WWE Hall of Famer “The Enforcer” Arn Anderson recently appeared on an episode of his ARN podcast. He discussed several topics, including WCW Nitro starting three minutes earlier than WWE RAW.
Anderson said, “There’s been a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking about that, giving away results of matches. I do think starting a couple of minutes early was a good idea. Because people are switching channels when they know it’s time, especially when they know that there’s a war fixing to go down. So I would think people would be sitting down and getting ready to watch the show, get their beverages, get their food, get their snacks, whatever. Get set up a couple of minutes before the show. They don’t want to miss the open because it’s all brand new territory. So it’s possible right off the get-go, you may miss something. Starting a little bit early would help you with that first quarter hour.”
On going live every week instead of taping it:
“Well, before you had any information or a proven track record of a few weeks to know, ‘Okay, how is this live thing–‘ I know you only get a, you don’t get a second chance at live TV. Once something happens, you got a seven-second delay and then it’s gone. It’s in the archives. So I was apprehensive because you know, it could be anything from a missed camera shot that was critical to a talent saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, all kind of no-nos that now you had no control over. Either the talent observe the rules and stuck to what the company policy was, or they didn’t, and you didn’t have any control over.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
