Arn Anderson Recalls Cody Rhodes WWE Match Turning Into A Semi-Shoot

During the latest episode of the ARN podcast, Arn Anderson talked about the original Sin Cara who debuted for WWE in 2011. Anderson said Sin Cara was brought into the company to be the next Rey Mysterio, which was a major mistake.

"This guy came in with all this hype," Anderson said. "It was discussed and true, you need a Mexican star if you're going to run Mexico or Spanish countries. Rey Mysterio was that guy and you don't replace Rey, there's nobody coming along. I haven't seen anybody to do this day that's going to eclipse Rey Mysterio and all that he's accomplished."

Anderson admitted that Sin Cara had a bad attitude and wasn't willing to adapt to the American style of wrestling. He said that he was tough to work with and had no comparisons to Rey Mysterio besides their heritage.

"This guy didn't show me anything, not a damn thing," Anderson said. "He had a bad attitude, if he spoke English, he acted like he didn't. We're not talking about Hunico, we're talking about the original Sin Cara. He was one of those guys that flat just brought the Mexican style to our product, our product was not ready for that lack of contact, lack of selling. The wurly bird stuff that had no psychology behind it.

"I like Rey Mysterio because of several reasons, he is small but he figured out a way to work his matches where he used every bit of his body to knock you down or chip away at you and get you in a position where he could do a springboard and knock you down. He spent most of the match selling, he had one flurry that made sense that was able to get him almost to winning or winning in a way that made sense.

"None of that reasoning was in this guy's tool belt. He thought he would just bounce guys around twice his size, very little selling. Everything I've been taught about this business and everything the audience loves, storytelling, selling, the underdog, was lost on him. It came from the top, we had to have a [Mexican] star so those of us that had these feelings and relayed these feelings just got heat. Just like everything else."

Anderson recalled a match that Sin Cara had with Cody Rhodes in South Africa that turned into a semi-shoot match. Anderon said Sin Cara made it difficult on Cody, and Cody made sure to make a statement.

"This guy had heat with everybody, his selling was terrible, everything was terrible," Anderson said. "This guy was booked with Cody, Cody was one of the young guys that was trying to make his way in the business and this dip shit made it difficult, in previous matches, every way he possibly could. Cody wasn't advanced enough, I thought, to be able to deal with this guy who's not selling his stuff and wanting to put up and run high spots. I told Cody, go out there and show him what we do.

"I'm getting reports, Cody beat the piss out of this guy and made him fight him and all the high spots went away and it turned into a real good scuffle. I guess it was the best match that guy had had to that point and the best match Cody had had, but it was a half ass shoot. He was gone after that pretty quickly."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit the ARN podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.