Arn Anderson has seen a lot over the course of his 40+ years in and around the wrestling business. While he himself has never been a world champion, he has rubbed shoulders with and been in the presence of many who have. And his immense wealth of knowledge has made him into a valuable asset for the various companies he has worked for as a producer/coach/agent.
It’s for these reasons that Arn Anderson’s opinion carries quite a bit of weight in the wrestling business, especially when it comes to current talent and their potential for future growth.
Speaking on his ARN Podcast, Anderson took the opportunity to praise someone in AEW who has the potential to reach the very top of the company but is currently ignored for the most part.
The person Anderson spoke of was none other than Will/Powerhouse Hobbs.
Arn Anderson has nothing but praise for AEW’s Powerhouse Hobbs
“I think if given a little more time [and] a little more experience, Will Hobbs. Powerhouse Hobbs. He has all the athletic potential. He is a quality human being. A beast. He can turn it up. He’s explosive. He just needs to be in a bunch of matches with guys that have more experience than him and he will pick it up just like that.”
Anderson further elaborated that Hobbs has all the tools and physical assets to go far in wrestling. Now, what he needs the most is “reps”; in other words, a lot more matches under his belt.
“He’s got all the tools. He’s got a level and he just needs reps. Reps are the key, guys, to this business. These guys that you see out there that are so good, the Bryan Danielsons, Ambrose, all those guys, all the top shelf guys that can perform, it’s because they’ve had thousands of matches.
Fans are looking at these kids out here on our show, AEW, and some of them have had under 50 matches. A lot of them between 50 and 100 [matches]. I’m talking about for their career. For us, that was three months’ work.”
According to wrestling database cagematch.net, Powerhouse Hobbs has wrestled 217 matches in his entire career, going as far back as 2010. His most recent match was on the February 22nd edition of AEW Dark Elevation, in which he beat a wrestler named Evan Daniels.
h/t Fightful for the transcription