His name is Kennedy … Mr. Kennedy.

As the only wrestler in World Wrestling Entertainment to announce his own entrance to the ring, the arrogant, do-anything-to-win Mr. Kennedy has become a top superstar in the organization and a favourite target of fan vitriol around the world.

Mr. Kennedy is also on the bill at Sunday’s Wrestlemania Revenge card that is coming to the Barrie Molson Centre, for a 5 p.m. show time.

The character that fans see in the ring is not a construct of the WWE writing stable. It is an amplification of the real personality behind Mr. Kennedy, Green Bay, Wisconsin native Ken Anderson who, until he came to the WWE a couple of years ago, always wrestled with his real name.

“I learned pretty early on that the best characters are those that are just extensions of your personality. You take your own personality and you turn the volume all the way up. So I spent time really finding out who I was as a person and as a wrestler and what I could and could not do, and just really fine-tuning all that stuff,” said Anderson from his home near Minneapolis, where he moved to because it was easier to get connecting flights to all the far-flung locations the WWE sets up shop, all over the world.

Anderson was actually bit by the performing bug long before the wrestling bug, performing in school plays and doing well at regional and state drama competitions. Always a workout fanatic, Anderson ran track and swam in high school, and played a number of sports recreationally.

He was turned on to wrestling as a kid, but drifted away from the sport until he was urged, in 1996 to watch an episode of the popular then WWF show, Raw. The headliner wore simple black trunks and boots, was bald headed with a goatee and had no real gimmick outside of his catchphrase, “because Stone Cold said so!”

“Lo and behold, I fell in love with the character (Stone Cold Steve Austin), and I watched every week religiously, just to see that character, and sure enough sooner or later, I got hooked into all the other story lines that were going on. And I realized that I’d been missing this for a long time,” he said.

So he decided to combine his love for entertaining or “goofing off,” as he put it, athletics and a bit of an adrenaline addition, into his new vocational choice – professional wrestling.

“And I just looked at wrestling and thought, ‘ah man, that’s fantastic.’ You know, I love working out, and those guys are in shape. I love playing sports and being athletic and goofing off and taking risks. There was definitely some stunt work involved, I could see that, and there’s definitely some risk involved, as well as just the entertainment factor,” he said.

“And it was like all these things rolled into one neat package, and I thought, ‘I can do that, I know I can do that.’”

After spending nine months learning the ropes at a wrestling school in his hometown, Anderson hit the road, learning his craft and honing his skill on a number of independent wrestling circuits, all the while eyeing opportunities to make his mark and catch the attention of the big time wrestling organizations, especially the WWE.

“I never expected to get paid much, and I was just kind of one of those things where I looked at is a no different than someone who wants to be a doctor going to medical school, and they pay through the nose for their tuition, their room and board, their food, for years and years, to learn what they do and become as good as they can possibly be,” he said.

“It was like my wrestling college to someday get to the pros. And it was a tough road. I declared bankruptcy one time and I almost declared bankruptcy a second time because it was either pay my bills and be responsible, or hey, my wrestling gear is getting tattered and I need a new pair of wrestling boots and I need gas to get me to the next city so I can possibly make this connection, and meet this person that could possibly help me out in my quest to get to the top.

“So, it was a little irresponsible at time, but I knew someday that I would make good on all those debts that I was incurring, and I did,” he added.”

Finally, after six-and-a-half years, Anderson got the call to join the WWE stable. But the company’s chairman Vince MacMahon wanted a slight change to be made.

“My character, what I am, is what I have been doing in the independents for years and years and years. And it was just a matter of them taking notice of it,” he said. “I remember in Toronto, having a meeting with Vince, and it was my third week on TV … and he just said, ‘all right, well, we want to change your name … I want you to change your name,” Anderson said, adding that one of the behind-the-scenes people he had befriended, ECW founder Paul Heyman, said he should change his name to something that would appeal directly to MacMahon.

Kennedy, by the way, is Vince MacMahon’s middle name.

“I really wanted to wrestle as Ken Anderson. I was kind of happy with the fact that I made it using my real name. And I went in and asked Vince what he thought about Kennedy, and he liked it. So that was just a matter of switching the name, but everything else has stayed the same,” he explained.

It was also Heyman’s idea to really ramp up Kennedy’s arrogance, and helped develop the idea of having him introduce himself.

In the wrestling game, new performers have to earn the respect of the veteran members of the locker room. So much trust is involved when the competitors are using so many potentially painful moves, that it takes time for a new wrestler to be completely accepted as an in-ring performer.

“Our business is all about respect, earning people’s respect and respecting those who came before you in the business. So when you get into the ring with a guy like HBK (Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels) or the Undertaker, you don’t just go in there with a boatload of ideas, even though you are brimming with excitement and you’ve got all these ideas and stuff. But first you’ve got to chill out and let them feel you out, and let them figure our that you’re okay to work with, and that you’re safe, and that you can have good matches,” Anderson/Kennedy said.

“And then those guys lighten up and allow you to have more input and things like that. I remember early in my run with Undertaker, we were in the Philippines and we had a match and I remember walking up to him and saying, just out of respect, ‘what do you want to do tonight?’ And he looked at me and said, ‘work my legs, and at some point I’ll drop you on your head.’ And that was all he said to me, and we went out and did 32 minutes. That’s the kind of talent you’re working with.”

‘When you’re working with a guy like Undertaker, it’s almost impossible to have a bad match with him, because he is so good, and all you have to do is worry about your own self, because you’re not worried about what the other guy is doing. You just basically fill in your parts when needed and just worry about your own stuff,” he added.

Another fact of life in the pro wrestling business is injuries. They are common and the performers just have to work through them, Anderson said.

“We get injured all the time. And I’ve had some injuries when I was on the independent circuit. I broke both my wrists, I had a pretty severe lung infection after taking a bump on a hard clothesline … and since I’ve been in the WWE, I’ve torn my lat (a muscle in the back), I’ve torn my tricep, I’ve had stitches and staples, and you name it – numerous black eyes and bloodied lips. I’ve put my teeth all the way through my lip on more than one occasion. And I ended up peeling my head open at the Great American Bash, against Batista,” he said.

“And the thing about our business is when something like that happens, you can’t tap out, you don’t end the match, you continue as much as you can. And I’ve heard stories of guys wrestling with broken legs and finishing the match, because the fans paid to see that match. Triple H tore his quad (upper leg) muscle off the bone, and wrestled for more than 15 minutes after that, on more than one occasion now.

“We are very physical with each other, and accidents can happen, and when you’re wrestling that many times a year – and we wrestle sometimes from four to seven times a week – things are bound to happen,” he added.

Tickets for WWE Raw stop at the Barrie Molson Centre are available at the BMC box office, or through the Ticketmaster website, a link to which is provided.

-    Jim Barber is the Sports, Arts and Lifestyles Editor for the Barrie Advance. Contact him at jbarber@simcoe.com.