AEW manager and senior producer Arn Anderson held a Q&A on his Ask Arn Anything Youtube channel, where The Enforcer named several legendary pro-wrestling names he would put in his own version of the hall of fame. This list includes Bruno Sammartino, Dusty Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat, Steve Austin, The Undertaker, and Rey Mysterio.
I don’t think you can begin a Hall of Fame unless you put Bruno [Sammartino] in there; I would think [he is] number one. I think you got to have Flair and Hogan just for who they are and what they contributed. Dusty Rhodes. I think you got to put Ricky Steamboat in there. Just for as hot as he was and probably is, and I think the business has never been hotter than when he was at his best, I think you got to put Steve Austin in there. Got to put Andre The Giant – there’s only one giant
Anderson continued…
Just for his commitment to excellence in his leadership role, and the fact that the guy’s just willing to put his body out there and do whatever he can to make the product better, and the overall respect he has from everyone that’s ever been in the room with him – got to put Undertaker in there. For the longest time, most people, myself included, had a vision in their mind of what a professional wrestler is supposed to look like and if he didn’t look like that, he couldn’t have been one of the top guys, and I think the first guy to truly wake you up to the fact that you didn’t have to be 6’5 and 270 to be successful and over in this business and you just had to be able to perform – I think Rey Mysterio was the first guy that woke you up to the fact that ‘you know what, this guy doesn’t have a chance at the bell’. Rey never ran over anybody. Rey chopped everybody down a piece at a time and at the end of the night, you bought it because of the way he did it. I think Rey set the standard and opened the door for smaller guys to have a very prominent place in the industry and be incredible in everything they do, and it wasn’t about size, it was about quality.
Check out Anderson’s full comments below. (H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)
You must be logged in to post a comment Login