SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Q&A PRESENTED BY CHAIRSHOTS REALITY
APRIL 7, 2018
NEW ORLEANS, LA. AT SPIRITS ON BOURBON ST.
PANEL: Tommy Dreamer, Ken Anderson, and Noelle Foley
Before the Q&A there was a meet and greet with Dreamer & Anderson in the outside area in back of the bar. Both of them were extremely approachable and easy to talk to. Q&A started at 3:30 and the attendance probably had about 100 people that all took place in the front of the bar.
For Dreamer: How much money does Paul Heyman owe Dreamer?
He estimated about $400K. His mom still hates Heyman, but Dreamer has more respect for him because of what he provided for Dreamer’s legacy. You learn from the past and he has no regrets of how things went down.
For Anderson: Memories of his feud with the Undertaker?
He learned a lot from Taker. He did have a good story too: Taker told him to go ahead and do a piledriver and he did it but Vince told him “only two people can do that move.”
For Noelle: Any match of your dad’s you just can’t watch?
HIAC pretty brutal. Any match with chairs. His match with Edge was also a bad one.
For Dreamer: Drink of choice?
Dreamer doesn’t drink. He really tries not drink, and tries to focus on the gym and staying in shape (he jokes about the irony of that.)
Dreamer has a story about Mick & that Mania Match with Edge:
After a 19 hour work day of being a road agent, Dreamer had to throw himself through a flaming table for the fire chief for that match. At three in the morning. In a suit. He thought he was going to be apart of the event but here he was just a crash test dummy.
For Anderson: What really happened with him and Randy Orton?
Ken makes it clear that him parting ways with WWE wasn’t just an incident with Randy. He says he made/had a lot of missteps to lead to what happened in WWE. There were things he could’ve certainly handled better. Ken comes off very reflective here.
The benefits of WWE & WrestleMania for the entire industry
This leads to Dreamer talking about the benefits WWE provides for the rest of the wrestling business. No matter how you feel about their product they manage to bring all us misfits together once a year in one city which is pretty incredible. He talks about taking risks, says that even Vince and Linda put their house up in exchange to help promote the first WrestleMania and if it didn’t work the two would have literally been homeless.
What have the two learned from their other jobs in the business, with Ken teaching a wrestling school and Dreamer as a producer?
Dreamer’s been producing since the ECW days so at this point he’s pretty used to it. He talks about having to just produce the Lucha Underground/Impact wrestling show that happened on Friday. All the ECW talk sparks Ken to add that although Heyman gets the credit for ECW, Dreamer doesn’t nearly get enough for his contributions.
Ken says that he’s still wrestling, but what he learns from teaching classes is that he loves the process of coaching and witnessing the light go on for his students when they start understanding how things go.
Lessons learned from being a wrestler?
Tommy Dreamer makes a baseball analogy: Clayton Kershaw is MLB’s best pitcher: he doesn’t always have a perfect game, but he’s the best at what he does. He has five people whose job it is trying to make him great. For Dreamer, he had Heyman, Funk & Foley trying to make him great. That’s when the light turned on.
For Kennedy it was when he went to the WWE. He’s still learning and he’s teaching wrestling school.
Dreamer also said he learned a lot from wrestling by joking to never have Sandman on your card or have him referee a match. One time he had him do that and wouldn’t make a three count because of his shoulder hurting.
It was Terry Funk that told Dreamer that if he no longer loves his job then you stop doing it. Dreamer still loves it.
Anderson talks about getting the phone call from Tommy telling him he was hired.
Dreamer recounts that when trying to get into WWE, Ken would formally announce himself in every voicemail as “Ken Anderson from Green Bay, Wisconsin.” Tommy clearly remembered him everytime he called so he when he called Ken to give him the good news he deadpanned that he was “Tommy Dreamer from Yonkers, New York.” Ken was so amped he started saying how he won’t “let Dreamer down, etc.” and Dreamer told him to not get all lame on him. Pretty funny stuff.
Steve Austin stories
Tommy brings up the first time Anderson met Steve Austin. Austin is Anderson’s favorite wrestler so as he was being introduced to Steve, Dreamer leans over to Austin and tells him to ask “what his dog’s name is.” Austin does and Ken sheepishly says “Austin.” Austin’s reply: “I guess it’s as good as any other, ya mark.”
This sparks Dreamer to bring up a story about beepers. Someone in the crowd gives Dreamer flack for calling them “beepers” instead of pagers and Tommy has a NSFW response that pops the crowd. Story goes: Anytime someone in ECW would get a beeper buzz that said “3:16” you’d have to give the person you’re talking to a Stone Cold Stunner.
Other notes:
Ken loves that NXT is a thing that is taking calculated risks.
Noelle Foley says the fact that Rusev Day is still a thing makes her happy.
Dreamer thinks Undertaker should have one more match as the Undertaker, not American Badass Taker. We should also get a chance to say goodbye to him in that gimmick.
Overall Thoughts: Really engaging and fun show. One of my favorite experiences of the weekend to be honest. Even my buddy who is even a less than casual fan found the session and stories extremely entertaining. Anderson and Dreamer have great chemistry together, not only because of their friendship, but also in part to Dreamer’s dry sense of humor and Ken’s natural charisma. Both were appreciative of the attendees and Ken Anderson couldn’t have been nicer to the guests. I left feeling that both have grown from their career experience and both have much more to contribute to the wrestling business in whatever capacity. If you ever get a chance to go to something similar with either of these guys, definitely do it.
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What exactly was the point of Noelle Foley being part of this?