Andrew Lutzke
Presented by Highspots.com
The question and answer participants are Ole Anderson, JJ Dillon, and Tully Blanchard.
Blanchard explains how the Horsemen came together by accident when all the men had titles and did some group promos.
Dillon puts over Ole Anderson as a talent and talks about his own matches against the Anderson Brothers.
Ole Anderson says he was glad to be part of the Horsemen as he liked making money. He had already retired twice before that run.
Ole and the others make light of being old men now.
Blanchard goes over the rotating cast members of the Horsemen during the 80’s.
Dillon tells about bringing in Luger to groom as a top guy.
Anderson was glad to leave because he and Flair didn’t get along too well.
Ole buries Luger’s skills in the business.
Anderson explains how his kids were doing very well in sports and leaving JCP gave him the chance to watch their successes in person.
Barry Windham’s many talents are gone over.
Anderson was so hated in his heyday that he was stabbed seven times.
Blanchard talks about how Dillon, Dusty, Arn, Windham and himself all ended up in the WWF by 1989.
Tully feels the two best angles the Horsemen ran were breaking Rhodes’ ankle to set up Starrcade 85 and breaking Rhodes’ wrist by attacking him in the JCP parking lot. The fan heat for those dastardly attacks was off the hook.
JCP ran successfully head to head with the WWF in many markets.
Anderson covers how the current WWE is the shits.
Hulk Hogan was under Ole’s employ in 1978 and Anderson thought he was terrible. He mocks Hogan’s posing and questions how that makes him a good wrestler.
Ole compares his matches with Wahoo McDaniel to spousal abuse.
The host tries to ask Anderson about feuding with the Horsemen after they broke up but Ole can’t remember any of it.
They try and ask Ole about kicking Sting out of the Horsemen in 1990 and he doesn’t remember that at all either.
Anderson explains how he, Lars and Gene were all big, rugged men and they had to work and sell with a lot of much smaller talent.
Don Jardine, Johnny Valentine, and Wahoo came in to JCP in the 70’s and gave Ole the larger opponents that he could work with and it altered the territory.
Dillon explains that the first group was the best in some ways, and even the Luger and Windham versions may have lost something compared to the organic formation of Ole, Arn, Tully and Flair.
They won’t share any ribs that they played on one another back in the day.
A fan asks who could have fit in with the Horsemen, and is shot down because the Horsemen after 1988 was just a name, and all the later groups lacked the magic of the first. (Had to expect that answer since all 3 of these guys were gone by then.)
Ole gets riled up when someone mentions that Flair put him down in a recent interview.
Blanchard didn’t like working the ladder match with Dusty because it hindered his in-ring performance to have the ladder in the ring.
Anderson covers meeting Vince McMahon in 1984 and telling him to fuck off. Vince came back a few weeks later with his wife Linda, Ole told them both to fuck off.
Ole refused to participate in the WWE’s DVD on the Four Horsemen.
Dillon explains his psychology behind being a manager, showing emotion on the outside of the ring during a match and how he wanted to be an extension of his charges.
The WWE gives out gimmicks, the old way was for a guy to find his own voice and get himself over.
The heels knew that when the arena went totally silent that that was a sign that the fans were about to get dangerously mad and possibly riot.
Blanchard talks about having to wrestle some shitty main event talent, but knowing the money was still green for doing it, you did what you had to do.
Flair’s divorce, IRS problems, and spending habits are touched on. Dillon is sad to see Flair still taking bumps at his age because he needs the money.
The tag team match formula of wearing down a babyface and holding off the hot tag is discussed.
The Andersons once worked so snug with one opponent that his partner refused to come in when tagged in, then curled up in the fetal position, took the pin and quit the territory.
Blanchard liked working with Dusty, Wahoo, Ron Garvin, The Road Warriors and The Rock and Roll Express because they drew lots of money.
Dillon doesn’t recall any other people considered for the spots that Windham and Luger occupied in the group.
Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard had a brief feud in 1984 but Blanchard doensn’t remember it drawing well, so a new booking direction was implemented.
Ole and Dillon tear into Eric Bischoff’s treatment of the business and Bischoff’s constant undermining of the Horsemen when he was in charge.
Dillon starts crying when he brings up Ric Flair’s return to WCW after a lawsuit related absence in the later 90’s.
A fan asks Blanchard what it was like to work against the Ultimate Warrior and Tully only remembers Warrior blowing up. The match was bittersweet for Blanchard as he was fired the next day.
Blanchard explains how fans could think wrestling was fake but still buy some match ups as completely real when the right workers were involved.
Dillon suggests that anyone feels the business is fake needs to trade bodies with him as he has lots of parts that need replacing.
Anderson would shoot on fans who questioned whether wrestling was on the up and up.
The Horsemen all live far from one another and only meet each other at conventions now.
A fan asks, “If Dusty Rhodes wasn’t around, who would have served as your main opponent?” Without missing a beat, Blanchard answers, “Probably whoever was the booker.”
Tully’s dad Joe is in attendance and gets a standing ovation from the crowd. Joe covers his career breaking in under Stu Hart and running his own promotion in Texas.
Blanchard touches on an Apter magazine article that had his father, as the babyface figurehead of the AWA, arguing with his son who was in full dickhead heel mode.
Tully admits that he regrets leaving JCP and heading to the WWF. His career would have lasted a lot longer had he not been so irrational.
Dillon loves how his career went and wouldn’t change a thing.
Anderson talks about working with Danny Hodge very early in his career and having to face a legit shooter like him every night made him respect the business in a hurry.
The Andersons tended to travel alone, largely because Ole and Gene were set in their ways.
Ole puts himself over as a great booker, even if he had to piss people off sometimes. Dillon says Ole was disliked because he tended to tell people the truth, whether they wanted to hear it or not.
They all thank the fans.
Final thoughts: Not much new ground covered here, however it was fine for what it was. The audio was my biggest issue as the microphones didn’t emote as well as I’d like and info was missed. On a positive note, Ole wasn’t too cranky for a change, so there’s that.
