ‘I see you girl. You commit.’”
** The first episode of ‘Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette’ premiered and her first guest was her husband, AEW World Champion Jon Moxley. During their conversation, Moxley further spoke about how he feels physically and thinking about making a decision about his next move in the next several years or so.
“It’s the life we live and it’s part of the job or whatever. If I just kept on doing that at the same pace, I wouldn’t have lasted long. I can feel my physical window. Not that it’s closing, but I can feel the distance now. I’m not gonna say I can feel it closing but I’m aware of it now and I wanna keep it open and extend and I wanna be able to wrestle as long as I possibly can. I would like to be 50 and wrestle. If we had kids, I would like them to be able and come see me wrestle and I like to do physical stuff. So, over the next year or two, I’ll make a — I’ll just kind of see where I’m at physically and make a decision. This whole pandemic situation really changed the year and made it a lot less busy for me.
But also, I’ve been having super physical matches and been going back and forth to Jacksonville which is a b*tch. Jacksonville’s a great town, Daily’s Place is a great venue, it’s perfect for what we’re doing and I’m glad that we have it. It’s a blessing that we have such a great venue to run safely in, but getting to Jacksonville to Vegas and back and back and forth is a b*tch. Like the west coast guys are like, ‘Aw man, this is a b*tch’ because it’s a full day of travel.”
** WBIR-TV in Knoxville ran a story on their website about Knox County Mayor Glenn “Kane” Jacobs appearing at WWE’s Survivor Series event to celebrate The Undertaker. It’s noted that Jacobs tested negative for COVID-19 multiple times while in Florida.
** In early October, WWE applied to trademark “Dean Ambrose”.
** Hangman Page vs. John Silver has been added to the 11/25 AEW Dynamite lineup.
** Eric Bischoff was a guest on the ‘Everything Is Wrestling’ show. While speaking about the possibility of WWE talents unionizing, Bischoff brought up Andrew Yang who has been open about his support for WWE talents needing to be labeled as “employees” instead of “independent contractors”. Bischoff is of the belief that a part of the reason why Yang is putting himself on the front line of the issue is to increase his own audience and support group.
“And if you’re a politician and I have not a very high regard for most politicians, I’ll tell you that, on either side. I’m just not a big fan. I think they’re right just ahead — I’m not even gonna say it. It’s too impactful… pimps and whores come to mind. Sorry, I couldn’t help it. But if anybody doesn’t think that Andrew Yang is going to jump way out in front of this issue and give it a lot of visibility and noise, simply because it’ll give him a lot of audience and a lot of support, you’re sadly mistaken so I think it’s gonna become a hot issue. That’s my prediction.”
** talkSPORT ran their interview with The Young Bucks. Matt and Nick talked about their first meeting with Tony Khan in England after an ROH show. Matt explained how although they were interested in what Tony was presenting, they were still very protective of their brand.
“Even then, though, I was so protective of our brand because we had done so much at that point and we’d just done the All In show. So it was still scary to just hand over the keys to someone else and that was probably the biggest reason we didn’t go to WWE at the time because it was like, ‘What are they going to do with this?’ We were almost over-protective of what we created. So yeah, meeting this new guy, Tony, was like this guy seems great, but again, we’re just meeting him for the first time and he’s saying all the right things, but there’s still a trepidation. Because we’d been doing this for so long and had struggled for so long and finally we’re finding this success, is now the time to finally hand it over to someone? But he didn’t want to do that, he wanted us to keep being ourselves because that’s what brought us to the dance. When we heard that, it was reassuring to us. He’s a wrestling fan and to this day, he probably loves wrestling more than anyone I’ve ever met. And he knows more about wrestling than anyone I’ve ever met. It didn’t happen overnight, it took a lot of conversation, speaking to him every day and meeting his dad – which we talk about in the book as well – and realizing one, I think this is real and two, I think this is someone I’m comfortable working with on an everyday basis.”
** As first reported by ‘PR Week’, WWE has formed a working relationship with the PR agency ‘The Romans’. The agency is working directly with WWE’s Vice-President of International Communications, Dan Humphreys. ‘The Romans’ helped WWE promote The Undertaker’s ‘Final Farewell’ on the lead up to Survivor Series. Undertaker’s appearance on Good Morning Britain was set up through the agency as well.
** Former Ring of Honor talent Pelle Primeau (Pelle Tsichlis) is seeking a dismissal of the lawsuit that was brought against him by Joey Ryan before a District court in California (via PWInsider). Ryan, real name Joseph R. Meehan is seeking millions of dollars from Tsichilis for his comments about Meehan on public platforms as Meehan’s name was circulating during the #SpeakingOut movement. Tsichilis and his attorneys are arguing that the state of California has no jurisdiction over him since he does not reside in the state and has never worked there.
