Pro wrestling legend Arn Anderson discussed a wide range of topics on the latest “ARN” podcast.
During it, he talked about his son, Brock Anderson, wanting to get into the pro wrestling business.
Brock made his in-ring debut on a June episode of AEW Dynamite by teaming with Cody Rhodes against Aaron Solow and QT Marshall.
“Our first conversation was, there was never a time when he was growing up until about the 10th grade. He started wrestling amateur in high school in the 9th grade. I saw that he enjoyed that, and if you enjoy high school wrestling, there’s something wrong with you because buddy, they starve you to death. You get in that hot field house. They wrestle you to death. You go home and you can’t eat because you’re dropping weight. Amateur wrestling is hard. It’s very difficult. He must have been in the 10th grade and we were watching TV. I think we might have been watching a wrestling show.
He brought up a question, ‘Hey, I either read this, or I saw this, or I heard about this. What do you think Dad’, but it was a wrestling related question. It was his first one ever and it was out of nowhere. I said, ‘What makes you ask?’ He said, ‘I’ve been reading everything I can and watching everything I can, and I would like to give it a try.’ I never discouraged him or his brother, or encouraged him one way or the other because it is a very difficult business. I said, ‘Ok. So you would like to give it a try?’ He said, ‘I would.’ I said, ‘Ok, I’ll tell you what. You finish high school. Then you get a college degree. When you graduate college, I’ll help you every way I can if you’re still inclined.’ He said, ‘That’s a deal.’
I knew if he graduated high school, and a lot of guys start that young believe it or not, I knew if he stepped in a ring, he would never finish college. I waited until he got his degree from ECU. We started training probably a month after that. He had about a year before I brought him around AEW. They gave him a look and signed him to a developmental deal. That’s where we are now. We’re bringing him along slowly, and letting him learn at his own pace. If you remember Lodi from WCW, he has a wrestling school. He bounces between The Nightmare Academy to Lodi’s school. He pops in there. It’s about 15 minutes from the house so that’s very convenient. We’re trying to get as many reps as we can, but there’s still not a lot of opportunities because we’re starting to travel a little more with AEW since they’ve loosened up the guidelines. We’re devoting more time to that more than anything. He’s going to be doing some signings and stuff with me. We’ll get as much ring time as possible. That’s for sure.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
