Arn Anderson gave his thoughts on various topics on his latest ARN show.
During it, the WWE Hall Of Famer talked about Rick Rude and his feud with Ric Flair. Here are the highlights:
On why Rude vs. Flair didn’t work well:
“It was a heel match. There you go. It’s just that simple. When you’ve got two guys that everybody hates, natural heals, people are going to look at them and go, hey, go ahead and kill each other. Great. We don’t give a shit. I’ve had it. Exactly. Yeah. And in those days when you were clearly defined heels, they really would just sit there and watch you beat the piss out of each other because they weren’t pulling for either guy.”
On whether Rude is the greatest wrestler never to be a top world champion:
“He could have pulled that off with the proper engine behind him. I don’t know if I’m qualified to make the assertion that he was the greatest to have never been that guy. I don’t think I’m qualified to make that assertion. Curt Henning, Ted DiBiase, Jake the Snake, I mean, just the top of my head, those three. Roddy Piper was never the champion, but no one. When you think back, if you asked a wrestling fan who’s not just die-hard but is a wrestling fan, you know, what did you think about Roddy Piper? They don’t go too well; he was never championed. First, they just go, Jesus, that guy was great. Heat magnets could get incredible heat. You know what a talker is. They go to all these attributes. They don’t go to the fact that he was never a champion. And if you listed the guys that weren’t champions, people who I think would be shocked.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit the ARN with an h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.