Arn Anderson has detailed how he felt when he was released from working for WWE and how great it was.
For many, being released by WWE would be a time fraught with danger, however, it would appear that wasn’t the case for ‘Double A’. Speaking to Conrad Thompson as part of the ARN podcast, ‘The Enforcer’ said how his release was like a weight being lifted from his shoulders:
“I got the call and hung up the phone maybe three minutes before [Erin (Arn’s wife)] walked in the door, and apparently I had.. I don’t know what the look I had, I know outwardly, inwardly I was doing jumping jacks with a half twist. She said ‘what’s wrong?’ and I said ‘I just got canned’. And she went ‘what?!’. I said ‘yes’, and she said ‘well, are you ok?’ I said ‘never better’. It was literally like 500lbs had just been lifted off my shoulder. I looked at her and pointed towards the couch and I said ‘I will be sitting right there this coming Monday’.”
The Four Horsemen member went on to discuss how a release is perceived in wrestling and how his feelings subverted it:
“We started talking more about it, what had occurred and ramifications and all that. Man, I just, I felt great. Usually in our business, I would have looked at that as humiliation, and one of those things ‘what are we going to do? How are we going to get by’ and ‘oh my god’, y’know. At that point in time there weren’t many places still to wrestle. AEW had only been started a short amount of time. It was like it was a panic mode situation or should have been. But I was absolutely thrilled – we’d prepared for this. […] This was just one of those things that was unexpected but I welcomed it.”
Arn Anderson worked as an agent for WWE before his release and is currently coaching Cody in AEW, as part of a promise to Dusty Rhodes that he has kept.
Credit Inside The Ropes for any transcription used.
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