411’s A&E Biography: WWE Legends Report – ‘The Four Horsemen’

-Written: 5.10.26
-Run Time: 2 Hours (w/ Commercials)
-Source: A&E

-Plug: Bash at The Beach 94

-Happy Birthday Neko!

-I swear the previews for last week had this being the episode about The Road Warriors. Oh well, time for The Horsemen and I assume we will get some classic footage. The Horsemen is fitting after a week in which we lost Ted Turner as well.

-We start with JJ Dillon watching a TV showing a Horsemen interview. That leads to some soundbites of the talking heads in this one: Michaels, Hogan, Tully, Arn, Flair, Snoop Dogg, and more!

-That was just the teaser. We start for real with Arn Anderson in his house and he has a pair of Anderson boots in his hands. He talks about Lars, Gene, and Ole and how it was passed down to him. “If it wasn’t for The Andersons there would be no 4 Horsemen.”

-Alana Rogowski was born and becomes Ole Anderson. Magnum TA is here and says he grew up watching Georgia Championship Wrestling and Ole was like a boulder of granite. Arn says way back when more people believed the business was 100% because guys protected it.

-Ric Flair goes to the Carolinas and Ole (from 2008) says they took him in as a cousin. Ric says he started in 72 and was working four times a month in Minneapolis. He moved to Charlotte with $200 in his pocket in April of 74. He was married and had his first daughter. David Crockett says Flair was green, but was put with top talent and learned quickly. Ole says he liked Flair but nobody knew he had the gift of gab. Flair wins the World Title in 81 and Ric says it was the coolest thing.

-Marty Lunde (Arn Anderson) next and Flair says he met him for the first time in 81 in the Pensacola territory. We see Marty Lunde footage. Flair says Arn looked like Ole and Ole gave Arn the endorsement. Arn: “That was worth it’s weight in platinum.” They spun a tail that Arn was going under Marty Lunde to prove himself before Ole let the world know he was an Anderson. KAYFABE is great! We meet Arn’s wife Erin. Woman is a Saint I bet! Arn says he became quick friends with Ric and Ric brought him to Charlotte.

-Crockett goes over the territory system and notes Vince McMahon wanted to take over the world. Crockett had to do something similar and talks about getting on TBS (RIP Ted Turner). Arn went to JCP in 1985 and Ole joined. Dusty Rhodes was the booker and wanted to see how The Andersons would work with Ric.

-Tully Blanchard next and his dad was a wrestler after a football career in Canada. They moved to San Antonio and Tully talks about being raised in the wrestling business. His dad expected him to be an athlete. Tully says he didn’t reach his potential until he became a heel and soon he joined JCP.

-JJ Dillon is the last piece and he worked for Tully’s dad in San Antonio. JJ had a fan club for Johnny Valentine and he would help set the ring up and tear it down. He had 3200 matches over a 20 year career before becoming a manager.

-Arn says one day it worked out that all of them were together to do an interview. Arn had Biblical thoughts in his head and The Four Horsemen blurted out. We see the promo from Nov. 9, 1985. “You are talking about The Four Horsemen of Professional Wrestling.” Arn notes there were five, but they didn’t count JJ. Everyone got it though. The next week he threw up the four fingers and they were ready to take on the World.

-Commercials!

-2016: Arn, Tully, and Flair tape an interview of Table for Three. I assume I covered that and yep, here it is. Peter Rosenberg talks about factions and mentions nWo, DX, and The Bloodline and how it all goes back to The Horsemen. Bruce Prichard says it was unheard of to put your top guys in the same group. They talk about how it would be similar to WWF putting Hogan, Savage, and The Bulldogs as a group. Man, now I want them vs. Horsemen in War Games.

-Flair says he was flamboyant and Arn and Ole were down and dirty wrestlers while Tully was a combination of bought. If you messed with one, you messed with all of them. GEORGE KITTLE IS HERE! BANG BANG NINER GANG! Oh, and Post Malone too. Hey, Snoop Dogg as well. More celebrities as Stephen A. Smith is here. They are all just putting over the Horsemen. Magnum notes The Horsemen were seen as the most dangerous men in wrestling. Hulk Hogan says they were the original bad guys and made everyone believe The Horsemen were the strongest faction in wrestling.

-Commercials!

-We see The Horsemen break Ricky Morton’s nose. The WWF was kid friendly and well polished. JCP was more like a fight and kind of dirty. Magnum says they were hated in the early days before fans gravitated to them. Arn tells a story of an 80 year old lady named Spider in South Carolina, who cracked him over the head with her walking stick. Erin says Arn never brought that stuff home as he protected the family from what was happening. Arn says she was his nurse and there were days he may not have made it without her.

