
WWE Hall of Famer โThe Enforcerโ Arn Anderson recently took to an episode of his ARN podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including Ric Flair taking on Hulk Hogan in a career vs. career steel cage match at WCW Halloween Havoc 1994 just months into Hoganโs run with the company.
Anderon said, โWell, once you hotshot something โ I mean, careers are on the line already. [Hoganโs] just settled in. You know, heโs just settling in. Itโs hard to double back now, โOkay, a month later, letโs have a wrestling match.โ Well, the stipulation is somebody wins and somebody loses, and momentum is what you gain from that. But once you skip ahead to hotshotting, man itโs hard to double back.โ
On if the match needed to be career vs. career:
โYeah, why is it just one guyโs career? I mean, just you saying that makes it feel better. โOne of us has got to go.โ You know, it feels like to me if that stipulation only applies to one person, then youโre going to do an end-around swerve job somehow to get out of it, right?โ
On WCW bringing Flair back:
โThey called him to come back, he didnโt worry them to death to bring him back. They started figuring out heโs โ even though he lost the match, heโs still worth a lot more on the card than 90% of the guys that you had under contract.โ
On when Flair should have retired:
โOh God, I canโt make that call. Because thatโs a decision that we all have to make. Whatโs going on in our real life, or whatโs what you donโt see? What are the issues that โ you know, whether itโs injuries or burnout or any number of things you could throw out there. You just had enough, whatever.
โI canโt make that decision, only he can make that decision. Well, I just think that you know, once โ for me? Once I knew that I was permanently injured, not just hurt for a period of time? And that was it. When a doctor says, โYou want to walk, or you want to be in a wheelchair?โ You want to sit, thatโs your options. But youโre wrestling.โ So that made it pretty easy for me. And I was 37 years old, so โ well, I had a 15-year career.โ
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)