Arn Anderson has said he doesn’t really see the Four Horsemen’s working DNA in the super-groups that came after them, including the nWo and Evolution, telling fans on the latest episode of ARN that the comparison usually falls apart on philosophy.
The question came up after Bromwell asked Arn if he had seen pieces of the Horsemen carried into later factions. Arn had to think about it before answering.
“Not really. We were just, it’s hard to even explain. When Rick’s the champion, his responsibility is to go into every match and make every person that he goes to the ring with [look good].”
His answer fed back into a separate Horsemen-philosophy point he made earlier in the same episode about super-groups in general.
“You can name half a dozen of them. 50% of the time they’re trying to get their shit in. That’s about 85% of the time we’re trying to get their shit in. And we were making stars with the idea that with just 15% of the match, we would make that so nasty, so vicious, and you forgot about the other 85%. You didn’t have to go out and dominate the good guys. You made them superstars.”
Arn did acknowledge the Evolution-name connection. The A&E Biography Legends episode credited him with helping to name the Triple H-Ric Flair-Randy Orton-Batista group on the main WWE roster in the early 2000s.
“Very proud of that.”
Bromwell brought up a fan comparison that the WWF equivalent of the Horsemen in the 80s would have been Roddy Piper, Don Muraco, Bob Orton, and Paul Orndorff. Arn said he’d take that lineup over the alternate Hogan-Savage-Bulldogs combination floated in the A&E episode.
“I would go with the Piper, Muraco, Orton, and Orndorff crew. Paul Orndorff worked his ass off. And as you know, Paul Orton, along with Dick Slater, were the two guys that got me getting in the business. So I’m a big Orton fan. Muraco was Muraco, and of course, Piper was, he was the big player of the crew.”
Bromwell also asked about the rumored WWE plan from when Arn and Tully Blanchard came to the company in 1988 that would have had them face Demolition at WrestleMania VI. Arn declined to confirm or deny.
“I don’t know. I loved my pay scale. I don’t want to say one way or the other. But it feels like we were still on the build. Still on our way up. So might be that might have been the long-term plan. We just didn’t know about it. They booked stuff way out back then.”
Arn was also asked about Tully Blanchard’s vulnerability in the A&E Biography episode, where Tully appeared from a prison setting and spoke about how he felt after a chain of decisions led to the breakup of the Brain Busters and Arn signing back with WCW alone. Arn framed it as a missed creative opportunity.
“Just how unfortunate it was, and what could have been. That thing could have been realigned, started over, started up, whatever you want to call it, redone. And I think there was still some mileage in the tank, and not him getting canned.”
The Arn-Tully WWF run from 1988 to 1990 included a Tag Team Championship reign as the Brain Busters. Tully was released in 1989 after failing a drug test before WrestleMania V. The two reunited briefly in WCW as the Enforcers in 1991.
Despite his hesitation on direct super-group comparisons, Arn did acknowledge that the storytelling principles that drove the original Horsemen are not entirely lost on the modern locker room.
“If the talent today can watch that and just take one thing away from it, there was no spectacular anything on the beatdowns. It was just, if you’ve ever seen a backyard fist fight or a bar fight, they’re not pretty. They’re not an ass-laden. They’re just ugly, to be honest with you. And that’s what those beatdowns were. They were ugly.”
