Ex-WWE Star Names Biggest Regret In His Career
A former champion in WWE regrets not getting to use a promo idea while he was with the company.
The career of Ken Anderson (Ken Kennedy in WWE) is one of those big “what if” questions because he is one of those wrestlers who was supposed to be a World Champion in the company, but it never happened for a number of reasons.
Ken Anderson won the third WWE Money in the Bank match at WrestleMania 23 in 2007. The previous two winners (Edge and Rob Van Dam) both became first-time WWE World Champions after their cash-ins, so the assumption was that Kennedy would be as well. Instead, Anderson had an arm injury, so he lost the MITB briefcase to Edge, who went on to win the World Title.
A story that Anderson has told many times over the years is that while WWE thought it was a very serious injury, Anderson ended up missing a short period of time, so they certainly could have kept the MITB briefcase on him.
There was also the time when WWE was going to reveal that Anderson was Vince McMahon’s long lost son, but Anderson was suspended for getting performance-enhancing supplements from an internet website. That led to WWE going in another direction, which ended up being Hornswoggle as Vince’s son, and that turned out to be a joke because they said he was Finlay’s son in the storyline.
Anderson’s WWE run ended in May 2009 after a tag team match on Raw featuring some of the biggest stars in the company. During the match, Kennedy gave Randy Orton a belly-to-back suplex. Orton was furious about it in the ring since he had shoulder issues. There were complaints about Anderson to management regarding other things as well, and he was fired that same week.
After leaving WWE, Kennedy used his real name of Ken Anderson in TNA, where he realized his potential as a two-time World Champion in TNA. He spent six years in TNA from 2010 to 2016.
Ken Anderson Wanted To Use “A**hole” Promo In WWE
While in TNA, Kennedy used the following line in a promo: “Nice guys finish last. Thank God I’m an asshole.” The “a**hole” usage ended up becoming popular for him in TNA. Anderson told Rewind Recap Relive in a recent interview that he wanted to use that kind of promo in WWE, but they said no.
“That promo was one of my biggest regrets in the wrestling business. Way back when I started in WWE, Vince (McMahon) had asked me, ‘Do you have any catchphrases?’ I said, ‘Nice guys finish last. Thank God I’m an a**hole.’ They had just started the PG era. We couldn’t say ass. We couldn’t say damn. Which was crazy for me, being in the Attitude Era.”
The WWE PG era officially started in 2008, but they were toning down the product a year earlier as well.
“So on that day, Michael Hayes pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, we want you to cut a promo right after. Think of this as your Austin 3:16 moment. That’s what we want it to be like.’
I was like, ‘I got it. I’m gonna hit: Nice guys finish last. Thank God I’m an a**hole.’ They said, ‘You’d better ask.’ I asked, and they said no. If you ask and they say no, you can’t do it no matter what.
Had I said it, because then, like, fast forward to TNA. I said it in TNA, and it became like a thing. Immediately, the fans started chanting, ‘We are assholes.’ With the WWE machine behind that, I feel like [it could have been special].”
Ken Anderson has admitted that he deserved to be fired by WWE when he was. He’s also talked to Randy Orton since the incident, and it appears everything is fine now.