** STARDOM Results (11/23/20) Hamamatsu, Japan
– Mina Shirakawa def. Lady C
– Himeka & Natsupoi def. Gokigen Death & Ruaka
– Three Way Match: Starlight Kid def. Riho and Rina
– Tam Nakano & Unagi Sayaka def. AZM & Hina
– Giulia, Maika & Syuri def. Hanan, Mayu Iwatani & Saya Iida
– Oedo Tai (Bea Priestley, Natsuko Tora & Saki Kashima) def. Momo Watanabe, Saya Kamitani & Utami Hayashishita
** On November 18th, WWE applied to trademark “Legend Killer”.
** WWE and ‘Omaze’ are partnering up to provide an opportunity for an individual to meet The Undertaker at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando. They’ll be flown out to Florida and will get to hang out with him.
** Big Japan Pro Wrestling 25th Anniversary Results (11/23/20) Osaka, Japan
– Dark Match: Issei Onizuka & Kota Sekifuda def. Kazuki Hashimoto & Kosuke Sato
– GAINA & HUB def. Kazumi Kikuta & Ryuichi Kawakami
– Kohei Sato, Quiet Storm & Ryota Hama def. Akira Hyodo, Takuho Kato & Yasufumi Nakanoue
– Tornado No Ropes Barbed Wire Deathmatch: Abdullah Kobayashi, Hideyoshi Kamitani, Kankuro Hoshino & Yuichi Taniguchi def. Boogeyman, Gosaku Goshogawara, Leatherface & Raijin Yaguchi
– Strong Hearts (CIMA & Shigehiro Irie) def. Daichi Hashimoto & Yuya Aoki
– Scaffold Deathmatch: Isami Kodaka, Yuko Miyamoto & Minoru Fujita def. Masashi Takeda, Takumi Tsukamoto & Drew Parker
– BJW Junior Heavyweight Championship: Tatsuhiko Yoshino (c) def. Andy Wu
– BJW Tag Team Championships: Fuminori Abe & Takuya Nomura (c) def. Strong Hearts (El Lindaman & T-Hawk)
– Big Bunkhouse Deathmatch: Jaki Numazawa & Jun Kasai def. Ryuji Ito & Yuki Ishikawa
– BJW World Strong World Heavyweight Championship: Yuji Okabayashi (c) def. Daisuke Sekimoto
** Thunder Rosa was a guest on the Women’s Wrestling Talk podcast.
** WWE announced a storyline suspension for Braun Strowman. Strowman headbutted WWE producer Adam Pearce on RAW.
** NJPW World Tag League Results (11/24/20) Koriyama, Japan
– Tomoaki Honma & Satoshi Kojima def. Yota Tsuji & Yuji Nagata
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens (1-4) def. Juice Robinson & David Finlay (2-3)
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Toa Henare & Hiroshi Tanahashi (1-4) def. Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL (3-2)
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Toru Yano & Tomohiro Ishii (3-2) def. Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) (3-2)
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi (3-2) def. Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan (3-2)
– World Tag League Tournament Match: SANADA & Shingo Takagi (4-1) def. YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto (2-3)
** NBC and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s ‘Young Rock’ series has begun filming in Australia. Johnson will appear on the show and working as producers alongside Johnson are Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia, Brian Gewirtz and Jennifer Carreras.
** Below is a new video from the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel:
** NJPW1972.com has an article up about Oleg Boltin picking up a win for New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s amateur wrestling team. Boltin has been under the tutelage of Yuji Nagata since 2017. To read the full story, click here.
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling announced the lineup for the 11/27 episode of NJPW Strong and here is the card:
– Clark Connors vs. Logan Riegel
– Juice Robinson & ACH vs. Adrian Quest & Jordan Clearwater
– PJ Black, Fred Rosser, Rocky Romero & Jeff Cobb vs. Tom Lawlor, JR Kratos, Rust Taylor & Danny Limelight
** WWE has a ‘Best of Sasha Banks’ folder on the WWE Network.
** Here are the results from the 11/23 ROH TV episode:
– EC3 def. Jay Briscoe via DQ
– Pure Rules Match: Jay Lethal def. LSG via split decision
– Matt Taven def. Bateman
** Beth Phoenix’s birthday is 11/24.
** Here’s the trailer for the ‘WWE Undefeated’ mobile game:
If any of the quotes from the following podcasts or video interviews are used, please credit those sources and provide an H/T and link back to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.