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PWINSIDER Q&A: ARN ANDERSON, DVDS MIKE WOULD LIKE TO SEE, WHY ALL THE SCRUTINY ON STEROIDS GOES TO WWE AND NOT TNA & MORE

I was reading the Q&A where it said about Eugene being a huge babyface a while back, and it made me think about how the whole Eugene character started. I remember him being HUGELY over with the fans in his debut match, but then WWE over pushed him and he got boos against Triple H. Then he teamed up with Regal again and he was hugely over, so all this shows that, if pushed correctly, Eugene can be a favorite among the fans. So, why did WWE just quit on Eugene after his injury? There's many ways they could go with the character. Regal isn't really being used on Raw, why not team them up again?

The easy answer is that they are on separate brands right now.  The reality is that creative has never given Eugene a big push since the time period you mentioned and when the fans realize a character is a mid-carder, it's often hard to change that perception.  So, unfortunately, Nick Dinsmore is in a cycle where he's got a spot but won't be utilized to a greater extent than he currently is.  The upside is that he has a spot in an industry where the majority of the talents working in it don't have one.

Why is TNA being left out of all this "drugs in wrestling" business.  Doesn't it seem like they are targeting WWE a little?  Yes, Chris Benoit died while on the WWE roster, but the same problems with drugs the WWE has ROH and TNA also have right?  So why did the government call out the WWE?  Where is the letter to TNA asking what their testing policy is?  I know WWE is most visible, but we are talking about the LAW here!  The LAW!  Not some rating contest! The LAW!  How can the focus on the WWE like this?  Isn't it kind of like saying their is a problem with steroids in the NFL but we're only going to be addressing the NY Giants about the issue?

The perception to the general public is that World Wrestling Entertainment is the same as professional wrestling.  Companies like TNA and Ring of Honor are so far off the map of the general public, that they aren't even a real consideration.  It's possible TNA will get a similar letter, but they have only been in business for a little over five years, while WWE has been around in its various corporate incarnations for decades.  WWE controls the industry for the most part and is the industry in perception, so the greatest weight of responsibility will and should fall on their shoulders.

Is there any chance to get a 1 or 2 disc DVD set for the life and matches of Arn Anderson?  He's the best worker who didn't have any reason to be one of the best.  Any thoughts?

I would personally love to see a DVD dedicated to Anderson, but the reality is that he was never a top name, so the chances of WWE devoting time and effort into producing and marketing a DVD specifically about only him are very small.  The Four Horsemen DVD is probably the closest you will get to the company doing any in-depth on Anderson and hopefully there will be additional Horsemen DVDs in our future.  

By the same token, who are some performers you'd love to see DVDs on (that we haven't heard about being produced) that you would want to see WWE tackle?  You should include ideas that you don't think they would ever do, but that you'd want to see.

Well, given that my list won't include the recent WWE.com poll that featured names they are looking into, name I would love to see DVDs dedicated to Tully Blanchard, Harley Race, Ted DiBiase, The Funk family, the ECW era of The Public Enemy (laugh if you want, but if you attended ECW from 1994-1996 you know exactly how special that team was to that era), Sabu, and The Fabulous Freebirds.   I don't expect any of them to ever be produced, except for perhaps the Freebirds or (most likely) DiBiase.

The one DVD I always wanted to see (and when I was contracted to Pioneer Home Video's ECW series, I pushed this over and over with no success) would be a chronological look at the ECW feud between Tommy Dreamer and Raven, which could easily fill a 2 DVD set just based on match footage alone.

On the Ric Flair & the Four Horsemen DVD set, why didn't they include Arn's "retirement" speech?  Even if we had to sit through the nWo's cruel parody from the next week, it still would be worth it to have one of the best promos in the history of the business.  Your thoughts, please.

Some of it was shown during the documentary and I don't believe it wasn't included as a full segment as an extra for any reason beyond the producers didn't think about it.  Hopefully, if they ever do a second DVD dedicated to the Horsemen, they can rectify that.

 

 

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