9 Things WWE Fans Need To Know About Karl Anderson

4. Bad Intentions Came Together By Accident

karl anderson luke gallows
NJPW

Karl Anderson's first huge push in New Japan Pro Wrestling came about as part of a tag team with Giant Bernard, called Bad Intentions.

If you aren't familiar with the name Giant Bernard, you may know him by one of his many WWE names (Prince Albert, A-Train, Tensai, Jason Albert etc.). The two were a monster gaijin (foreigner) tag team and they dominated the New Japan tag division for a long, long time.

The two came together by accident however. Not long after arriving in the company, Anderson was booked on the annual January 4th Tokyo Dome show, the 'WrestleMania of Japan', Wrestle Kingdom. 

In what was something of a throwaway match, Anderson teamed up with Bernard, Takashi Iizuka and Tomohiro Ishii to go against Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, Masahiro Chono and Riki Chosu. As far as star power goes, that team takes some beating.

Anderson took the fall, tapping out to Angle in the middle of the ring, but the booking team behind New Japan were impressed enough by the chemistry shown between Anderson and Bernard to put them together full time. 

The rest, as they say, was history.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.