Arn Anderson's Career History
Arn Anderson's Career History

The Dangerous Alliance

Although Arn over his career has found much greatness as a singles wrestler, having won four World Television Titles, as a "man without a gimmick", it seemed his fortunes were always best as part of a "stable". Thus, with the breakup of the latest version of the Four Horseman, Arn became part of the Dangerous Alliance.

The primary goal of the Four Horsemen was always Ric Flair winning/keeping the world title. Along those lines, the primary goal of The Dangerous Alliance was Rick Rude winning the world title. Unfortunately for Rude, that never happened. Although a minor injury forced Arn to pull out of "War Games" at Wrestle War '91, Arn found success as World Tag Team Champion with Larry Zbyszko. Arn and Zbyszko only held the belts for two and a half months; however, they were so dominant in the tag team scene that year that Arn and Zbyzsko would win top honors for 1991 Tag Team of the Year in Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

When Arn and Zbyszko dropped the straps at Clash of the Champions XVII to first-time partners Rick Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes, Zbyszko was thrown out of the Dangerous Alliance. Arn, as usual, got "right back on the horse", and regained the belts with Bobby Eaton exactly two months after losing them. This gave the Dangerous Alliance control of three of the five WCW titles. The Steiner Brothers would go on to beat Eaton and Anderson in a non-title match, which was a sign of things to come. Eaton and Anderson would hold the belts over three months before losing them to the Steiner Brothers.

The Dangerous Alliance was ultimately doomed when, around the time Arn and Eaton lost the tag belts to the Steiners, the leader of the Dangerous Alliance, Paul E. Dangerously, was fired by Bill Watts, then WCW head honcho.

Eaton and Arn would later unsuccessfully try to wrest the tag belts from Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams when that team defeated the Steiners for the belts in mid-1992.

Nowhere To Go But Up

Arn would challenge Barry Windham for the NWA title in 1993. Also in 1993, Arn got bogged down in a feud and eventually an alliance with Erik Watts, who would turn out to be a flash in the pan. At the time, Bill Watts was an executive VP at WCW and his son was getting a push as only a no-talent with a father in a high position can. Although Arn got the better of Erik in most of the matches, this feud is most known for the "gas station incident". Arn attacked Erik Watts at a gas station. Erik responded by slamming Arn’s knee with the car door and then putting the STF on Arn on the blacktop. As the angle went further, Erik "gained Arn’s respect" and then abruptly disappeared from the scene.

After the knee injury healed, Arn a short amount of time in Smokey Mountain Wrestling. It was there that Arn's anger began to build with Bobby Eaton, who "didn’t call and didn’t write" while Arn was laid up. Once Arn came back to WCW, Bobby Eaton’s interference on Arn’s behalf in his matches with Erik Watts regularly backfired, which led to a feud between Arn and Bobby both in Smokey Mountain Wrestling, where Eaton was TV champion, and in WCW. Their feud even carried them to a match in ECW! (More on that later...) At around this time, Ric Flair returned to WCW and the inevitable reformation of the Four Horsemen began.

By mid-1993, the Horsemen had reformed with Arn, Flair, Ole, and Paul Roma. Arn and Flair initially teamed in an attempt to win the belts from Austin and Pillman but were unsuccessful. Ironically, Arn and Paul Roma eventually won the World Tag Team Belts from Steve Austin and Brian Pillman (with Steve Regal substituting for an injured Pillman), but lost them 32 days later to the Nasty Boys, who were backed by new manager Missy Hyatt, at Fall Brawl.

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