WWE News: Arn Anderson Talks About The Time The Four Horsemen Were Going To Jump To WWF

Throughout the history of professional wrestling, there have been very few stables that can even come close to being compared to the Four Horsemen. There were a number of different versions of the Horsemen across multiple promotions and a period of around 15 years, but they never actually made it over to WWE. They were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, but how close were they to actually making the jump from WCW?

Before the Attitude Era, a number of those who were in the Four Horsemen ended up in WWF, but as time went on, most of them made their way back to WCW. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Flair and others found themselves jumping back and forth between promotions, but was there ever a chance to see the Horsemen as a stable in WWF/WWE?

Arn Anderson recently spoke with The Two Man Power Trip ofWrestling to discuss a number of things, and the Four Horsemen were a big topic. According to Double A, there was a time when the incredibly strong stable of champions were about to totally jump ship.

As transcribed by Wrestling Inc., Anderson, Flair, and the other members were actually very close to making the ultimate change of location.

“There was discussion about that. Before Tully and I left there was a lot of grey area on if Crockett was going to sell the company? Were they going to go bankrupt? It was all rumors and it didn’t come from any of the Crocketts but all rumors start somewhere. So there was discussion about Flair coming and as it turned out I don’t think anybody truly believed that Tully and I were going to make the move.”

This was in late 1988 when a lot of talking was going on between WWF and some of the key players in WCW/NWA. Ric Flair appeared ready to jump ship at this time, but as Anderson said, no one thought he and Tully Blanchard would make the move.

When the time finally came for a move to be made, it was the tag team that left and Flair who stayed put.

“There was some inside wrangling that wasn’t benefiting us and we couldn’t get an answer on some stuff so our thought was this: If a big hole goes in the middle of that ship there are only going to be so many life jackets. There had been feelers sent out over the years that Vince would like to have us and we felt that timing was everything and we did make that move. Ric decided against it but there was some discussion and everybody has to make their own business decisions and he made his and we made ours.”

In October of 1988, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard debuted as The Brain Busters and they were managed by Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. For a little more than a year, they feuded with The Rockers and Hart Foundation, and even ended the record tag team title reign of Demolition.

On the day of Survivor Series in 1989, Blanchard failed a drug test which led to Anderson leaving WWE shortly after. In 1991, Ric Flair ended up making the jump to WWF where he stayed for a couple of years before going back to WCW.

Anderson did say that JJ Dillon would have had to be in WWF/WWE with the rest of the stable. He said that Dillon was “as much of a part of The Horsemen as any” of the others in the faction.

Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Barry Windham, Sid Vicious, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and so many others were fortunate to be members of the Four Horsemen. At different times in their careers, most of those superstars ended up being in both WWF/WWF, WCW, ECW, and other promotions, but the Four Horsemen just never made it into Vince McMahon’s company until their Hall of Fame induction.

[Featured Image by WWE]