Arn Anderson On Matt Hardy Spot At AEW All Out, Talent Being Responsible For Injuries
Arn Anderson recently talked on his YouTube channel about the injury Matt Hardy suffered at All Out where he was speared off of a raised scissor lift, missed one of the tables, and hit his head on the concrete floor of Daily's Place. Arn went on to say that while he didn't get to watch the pay-per-view and missed seeing Hardy's hard fall, he puts the responsibility of performing safely solely on the talent.
"I was unable to buy the show, which I was going to pay full price and buy," Arn said. "I was not knowing there were other avenues to watch it at the time, so I didn't get to see the show. I woke up the next morning, and I was pulling up everything I could online, and getting the reports and all that. I did see that was something that went awry.
"I will just say this, and I'm not going to assess blame anywhere because we all go into this business with open eyes and things happen, and accidents happen, and there's a number of things that can happen to go south in this business. It's a tough way to make a living. It's a dangerous way to make a living. I'm not going to assess blame anywhere. I am going to just make a statement to all the young talent out there. This business is in your lap. It's in your hands; it's in your control.
"It is up to you to keep each other safe, and when you are putting matches together and coming up with ideas, guys, you are taking it to a level where it's only just things that guys haven't been hurt from yet," Arn said. "I've seen a lot of near misses where a lot of times – the situation where guys are almost doing headers into the mat. The business has gotten more and more dangerous. It's in your hands to fix it. You've got to reel it in, you got to figure out a way to have a match and have an exciting match without some of these very dangerous moves being implemented, you've got to dial it back. Nobody can dial it back but you, and I am certainly not saying put a cap on the excitement of what we do in this business, but there are so many things that can happen."
Arn went on to mention that the performers aren't always taking into account the external aspects that are out of their control and that's something they need to start preparing for when putting together matches. Arn mentioned he's scared for the way the younger talent are pushing the envelope with the danger factor, and that their bosses certainly don't want to see talent getting hurt or putting themselves in a bad situation.
"Being sweaty, your grip slipping, inexperience, being green, not actually knowing what you're doing and picturing something in your head and the two of you agree on it. And find out that whether it's physics, or it's the temperature of the building, or the fact that somebody spilled something there on the floor that no one saw before you dive out on the floor, and you hit the slick surface and blow a knee out, or whatever the case may be, there are a lot of things that can happen," Arn said. "Gravity has got a lot to do with what we do. You've got to reel our product in a little bit and make it safer for everyone involved because I'm just scared to death.
"This young generation is balls to the walls to, number one, please our audience, please each other, hopefully, please our boss," Arn added. "I don't think our boss would ever ask you to go through the curtain and put yourself in danger, or put yourself in a position that you might be injured or crippled for life. He's just not that kind of person. It's up to us collectively to reel this thing in or we're going to go see some, dare I say, worse injuries, and possibly, down the road, someone getting crippled for life, and nobody wants to see that. But I put that burden and responsibility on the talent – they're the only ones that can fix it."
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Mehdy Labriny contributed to this article.