The Art of Wrestling Podcast Review: Episode 141- Mr. Anderson

By popular demand, reviews of Colt Cabana's The Art of Wrestling have come to CageSide Seats; for those who don't know, Colt Cabana started The Art of Wrestling (AoW) back in 2010. In the podcast, Cabana brings in wrestlers and personalities from across the industry to talk about their various roles in the industry and their personal lives, as well.

AoW is a must for any fan of wrestling who wants to learn more about this wonderful industry and the men who make it happen. On any given show you will get great laughs and some deep insight into the struggles of many in the professional wrestling world.

For those who haven't listened to the podcast before, here is a quick "best of" list to go check out (in my opinion anyway):

• Episode 50- Domino
• Episode 68- Daniel Bryan
• Episode 48- Claudio Castagnoli
• Episode 81- MVP
• Episode 2 and 100- CM Punk
• Episode 33- Generation Me/Young Bucks
• Episode 42- Steve Corino
• Episode 103- Natalya

Now, onto our inaugural review of The Art of Wrestling: Episode 141- Mr. Ken Anderson --

• Before getting into the podcast, Colt talks about Ken Anderson helping bring the WWE's attention to Colt Cabana and plays an absolutely hilarious fake voicemail from Mark Wahlberg talking about working with The Rock and who would be either HBK or Jannetty in their partnership.
• Cabana and Anderson get into what their wake up times says about their maturities and the slow march to a more mature life. They seem to be onto something with that theory. Colt thinks he is becoming more of a kid and Anderson is becoming more of an adult who likes politics and such.
• In one of the best conversations on the podcast, they get into the early slights and insults from people early on in their career that really drove them more than any encouragement and compliments. Each of them describes their initial devastation at being fired from WWE and how it has turned out for the better because of the drive it gave them. They started out with nothing trying to break out into the business and are much better off. They wish Tough Enough actually showed the realities of young people trying to break into the business.
• Anderson gets into the story of how he broke into the business. He was never into the wrestling business growing up and actually made fun of his friend for watching "guys grab each other in tights". While working at a nuclear power plant and in the Army Reserves a friend forced him to watch it for Stone Cold. Stone Cold drew him in and set him on the path to watching wrestling and ultimately to getting into the business.
• Cabana and Anderson had some of their earliest matches on the same card and Anderson's progression up to the WWE including working dark matches and matches for Velocity. Anderson is very grateful to Regal for having a real match with him in one of these matches instead of glorified squashes. He details his tryout match and the luck he had in getting drawn with Davariri (whom he had worked with before) and being pulled aside by Paul Heyman and the future help he gave him. Anderson launches into some great impressions of Heyman, Arn Anderson, and Jim Cornette throughout the whole segment. This segment provided a really good look at the process to joining up with WWE and working in developmental.
• To close out the podcast, Anderson talks about his transition to TNA Wrestling and how it has been great for his personal life. Instead of being on the road with guys that live it up, he has found a few guys that he can just go out and relax with and not have his wife worry about it. Hearing it from Anderson's perspective, it is easy to see why guys would be reluctant to make a jump from TNA Wrestling to WWE.

This episode of AoW is a great example of showing what Colt Cabana does best...getting at the real personality of the men we see on screen. If you never liked Ken Anderson before, you will at the very least enjoy the person and not apply the character of Mr. Anderson on to him. For those who love to hear more about the workings of the business, his tale of how he joined up with WWE and made his way through developmental under the guidance of Heyman is a good peek behind the curtains (including a great look at how McMahon shoots down ideas).

Grade: B+

Click here to listen to the podcast.