-Tully says the group was believable. The Anderson Family oozed destructive dominance. Ole notes he has been stabbed seven times in his career by fans. Magnum talks about being jumped by The Horsemen in the back (and we see footage). He uses that as an example of how it was believable. You can definitely see the influence they had with these attacks on a group like the nWo. They credit Dusty for being a genius. JJ says Dusty was the big picture guy and JJ helped with the small details. We see Ricky Morton getting his face rubbed on concrete with blood pouring out.

-We get back to Dusty as the booker and a wrestler. Ric says he and Dusty were polar opposites in the eyes of the people. Dusty from 2006 says the story was The Horsemen always protected Flair and the World Title. We get to the infamous angle in Oct of 1986 where The Horsemen tail Dusty in a car. The jump him in the parking lot outside the studio and….

-Commercials!

-Back to the parking lot as they tie Dusty to a truck and use a ball bat to break his arm. Dusty yelling “make it good,” is hilarious and then we get a black spot over the damaged arm. JJ says people called the local police as they wanted The Horsemen arrested. Dusty says the group captivated a whole nation. Tully says they needed to do this stuff so the fans would pay to watch them get beat up.

-That leads to a talk about how in those days you were paid by the number of people in the crowd. The higher up the card, the more money you got. The Horsemen were always The Main Event. Tully says they had to be the ring generals and needed to make their opponents look good. Flair puts over the opponents they had: Dusty, Sting, The Road Warrior, Koloff. We get Nikita and he looks good. Arn says what separated them was they could go out and wrestle and make the crowd scream for as long as possible. They would go 40-60 minutes if needed as Tully says they were all in shape. They would compete against each other to see who could do the most squats and push-ups.

-Flair says they were put into a position to draw money and they did. Crockett says The Horsemen meant dollars. Tully says his biggest year at that time was $180,000. That was likely chump change for Hogan in the 80s. Ric talks about how hard they ran and never got any days off. Tully says when he was married to wife 2 it was hard to get all of them off to be in his wedding.

-Erin says the wrestlers all lived in Charlotte and hung together. She says it was her children and Flair’s kids that grew up together. Ole lived in Atlanta and wanted to spend more time with his kids. He put that into his promo that got him turfed from the group on TV. They understood as Ole was money and had success and wanted to be home with his kids. He says that was a shoot on his part. He wanted to leave and watch his kids wrestle. Lex Luger was brought into the territory and they had an idea.

-Commercials!

-Lex says he played seven years of pro-football and didn’t grow up a wrestling fan. He never wanted to be a wrestler, but needed something to do when he was out of football. Flair saw him work out and saw a guy that looked like a million dollars. Dusty made the decision to bring Lex in and put him with The Horsemen so he could learn. Lex had no clue who the Horsemen were and only knew Flair because they had already met. Magnum notes Lex had a tough task to fit in with that group. Arn notes Luger had star quality, but needed reps. JJ says they managed him and told him what to do and when. Lex says it was a great learning environment. The dynamic changed as Ole was old school, Southern and he replaced by a Greek God.

-It became a class battle as The Horsemen came off as high class and rich while Dusty and Magnum were blue collar. Peter talks about the 80s with Wallstreet and Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous. It was also the rise of Donald Trump. People like that were seen as villains to southern wrestling fans. Arn says the look was important and brings up “look like a star, dress like a star, be a star.” Flair says he was spending more money than he was working and tried to never wear the same thing more than once on TV. Yeah, that’s one way to to go broke. Luger says the image was real. Luger bought a Mercedes because Ric was driving one. Arn did nice things for the family and Tully notes he had a wife that spent money. “Then when she left, she took all the money. I can laugh about it now, but it was miserable at the time.”

-Arn and Erin sit down and he thanks her for making everything they have possible. He couldn’t be there to help which stressed him out. She says he was gone consistently for 40 years, but the private planes helped get him home more often. JCP brought two planes and it was a blessing. Tully says it spoiled them and Flair notes he had a lot of fun. “Whatever I said on TV, we were doing and that’s what made it so cool.”

-Commercials!

