The Enforcer!!!!!

Hello all

This week as I was watching wrestling I noticed that WWE is getting ready for the Royal Rumble. As I have told you all before, this is my favorite time of the year. It means we are getting close to WrestleMania. Along with the Rumble, there are a few other things that have come out to symbolize that it is Mania time. One thing that I have started to look forward to as well is the announcement of the WWE Hall of Fame inductions.

This past week on RAW they did something that I don’t think they have ever done before. They have chosen to announce 2 inductions on one show. The 1st person they showed was Edge. I do have some question about that. Not that I don’t think he deserves to be there, because I do. I think he is along the lines of Shawn Michaels, and Brett Hart. A guy who did everything you could do as a tag team wrestler, then won the intercontinental championship, and waited a long time before finally winning the WWE title. He would go on to become a multi-time world champion. His career was cut short because of injury. Now my only question is, is it too early to induct him? I mean he just retired last year. But I will save that, maybe for another blog.

The next induction was not for a person, but for a group of people, “The Four Horsemen”. It is very obvious that the Horsemen are very deserving of their spot in the Hall. During Ric Flair’s introduction speech, Triple H said that he should have his own wing in the Hall. Well if that’s the case, then there should be a “Faction’s Wing” in the Hall, and of course the Horsemen would have their own.

Every one of us wrestling fans at one point or another (if we were old enough) was fans of the Horsemen. They were the best talkers, best dressers, and more importantly, the best wrestlers. If not for the Horsemen, there would be no NOW, or DX, 2 factions that changed pro wrestling.

Now, I know everyone was probably Ric Flair fans when he was a part of the Horsemen. He was their main guy, the world champ and a legit main eventer. But I will be doing my blog today about a guy who should, himself, be a Hall of Famer. A guy who has been a tag team champion in every company he has been in, and though he never won the world title, he is still someone who deserves the respect that one would get as a champion. And this man is “The Enforcer” Arm Anderson.

Anderson started off his career in 1982, working for a few indie promotions, before winding up in Southeastern Championship Wrestling, an NWA affiliate. He worked there and won their tag team titles a few times.

In 1984, he went to work for Jim Crockett Promotions Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, which we all know as the precursor to WCW. While wrestling there, he caught the eye of very experienced wrestler, Ole Anderson. Though they have a few striking resemblance, and they wrestled as brothers, they really are not related. Ole liked what he saw in Arm, and he was in need a new tag team partner, since his partner, Gene Anderson (who was really not his brother either), was retiring.
The newly formed team became known as the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, which was the name of the tag team of Ole and Gene. They work extremely well together. So well in fact, that it took them no time to win the NWA World Tag Team Titles. The team was becoming a dominate force, but they were starting to develop some new enemies. The Road Warriors and the Rock and Rock Express. But the tag team was not the only enemies they made, because they started to make enemies of Dusty Rhodes and Magnum TA, 2 of the biggest single competitors in the company at the time. Lucky for them, they got some help from 2 other guys who had similar enemies, Ric Flair and Tally Blanchard.

These 4 started to work together a lot. They also did a lot their interviews together. They would run in on each other’s matches to help the other hold on to their titles, or to beat down the good guys. One day as the 4 of them were doing an interview, all 4 men draped in championship gold, Arm said a statement that pretty much gave them their name. He said (and I am paraphrasing) Not since the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse have so few men, done so much damage. From that day forward the 4 men were known as the 4 Horsemen.

The original Horsemen would go on to have some of the more epic battles with those wrestlers I mentioned earlier. Ole and Arm were front and center in the tag team division. Arm also was trying to make a name for himself in the singles division, in the beginning of 1986; he won the World TV championship. So the 4 horsemen were riding high, until Ole and Arm lost to the Rock and Roll Express, at Starrcade 86’. After that Pay Per View, the Horsemen decided that Ole was the weak link in their chain, and decided to replace him with Lex Luger.

After losing his TV title, and tag team partner, Arm and Tally Blanchard decide to form a tag team to bring the belts back to the Horsemen. They did that, defeating the Rock and Roll Express in 1987. Though the Horsemen dominated the NWA (and the world of pro wrestling for that matter), Arm and Tally both felt they were under paid. So they both decided to move to New York (what everyone in the business referred to the WWE at that time). Their last match as NWA champs was against that Midnight Express in September of 88.

Arm and Tully went to the WWE and became known as the Brain Busters. In WWE they were a very formidable tag team. Remember back in those days, the WWE had plenty of tag teams that could give them a good fight, and vise verse. The Rockers, The Hart Foundation, The British Bulldogs, Demolition, just to name a few. And the Brain Busters were a team to be reckoned with. They climbed up the WWE tag team ladder, and even won the titles from Demolition. They held those belts for 3 months, before they dropped back to Demolition. They both decided they wanted to go back to Jim Crockett Promotions (which was now WCW), but Tully failed a drug test, and never got a chance to come back to the big time as a pro wrestler.

Anderson came back and set his sights on the WCW TV title. He won it in January of 1990, and held it till January of 1991. He lost the belt to the “Z-Man” Tom Zenk, and won it back a week later. Then he lost the belt again to a former tag team champ, and his future tag partner, “Beautiful” Bobby Eaton.

After losing the TV title, he would go back to tag team wrestling. From 1991-1997 Anderson held the tag titles with 3 different partners and also became a member of another successful faction, the Dangerous Alliance. Anderson may have gotten his shot at the WCW title (I mean David Arquette won that title), but Anderson’s body broke down on him in 1997.

Anderson stayed on WCW television all the way until before the company went out of business. He was on one of the biggest rating nights that WCW had ever had, the night the 4 Horsemen were reformed, with a whole new cast, except for Ric Flair, of course. When WCW was purchased by WWE, Anderson became a road agent for WWE, and he still does that now, as well as mentoring some of the up and coming talent now.

I think Arm Anderson is one of the more underappreciated guys to ever lace up boots. As a multi-time champion, holding every belt in WCW except for the US and World titles, I think he is one of those guys who should have, and maybe even would have, been given the title and a chance to carry the company. Maybe back in those days they did not understand that these former tag team guys, who were not very big, were still great workers, could tell a story, and could keep the prestige of the world title. Despite him never winning a world title, I think deserves to be a Hall of Famer, all by himself.


AND THAT'S THE BOTTOM LLLLIIIIIINNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!