CW Anderson recently appeared as a guest on Wrestling Epicenter for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Anderson opens up about depression, the backstage drug scene in ECW, and more.
On pro wrestling emerging out of the pandemic period:
“It is great to have it back. Getting back out there and being involved with it, getting in there with a crowd again has made me fall back in love with it the way I had fallen out of love with it 6 or 7 months prior. It was good to get away from it for a little bit. But, now with everything back to normal and rolling right along, I’m 30 years in and busier than I have ever been!”
On if he still loves getting in the ring:
“I do. But, I have my moments. All the guys have their moments. Now, when I get in there and I get injured, it takes a little more time and work to recover from an injury. And, all the injuries have piled up over the years. My years as a baseball catcher have caught up to me a bit on my knees and ankles. Plus, all the years of wrestling. It is time to pay the Piper a little bit. But, I’m still in great shape. In fact, the best shape I’ve ever been in my 30 years of wrestling. And, I do still enjoy getting in the ring.”
On the recent attention towards the original ECW by WWE and AEW recently:
“We are the Rocky Horror Picture Show of pro wrestling. We have a cult following that is never going to go away. There are only really a few of us from the original ECW that can still go on a decent level. Some guys can’t really do it, got injured and don’t want to do it anymore, and some just moved on with life and are into other things. But, we, the original ECW, we are the predecessor of what you now see in AEW. I was talking to somebody about some of the problems I have with what they do in that company and he said that you guys, ECW were to blame for it because you guys changed pro wrestling from what it was. And, I’m like, “Yeah, i get that.” But, seeing Tommy and Bully on Impact Wrestling and then seeing RVD and Jerry Lynn when he does something on AEW TV does my heart good seeing my family out there doing stuff. ”
On what is to blame for so many of the ECW roster being deceased or disabled now:
“It is a combination of a lot of things. I forget who said this… It might have been Buff Bagwell… Maybe Eddie Guerrero. You take this to get up and that to wind down… The fans get to see us perform at a high level for 10, 15 minutes but all the down time is what nobody sees. They don’t see us spill into a car soaking wet with sweat to drive or ride for hours and then go to a hotel room and maybe sneak in a few hours of slep. I’ll use me as an example. I just saw my chiropractor recently as I just got injured in a match with Tommy Dreamer on August 6th. He said, “Yes, you do get hurt wrestling” which I did wrestling Spike Dudley at the ECW Arena for Shane Douglas’ Hardcore Homecoming, Those things do happen. But, it is the things that happen afterwards like jumping into a car that you don’t fit in and sitting still for 4 or 5 hours. By no means am I a big guy. I could never imagine what it is like for a Braun Strowman or a guy like Andre the Giant to have gotten in a car and sat still for hours. But, he (chiropractor) even told me that what hurt me was my trips to Japan. I would wrestle x amount of times but would get on a plane and sit not moving for 14, 15 hours and that doesn’t do anyone any good.”
On the drug use in ECW:
“Yeah, some guys did do drugs. And, I’m not condoning what they did. But, some of them had to do that to perform at such a high level because fans see us as rockstars and we have to perform at that level 4 or 5 times a week whereas a football player only does it once a week. Because of the impact on the body, the best comparison is football. Rockstars and singers, though, they perform several times a weel but they don’t take the abuse to their bodies that we do. So, again, I think it was Eddie Guerrero who said this but we have to do something to perform. A lot of guys did use steroids, I’m certainly not exempt from that. But, it isn’t just to look a part but also to get ready for the next day and recover. Because, if you don’t work out and you don’t do the things you need to do, steroids aren’t going to do shit for you. It is just going to make you fat! Then, lets talk about Mid Atlantic Territory Wrestling which is about 4 or 5 hours from me or my home promotion AML which is about 2 hours away. When I do a show and i drive home, I can’t go to bed. I’m so wired from the experience of the show that I can’t just shut down and go to bed. So, I’ll be awake at 1, 2, 3, 4 o’clock in the morning. My fiance can sleep in the car and crawl into bed when we get home and go right to sleep. I’ll just be awake until 5 in the morning! So, I have to take something to go to sleep. For me, it is something like a Goodies. I stay away from the harder stuff. I’ve been disciplined enough to avoid that kind of thing. Some guys drink – I don’t! I might have a glass of wine or a beer here and there. But, I don’t drink heavily. Some guys do every night.”
On the backstage scene when he first got to ECW:
“I remember when I first got to ECW, we went out to Bourbon Street in New Orleans. A lot of guys were drinkers.. I wasn’t! But, Bubba (Ray Dudley) started giving me shots of tequila. And, you had to drink it. You had to! And, i remember one night in Florida, we were all in the pool and all of a sudden, Balls Mahoney started popping pills into eBverybody’s mouth. They were Somas. I didn’t know what they were! But, you do it because you have to. But, those guys… Balls and Axl, they would do it on a nightly basis.”
