AEW commentator Tony Schiavone recently discussed several topics on his podcast, “What Happened When.” One key point he shared was an old-school lesson he learned from WWE Hall of Famer Arn Anderson, known as “The Enforcer,” regarding how to properly structure a wrestling card.
Schiavone said, “This is something that Arn Anderson talked to me about years ago. I think it’s probably back in the pre-WCW era. We were in Fayetteville, North Carolina and Black Bart wrestled someone, and I can’t remember who he wrestled — Sam Houston. It was the opening bout of the night. It was a house show. I was there I guess as a ring announcer, or maybe I just was tagging along with Arn. And Sam Houston and Black Bart both got juice. Both did a lot of crazy shit. And Arn was pissed off. And he said, ‘In a wrestling show’ — and this is not done anymore, especially not on TV — he said, ‘You build to the main event.’ The guys that are, as he always called him the ‘curtain jerkers.’ He said, ‘The curtain jerkers should never do what they did. You build to the excitement, to the blood, and the main event should do it all.’”
On how that contrasts with the modern approach:
“Oh yeah, there’s no question that it’s changed. I remember we had a show, and this had to be two or three years ago, and we did a dark match. And one of the competitors, I won’t name his name, he’s no longer with us, I don’t think. We got so many wrestlers sometimes, I’m not sure he’s with us, and who’s not. [He] did a dive in the dark match, and I remember thinking, ‘What the f**k is he doing?’ You know, it’s a dark match. Dives are going to come up on the main event on the show when we take the air. But to answer your question, yeah it’s changed a lot. Because I mean, look what we do now. Look how we put like, one of the feature matches on first. And then maybe another feature match on second. And sometimes the match on first is even better than the main event as far as a talent is concerned, as far as notoriety. But yeah, it’s changed a great deal. I was at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend with an AEW appearance. Really had a very good time, but I was talking to some of the people in NASCAR. And they said, ‘Boy, NASCAR has changed, just like pro wrestling, hasn’t it?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I guess it has. I guess it is really changed, and wrestling has changed.’ And they asked me, one of the announcers asked me, ‘How do you like it now? The pro wrestling from when you started doing it in the 80s.’ I said, ‘I like it. I do.’ It’s not the same, but there’s something about it that is still the same. Still a ring, still exciting. But I really enjoy what we’ve got now.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
