Wrestling legends and current AEW managers Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson were recent guests on the Talk Is Jericho podcast to talk all things pro-wrestling. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
The comparisons that FTR have towards Blanchard and Anderson :
Anderson: “I think it was an absolute effort on their part to pattern themselves after our style, but also saw that they took the concept of whatever it may be, suckering a guy in, making you chase him, roll back in, get his back turned to your opponent, a tag that he doesn’t see, the guy steps in from behind and plows him, that psychology, but they put their tweak on it. And you know, they’re a hell of a lot, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, they’re a hell of a lot more athletic than you and I are and were, but it’s the same concept. They truly are, they give you, at the end of the day, they’re a team that knows what their partner’s doing at all times. That’s what makes a great team, I think.”
How tag team wrestling has changed:
Blanchard: “Well, I think I’ve been gone for a longer period than either one of you guys, and so I come back and I look at stuff, and I recognize holes that I would probably adjust if me and Arn were transformed back into this period and go, ‘Okay, this is what we gotta do,’ and blah blah blah. And it is, but you’ve also got to realize that it’s never going back.”
How well they worked together:
Anderson: “We just clicked, it got to a point, Chris, and you may have been this way with some partners in the past, I could just look at him, guy could have me in a headlock, and I could just look at him and he knew what I wanted. I may take it as far as just to tap myself on the leg, shoot him off, if I drop down, when he hit those ropes he knew, catch him in the back and it got to be automatic. And that’s when it really got fun.”
Blanchard: “Yeah, and it was fun and it was one of the things when we were, when we went up to the WWE, was things wanted to be a little more planned out which didn’t really float real well. I said, ‘Do what? When? How? What?’ And it was fun to go to work. Working with this guy every stinking night, it was, you had fun in the ring, and you knew that 16,000 people or however many were there got their money’s worth watching us, and that was satisfying and that was what we were paid to do, was entertain people and bring them back the next time. And it was really that period from ’85-’89, it was like a flash, but it was the best time that I’ve ever had in my life, and you know to be able to come back and hopefully give a bunch of knowledge that can still be applied, maybe tweaked a little bit but applied is very exciting to me.”
Full episode of Talk Is Jericho is below. (H/T and transcribed by WrestleZone)