On a recent edition of ARN, Arn Anderson discussed a wide range of topics, including how brutal the 80s/90s WWF touring schedule was. Here are the highlights:
How the schedule did not allow for much sleep:
“Here’s one of the things that you may not think it’s a big deal. Try it for three months. When you’re on towards the end of the show, especially if you’re on last, and you’ve gotta go back to the hotel… you’re not going to get back to your hotel until probably 12:30. Every morning we had a six A.M. flight. That’s a four o’clock wakeup, IF you stay around the airport area. Do the math. You’re in your room at 12:30, probably one-thirty getting to sleep. Up at three-thirty, four o’clock, because you had to be there at 5:15 for a six o’clock flight. All the guys were checking in; you had to go through security.”
Why many wrestlers turned to substances:
“It was a hard life, and I’m not kidding you. So if you had to suck down a six-pack, burn a doobie, take a pill, whatever it was; you were trying to crowd in and get that two and a half, three hours of sleep. And day after day, when you’d be out on a twelve-day run, my friend; it would wear you out, beat you up.”
What the boys did to save money:
“It was miserable. If you were on top, you could do some things to make your life a little easier. You could charter a plane if you wanted to. We weren’t making that kind of money. We were the rent-a-car guys, driving to every town, two to a room, and all the things you had to do to send your money home.”
H/T to 411 Mania