Ken Anderson on How Paul Heyman Has Helped Him in His Career

Former WWE and TNA Superstar Ken Anderson was recently a guest on X-Pac12360 where he spoke about how Paul Heyman has helped him throughout his career, running his wrestling school.

Anderson first spoke about his relationship with Paul Heyman beginning in OVW.

“First, when I was doing tryouts, I remember one day we were in the ring working just all the indie guys and the only two people sitting in the front row were Paul Heyman and Jim Ross. Guys were getting in [the ring] doing chain wrestling which was fine, but they just weren’t showing character. I got in there and I started putting heat on somebody, talking smack.

“Fast forward, Jim Cornette got released from the company and they said Paul Heyman was coming in and he’s gonna run OVW and he’s gonna run all the TV and everything. I remember he came in and said, ‘I need to talk to you.’ [He] pulled me into a room and said, ‘You’re the next guy up… I have been a fan of yours, I’ve had my eye on you.’ At that point, I have been there for 6 months and he said, ‘We’re gonna do so much stuff with you on TV here that they’re gonna have to take you onto the main roster.’ Five weeks later Tommy Dreamer called me and said, ‘Hey they want to take a look at you on Smackdown. In that case, Paul was correct, and I just continued to be friends with Paul.”

He continued to explain how Heyman impacted his run in TNA.

“After I got released [from WWE] and went to TNA, a lot of people don’t know this, but they would a lot of times hand me a script and I would call Paul and say, ‘Hey here’s what they gave me, I am not digging it, what can we do?’ Almost every week and he would say, ‘Give me a couple minutes and I’ll write something up for you.’ A couple minutes later he would have an email to my inbox. We just kinda collaborated, it was really cool. He’s a great guy.”

Anderson runs “The Academy School of Professional Wrestling” in Minneapolis. He spoke about what it is like to run the school.

“To me, it’s not work, it is fun. I enjoy it especially when the students are really into it and it’s a really good atmosphere and everyone is having fun. It’s not work, and I put a lot of time in it. We wanted to have a place that… we sorta designed it on a way lighter budget obviously, we looked at what the performance center is doing and how do we take that to an independent level.”

Finally, Anderson explained what the reaction was from his students when Molly Holly made her appearance in the Women’s Royal Rumble, as she works as a trainer at the academy.

“What a huge reaction from the people in the room, when they saw one of their coaches [Molly] come out as one of the entrances of the first ever women’s Royal Rumble. Which I must say, in my humble opinion, that was the match of the night, those women crushed it.”

With H/T to Raj Giri of WrestlingInc for the transcription.

You can listen to the full episode below.

Ken Anderson Sits Down With X-Pac! - Xpac 12360 Ep. #72

Are you a fan of Anderson? Have you ever wanted to be a wrestler or work in the industry?

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