10 Questions For Ken Anderson

5. Trying New Things

AS: In interviews you mentioned bringing in stand-up comics do you want to elaborate on that a little bit?

KA: Sure, there's a movie called Pumping Iron, it's sort of a documentary where Arnold Schwarzenegger is going after Lou Ferrigno over his Mr. Olympia title. At some point in the movie he realizes that he needs to be more graceful in his poses, so he takes ballet lessons and that's something that most people would never associate with bodybuilding. However, it gave him a tool in his toolbox that nobody else had.

That's the way I want to look at the pro wrestling industry; what can we do that thinks outside the box? I'm going to give away some industry secrets here, but I don't think there are any left, but you know we talk to each other in the ring, and we have to talk to each other so that the camera doesn't pick it up and the crowd doesn't hear you. So you kind of have to talk through your teeth like a ventriloquist. The plan is we're going to find a ventriloquist, and we're going to bring him in and do a two-day seminar and teach these guys how to do that and those techniques, that will give them another skill set.

We're going to bring in stand-up comics to do a two-day seminar, because a lot of what we do in the ring is improv. One of my favorite stories that I tell was I was working the Undertaker in the Philippines, and I went up to him, and I had been wrestling Taker for probably 6-to-8 months, and I said, 'what do you want to do tonight man?' and he goes, 'work my leg and at some point I'll drop you on your head.'

We went out and did 32 minutes, and it was improv, and listening to the people, just going with things and that's huge in our business.