On wrestlers not being normal:
“I try to explain it to my family sometimes and I don’t think they really get it. But, wrestlers? We’re not normal. We are not normal people. To go out and do what we do and enjoy it, it is a drug for us. It is a drug to get that rush from the crowd. That is our drug. I had a show last month at AML where I teamed with George South against this phenomenal young tag team called the Blockbusters. Look these guys up! They were trained by Dr. Tom Prichard. They’re two good looking young wrestles from the UK. We had this show, there were over a thousand people there. That crowd was so hot and George, he gets in the ring, he is like Hulk Hogan. The crowd is so hot, I was so excited I was bouncing up and down on the apron. I said, “George, lets go home. It doesn’t get any better than this!” The Blockbusters guys, they said they had never experienced anything like it. But, that is what I’m saying. Us wrestlers, we’re not normal people.”
On the passing of MLW rival Terry Funk:
“There are a few guys that we have lost that have really hurt me. Eddie Guerrero hurt me. Test hurt me. Bobby Eaton crushed me. And, New Jack crushed me. Bobby was my idol and New Jack was one of my best friends. They crushed me. Terry Funk’s passing hurt. It really hurt. I tell everyone this and i said this when we I was doing interviews and we were working together. Terry Funk was the only wrestler I was ever legit scared of. That is how real he made it. Terry really elevated us in MLW when we were the Extreme Horsemen. And, he was sweet. He was just such a sweet, sweet man.”
On his rivalry with Tommy Dreamer through the years:
“Tommy Dreamer is the modern day Terry Funk in terms of being the nice guy who would give you the shirt off of his back. I appreciate Tommy even more when I was going through some things a few years ago, he was right there. He had heard I had tried to kill myself and he was there for me on the phone and helping me through it. He even laughed about how it was “All Hands on Deck” for a while there for me. He would reach out to others to contact me too. He even blamed Brittany (CW’s fiance) for it because we had split up at that time. But, there was a lot of things going on. But, as much as the things he said were funny, they were very real for a while and Tommy is one of those guys I could wrestle every night and I know it would be a fun experience. He just gets a thrill out of doing things to try and make me throw up. So, hey, whatever makes Tommy happy! (laughs)”
On Tommy choosing him to be ECW’s next star:
“Tommy made wrestlers in ECW. When Lance Storm left for WCW, Tommy said “We gotta elevate CW!” and he made me. And, it was Tommy who said he needed to put me over on pay per view to elevate me. And, he did!”
On Mid Atlantic Territory Wrestling’s Right Now TV deal and approach:
“The guy who owns it and the booker is Preston Quinn, my tag team partner. He was trained by my gimmick brother Chad Anderson who gave me the Anderson name. Preston is running it exactly as it sounds. He’s trying to make it like a territory! He’s already run over 30 shows and he only got it started in April. And, he’s got over 30 scheduled for next year and it is only half the year booked so far. He runs MITW like I teach when i do seminars. It is emotion over motion. There are certain things, in his company, you cannot do. Things like pass by’s, leg slaps, and dives. If you’re going to dive, it has got to mean something. He’s trying to bring it back to the style of the 80’s with a twist of the new. That is kind of like how I was in ECW. I wanted to be the Millennial Anderson, an old school Anderson with a twist of the new. He’s had no complaints from anybody that, “Hey, there hasn’t been 36 superkicks. There were no table spots. There aren’t enough jumps off the top rope!” Again, if it is going to be done, it has to mean something. And Preston, he’s one of the rare minds I’ve met in pro wrestling who has the mind for wrestling. He uses old school angles and ideas and it all works because nobody remembers this stuff quite like he does.”
On MITW’s approach to wrestling:
“He (Quinn) has his TV deal going right now with Right Now TV and he’s not trying to get too big, too fast. He’s growing it slowly. He’s getting the most out of the least in terms of the in ring style and it is a great show for fans and the talent too.:
On if he’d ever want to join fellow Extreme Horsemen Steve Corino at the WWE Performance Center:
“Right now, if I had to give you an answer, it would be no. When Steve first went down there, he contacted ne and wanted to bring me down there and get me a job. But, I like where I’m at in life and I’ve got a good job with tenure. If I went down and worked there and they didn’t like what I did, I could be fired quickly within a year and then I would have to start all over again at ground zero. Would I like to go down there and work along Steve and hang out with him every day? Yeah! (laughs) We never fail to not tell a story when we’re together. (laughs) But, for right now, I like doing the seminars I’m doing. I like going to a place and teaching guys what I’ve learned over the years. And, my philosophy has always been that I want to leave the wrestling business in a better place than where I found it.”