-Arn shows off his podcast space and says fans want to hear the stories. Back then it was cable and cable only. Tully says the TV back then was an infomercial to get fans interested in buying tickets to the live show. We see a plug for a show they ran in The Civic Arena in Pittsburgh on Feb. 27. I have to look that card up as they rarely ran Pittsburgh and even more rare to be in The Civic Arena. I checked and they drew a big house as it was the Finals of the Bunkhouse Stampede that Dusty won. Add Mike Tyson to the list of celebrity talking heads.

-They talk about Ric being the life of the party and show the promo where he asked women 18-28 to show up at the hotel. He says 300 people ended up in the hotel and he woke up with a $4000 bill for alcohol. He says it was the greatest time of his life. Luger jokes the hotel rooms were crazy expensive and he would lay down for at most 30 seconds some nights. Dusty notes the group became bigger than the industry and fans started cheering them. I mean, they were bragging about being rich, getting drunk and banging hot women. Yeah, nobody would cheer that.

-Arn says they would party, but always made sure they were got to the gym. They had to make sure they performed like The Horsemen inside the ring. Shawn Michaels says there was a coolness with the group and he doesn’t know anyone that wasn’t a fan of The Horsemen. Magnum says they created heel fans. Cool Heels basically! We see fans dressed up with shades and in coats and ties. WWE was going after kids while JCP had college kids as their top demo. We see photos of the Horsemen meeting celebrities. Tully brings up there was a war between WWE and JCP.

-Commercials!

-JCP wanted to expand based of exposure on TBS. Tully says the first time they ran against WWE was in Philadelphia. WWE did a gate of $110.000 and JCP did $140,000. Tully says it was huge as they started to gain ground in the Northeast. Hogan says he thinks of competition when he thinks of The Horsemen. He notes they had a standard of excellence in the ring and in their promos. Bret Hart is here because I think he lives for documentaries. They talk about the differences between WWF and NWA. Roseneberg says it was a cool contrast between the two sides.

-We see the news talking about wrestling blowing up in 1987. Obviously, we have to talk Mania III, but JCP brought out The Great American Bash Tour and the introduction of War Games! Arn says War Games was custom built for The Horsemen. Thankfully, A&E doesn’t care about blood so we get true color instead of black and white. Flair says they sold out everywhere.

-Lex was touted as the fastest rising star and Arn says Jimmy saw Luger as his version of Hulk Hogan. Luger says being with The Horsemen launched his career and he was honored to be one of the guy. He left the group and Barry Windham took hisspot.

-Barry is here and covers that his dad was a pro-wrestler (Blackjack Mulligan). Barry started out building the ring and selling programs and posters. He knew Dusty from his days as a kid and talked to him about being a Horsemen. Arn was all for the switch. They all could see that Barry was a natural and a perfect fit for the group. Lex says Barry was a better fit than him and says the version with Barry was the best version of the group. All four were carrying Gold. Tully says business was going up, but paychecks weren’t. “I was mad and quit.”

-Commercials!

-JCP started getting debt and were imploding. Arn says when you are making money, you are blind to other stuff. He notes they had a show where the pay off wasn’t as much as they were told. Arn says he would have been thrilled with half, but it was an issue because they were told they would get double. Crockett was about to sell to Turner. Tully told the Turner executives what he thought and Crockett was not happy. He kicked Tully off the private jet and Tully was made to fly commercial again. He didn’t feel he needed to be spanked, so he quit and he and Arn dropped the Tag Titles the next night to The Midnight Express in Philadelphia. Flair thought they would have drinks and all would be fine, but Arn and Tully were gone and off to WWF. Ric says it was a huge void and says Arn and Tully got screwed.

-Oct. 5, 1988: The Brainbusters debut on WWF TV with Bobby Heenan as their manager. Bret was pumped and says they weren’t prepared admits they ran circles around him and Anvil. Shawn obviously marked off for them. Arn says they were the first time to win the WWF Tag Titles and NWA Tag Titles. The travel in the WWF was a lot more and his missed time with the family. Arn remembers his three year old asking “When are you coming home daddy.” Erin notes Arn had to leave and Arn says that 14 months almost killed him.

-Back to Turner buying WCW and they were hanging out big contracts. The idea was to put The Horsemen back together. Ric got them a deal with Herd for 3 years at $250,000 a year. Tully says they were in a bar and he met a lady who wanted to do cocaine. He says he bought the drugs but the girls used all of it. He wanted to look like he knew what he was doing, so he licked the baggie. Next day at WCW, there was a sign about a mandatory drug test. He failed the test and his contract was terminated. He didn’t think it was a problem, but 10 days later Flair told him they pulled the deal due to the failed test. Tully says he had a panic attack as he didn’t know what he was going to do.

