Credit: JourneyOfAFrontman.com
TNA’s Mr. Anderson recently spoke about
working with Sting and much more. Here are the highlights…
On
Doing Enhancement Work For WWE: “(laughs) Well I got into the business
in ’99 and I started sending tapes by 2000. I sent them to all the companies at
the time. It was WWF, WCW, ECW. And of course, all the independents in my area.
And basically, anytime they would come within a five hundred mile radius of
Green Bay, I would call and ask if I could go there and be an extra. If they
needed somebody to get their butt whooped that night, I’d be that guy. Just so I
could make some connections, learn from the best in the business, and I did
several of those. So did Punk, so did Daivari, and Austin Aries, and ODB. We
were all kind of a traveling crew and we would try and get booked on as many of
those things as possible. There’s probably ten to twelve matches online of me
wrestling as Ken Anderson on one of their secondary shows like Sunday Night
Heat, Jakked, or Metal. And then I would also go on and try out for TNA. Every
time that I would go, I would try to just learn as much as I possibly could,
we’d be like sponges. We’d eat something as soon as we got there and get our
ring gear on and get in and wrestle around. A lot of times, we would get
embarrassed. And a lot of times, we would screw up or we’d do things wrong or
get yelled at or we’d get ridiculed. But at the end of the day, there was always
somebody there that would come up and say, “Hey, here’s what you could have done
in that situation to make it better.” And I did that for six years. And then
finally, I had done that enough and made enough connections and I had improved
enough that I got noticed.”
On TNA’s Locker Room
Leaders: “I’d say Samoa Joe, Bully Ray, and AJ [Styles] when he was
there. The interesting thing about Impact Wrestling is that there are no egos
that I can think of. My friends and I talk about this all the time, there are
very few instances of ego. Everybody gets along and we’re all friends. At the
end of the day, you’re all there to do a job and it’s a job that we all happen
to love. So it doesn’t really seem like work. There aren’t any instances that I
can think of where a locker room leader is needed. We all stick up for each
other, we all pull for each other, we all try to help each other along as much
as possible. We watch each other’s matches, we give each other advice. We’ll rib
a guy and give him a hard time, but everybody screws up a little
bit.”
On Jeff Hardy’s Run as a Heel in TNA: “I like
the fact that TNA’s willing to take chances. And I like the fact that they’re
willing to take risks. And that was something that Jeff had wanted to do for a
long time and was told, “No, no, no, no, no. You can’t do it.” That was
something that he wanted to do. He wanted to try it. And just something like
this Willow character, that’s something that he always felt very strongly about.
And hey, at the end of the day, if it doesn’t work, we just write something else
and the machine keeps rollin’. So do I think it was the greatest thing that ever
happened? No. But it turned out that working Jeff Hardy as a babyface when he
was supposed to be a heel didn’t necessarily work that way. You’re fighting an
uphill battle basically, is what I’m trying to say. It’s tough when you’re in
front of a crowd that’s as conditioned as much as they are and they love Jeff
Hardy as much as they do, no matter what he does. He would have to do something
really, really, really awful in order for people to start disliking him. He’s
just such an endearing character, such a unique character. He’s so charismatic
and there’s not a whole lot to dislike about the guy. He’s a great
guy.”
On EC3: “That guy has quickly become one of my
favorite people to watch on TV. You can spend fifteen years on the indies, but
you don’t start getting a real education until you start working with people
that are better than you. When you’ve got Bully Ray and Kurt Angle and Sting and
Al Snow and all these guys, you’ve got all these people that are watching you
and tailoring you. They’re telling you, “Hey, here’s what you could do
differently.” He has really, really improved. He was good when he got to TNA,
but he’s really, really improved week after week after week. He’s funny as hell
and entertaining. I hope that I get to square off with him
someday.”
On Dressing Up As 90s Sting: “That was
actually my idea. I said in passing one day, “What about me dressing up as old
Sting?” I mean, I had the blonde hair. And Sting actually loved it. Those
outfits that I wore were actually Sting’s old gear. And he painted my face. A
cool moment. Looking back on that, I would have to slide him into that group of
most significant opponents that I’ve had.”
