Could Mr. Anderson Be As Big As Stone Cold?

[Pink Hole Slam]

No disrespect to Anderson but I think all these injuries have finally caught up with him. His in ring work has taken a HUGE hit lately. It was a bummer watching Joe carry him through that television title match. Anderson is a mid-card guy and that's all. Kind of disappointing the way things turned out for him considering his great WWE beginning.

[Lorenzo von Matterhorn]

1.) Anderson does not, in my opinion, have the potential to be as great as Stone Cold. Not on the mic, not in the ring. He's a good talent, but he's not something you look at and think, wow...this guy is better than anything I've seen in 10 years. He's not even better than Rob Van Dam, another guy floating around aimlessly in TNA's midcard. Maybe he could be without enough creative focus and time spent developing his character, but that leads us to my second point...

2.) Anderson doesn't have the drive to become as great as Stone Cold. He's been in wrestling long enough that if he was going to show something worthy of busting open the industry, he would have already. Nobody told Austin how to be Austin; he took everything given to him and made it his own. He took shitty gimmicks and turned them into gold. He came up with his own lines, and despite the "machine" he got himself over. Once he was over - much like CM PUnk - he let the machine do the rest of the work. When was the last time Anderson did anything worth mentioning? I believe it was getting fired from WWE.

3.) There's not a product out there to allow him to be as big as Stone Cold. WWE doesn't want him; if they did he'd probably have already been back there. But even if Anderson went back to WWE and they gave him fully control to do whatever he wanted, there's not a product or audience out there to be as big as Stone Cole. Austin had the Attitude Era, and the boom of wrestling in the public eye. Anderson has a bunch of jaded cynics on the internet. Myself included. As much as I like TNA and Impact Wrestling, he's not gonna get as big as Devon, let alone Stone Cold, while he's there.

So no. On all accounts.

[KJ]

Clearly he's not doing a good job of taking notes then. In WWE, he probably wasn't given much to work with but TNA gave him all the free space he could have. Aside from repeating a promo from Wrestlemania 23 which was indeed damn fine ("Nice guy finish last. Thank God I'm an asshole.") The rest of his work is nothing but fart noises. The part is I'm not making it up. Most of his promos do indeed involve fart noises.

Don't get me wrong. Anderson has natural charisma and can get any crowd behind him. But if he's been under Austins wing, the feathers clearly obstructed his hearing and vision.

[wrestlingfan]

Mr. Anderson is 36, If he isn't as big as Stone Cold now, I don't know when. TNA just isn't a big enough company to have one of their wrestlers be as big as him. They tried to make Mr. Anderson, their Stone Cold in 2010, and it was semi successful.

[HBsam31]

There was a time around 06 that I thought he was going to be huge. Not Stone Cold huge, but a top main event star anyway. After that though I think his time in TNA has been average, and it doesn't seem like he is going back to WWE anytime soon. At this point even with tons and tons of work there is no way Anderson will get close to Stone Cold.

[Slash-LN]

Definitely not.
He's mediocre in the ring.
His mic skills aren't on par with Austin's.
He doesn't offer anything new or different.

Stone Cold was different in the WWF when he was allowed to go out and be himself. The fans weren't used to guys like him at the time so they took notice. He was at the right place at the right time with the right fans who were ready for a change.

Mr. Anderson is pretty much a ring entrance and not much more. Even that is starting to grow old.

I liked him when he was in WWE but I'm tired of him in TNA. I think the time for him to be the next Stone Cold has passed and he's just another guy on the roster with nothing really special about him.

[waylon p]

Regardless of his actual ability, there absolutely no vehicle for this man to be as popular as stone cold. If you added up everyone watching wrestling these days, the numbers still would not equal the people watching at the height of Austin's popularity. You could take raw and impact and assume there was no crossover, so every person counted at least once, throw in ROH and chikara, and you would still not get the ratings needed to get anyone to that level of popularity. It is a silly proposition to begin with.

[New Hot Fed]

Originally Posted by Slash-LN

Definitely not.
He's mediocre in the ring.
His mic skills aren't on par with Austin's.
He doesn't offer anything new or different.

-When Austin got big as Stone Cold he was all banged up and the WWF kept limiting him wrestling too much. And all his matchs consisted of wild short brawls. Anderson is better in the ring now that Austing was THEN.
-All Anderson is doing these days is talk in his big mic and say assholes. When was the last time he delivered a promo in the ring?
-Anderson was new and different early on. Hell Austin had to be 3 different characters for him to catch on.

Stone Cold was different in the WWF when he was allowed to go out and be himself. The fans weren't used to guys like him at the time so they took notice. He was at the right place at the right time with the right fans who were ready for a change.

See that's the thing, you say Austin was allowed to go to the ring and be himself. Austin was given a tremendous amount of freedom and he shined at it. It's been a while since we've seen Anderson be allowed to do anything. The last time he was really given the ball was in early 2010 in his feud with Kurt Angle and he was great in it. He had finally became the star people were waiting for him to become. I espcially loved his promos on the show ReAction. Then Hogan turned him face, they decided to focus everything on the Asshole catchphrase and it killed his character.

Mr. Anderson is pretty much a ring entrance and not much more. Even that is starting to grow old.

I liked him when he was in WWE but I'm tired of him in TNA. I think the time for him to be the next Stone Cold has passed and he's just another guy on the roster with nothing really special about him.

Frankly I blame Hogan in his ilk. They dropped the ball with him and then decided he wasn't worth it as a top guy. Give him the chance. Hell he could reinvent himself and maybe a new character for him will be the one that puts him over.

Originally Posted by wrestlingfan

Mr. Anderson is 36, If he isn't as big as Stone Cold now, I don't know when. TNA just isn't a big enough company to have one of their wrestlers be as big as him. They tried to make Mr. Anderson, their Stone Cold in 2010, and it was semi successful.

The thing is, at 36, Austin had done a lot more than Anderson for a different set of reasons. Remember Austin started in the late 80s being trained by Chris Adams in the AWA then got to WCW as Stunning Steve with the long hair and shinny Flair robes. Then cut his hair and became a tag team specialist. Then left for ECW and reinvented himself there. Then in the WWF he was the Ringmaster. Then he went for the Stone Cold moniker. Then he left Ted Dibiase, became a lone tough heel. Then turned face and the Stone Cold phenom was born. It was a long process with many different types of changes and characters until one caught on. Anderson was never allowed to make than much mistakes and times to change because he has not been in wrestling long enough. And I think TNA is the worst place to reinvent itself when you're already a star because they hire guys for their name. Anderson will always be the "big mic guy" there. With the WWE they bounce you off walls until you catch on. This happened with Jericho, Edge and many others.

I still think Anderson could be a star but it will happen in the WWE or never. I also think he would bring life in the place.