-Commercials!

-We see Tully speaking to prisoners about his failures. The prisoners are actually taking notes. Tully says he is the only guy to flunk a test and not go back to work. I know he ended up doing a spot show in WCW at Slamboree years later in a Legends Match against Flair. Tully found Jesus and has been speaking at prisons since 1994. Good on him for finding a purpose in life.

-Back in WCW, Arn and Ole Anderson show up in Dec. of 1989. Tully says Herd did Arn wrong as they cut his contract because he felt the team was worth more than Arn as a solo. Arn was cut down to $50,000 a year. Damn! Arn says that left a bad taste in his mouth. No kidding! Arn thinks if they had Tully they could have done some good things. They tried Sting and really, that was just a way to set up Flair/Sting.

-We get to 93 with Paul Roma and that was laughable. Oh wow, they actually show a photo of the group in 95 with Benoit and Pillman and in 96 with Benoit and Mongo. Rosenberg says the group would get the initial pop, but it wasn’t the same.

-Enter the nWo! They were the new cool thing and it pushed Ric Flair to the side. We get some great nWo carnage. Flair says he was lost and just doing what they told him to do. Arn says it didn’t matter who was against the nWo as it was only about making them look good.

-Arn talks about his injury history and his bicep disappeared and his arm went numb. He talks about how he can’t do buttons on his arm and can’t zip his pants. We see the nasty scar on his neck after having surgery. That ended his career and we see the emotional moment where he said goodbye to the business in 97. Erin says it was scary as they had two houses and she just had Brock. Arn found a role as a producer and it wasn’t his passion, but he has been good at it and doing it ever since. Back to Arn giving Mr. Perfect his spot.

-Three weeks later The Horsemen are effectively killed inside War Games against the nWo. Kind of fitting it happened inside War Games actually. That War Games match is better than you remember as well because Syxx was a bump machine and the younger Horsemen were fired up be inside War Games. As mentioned that killed the group and pushed Flair further down the card and he admits his confidence was gone.

-Jan 25, 2025: Arn meets up with HHH and Hayes before SNME. Tully is there as well and meets up with Shawn Michaels. It’s fun seeing younger guys looking star struck. Arn says WWF was good to him as he was a producer for 19 years after they bought WCW. Flair was brought in and Arn apparently came up with Evolution as name for HHH’s group. Flair said it was awesome as it was close to The Horsemen. They went around the country and made people look good. Flair got his confidence back and they helped make Batista and Orton into massive stars that could main event any show.

-2012: The Horsemen are inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame. This was when Flair was in TNA and payback for him being there, was Christian showing up to TNA Slammiversary. Ole wasn’t included in the Hall of Fame group and JJ says that didn’t mean anything to Ole. He says it did mean something to the rest of them. Yes, they inducted the Windham version of the group. Flair cried during the speech, but that was to be expected. Tully says it was the first time his four kids saw him in that world and Tessa ended up becoming a wrestler. We get Tessa footage. Charlotte also gets the big and so does Arn’s son, Brock, who is paying his dues. We see Arn give Brock the Anderson boots he brought out at the start of the show.

-Tully says they got their name from The Bible and that lets him read some scripture. JJ will see people hold up the Four Fingers and it still amazes him. Arn notes he would not have had this career without The Horsemen and Ric says the same. We see the footage where Cody tells Lex that he is getting inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Barry says being in The Horsemen was the highlight of his career.

-Ric wraps it up by noting they were friends that loved working together. We get some more Horsemen soundbites to close.

-First, this was a very easy watch. For people who want classic wrestling footage they will be happy. Having all the classic Horsemen around today (other than Ole) to talk about the group was a plus. There was nothing new here, and even at 2 hours they rushed through a lot. I found it odd they skipped over Flair leaving WCW for the WWF in 1991. With the talk about Herd it seemed like it was building to that but perhaps they didn’t want Flair ranting against Herd again. The most noteworthy thing was probably Tully talking about his failed drug test. I will leave it up to anyone watching to decide what they believe. I obviously wasn’t there so I won’t call Tully a liar. I also thought we were going to get to The nWo parody of The Horsemen and possibly Flair/Bischoff beef but that didn’t happen either. I enjoyed the episode as again, I am a sucker for these kinds of shows. Also props to Arn and Eric for a marriage that has lasted through his time in the pro-wrestling business. Longtime fans looking for something hard hitting will be disappointed, but it worked well enough for me. Thanks for reading!