Grilling JR - Mr. Kennedy [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Ken Anderson

Ken Anderson was born on March 6th, 1976 in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin

He grew up in a town called Two Rivers, Wisconsin, it's about 30 miles south of Green Bay. He was a casual wrestling fan growing up, his favorite was the Junkyard Dog, and he sometimes wanted to wear chains when he went to school, like JYD did

He didn't become a big wrestling fan until about 1996-1997. He went to a friend's house one night and his friend was a big wrestling fan and told him they were going to watch wrestling and Ken didn't want to, but his friend told him that he was a fan of one particular guy and he thought Ken would like him also. So, Ken relunctantly watched it. He heard the glass break and saw Steve Austin drive out in a truck and he caught the wrestling bug right there

He started watching it every week and one time he was at a party and a friend of his told him that there were wrestling schools where he could get trained to become a wrestler. Ken said he couildn't think of anything else the rest of the time he was at the party, and as soon as he got home, he got online and searched for wrestling schools in Chicago, because he figured that'd be the closest one

He found one for the North American Wrestling Federation. He emailed them and a few days later he got a call from a guy in Green Bay who told him he was told that Ken wanted to become a wrestler. They talked for about an hour. He said the guy started throwing names at him like Bret Hart & Ric Flair but Ken didn't know who they were, because he never followed wrestling

Ken said that later the guy secretly thought that Ken would never make it because he didn't know the history of the business, but he wanted Ken's $200 for the tryout. A few days later, Ken drove to Green Bay to the school and had a 3 hour tryout where he took back bumps, flips, ran the ropes, etc

He caught onto it very quickly to where his trainer, Mike Mercury told him they wanted him to continue. They charged him $1200 for the training and that's how Ken got started in wrestling

After Ken started wrestling, he worked for his trainer, Mike Mercury on a few indy shows, and by word of mouth he started getting booked on more indy shows

After he gained some experience, he sent tapes of himself out to WCW, WWF and ECW. Kevin Kelly from WWF ended up calling Ken and telling him that he liked his work and thoguht he had a good look and he wanted to bring him in. Kevin booked Ken on a Chicago/Milwaukee loop for when they were taping Raw

Ken went but he never got used. He said he ended up sitting around all day but he was like a sponge, and tried to learn as much as he could while he was there. From thre he went back to the indies and tried to apply what he learned

Later on, he got called back when Raw was in Cleveland, so he went and got to wrestle Essa Rios. He said it was a terrible match. 

Ken said about you that he was a fan of yours and called you the greatest announcer that he'd heard. He said you were untouchable and you couldn't really talk to you other than saying hi and that was about it

When do you first remember seeing and hearing about Ken?

From there, He got hooked up with TNA through a guy named Bert Prentice who Ken worked for. Bert got Davari, ODB and Ken tryouts with TNA, Ken was dating ODB at the time. They flew down from Minneapolis and on the plane, they sat behind Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig; Ken said they had a good talk with him on the flight. While Ken was in Minnesota, he did some more training with Brad Rhegians

Ken worked there a few times and had a long convo with Jeff Jarrett. Jeff told him he was considering him for a group that Jeff wanted to start, a hitman type of group. He gave Ken his contact info and Ken tried calling him every week for about 2 months, but Jeff never got back to him

That ended Ken's career in TNA before it really ever got started. From there, Ken started to slow his bookings down and even considered quitting wrestling because he went through a bankruptcy and almost another one on top of that one and he was having a lot of problems because wrestling wasn't picking up for him as fast as he would've liked for it to

Davari got hired by WWE and called Ken and told ihm that Tommy Dreamer took over for Dr. Tom and was looking for guys for a loop they were doing. Ken ended up talking to Tommy and Tommy booked him on the loop

He said that he didn't get much feedback from anyone in the office for his dark matches, but he got to work with William Regal early on, and William really helped him by letting him get stuff in to show what he had

Ken said one day at one of the shows, about 8 of them got into the ring and started doing a 4 on 4 match and you and Paul Heyman came down and sat at ringside and were talking to each other but kind of watching what they were doing in the ring. After the match, Paul called Ken over and asked him his name and who trained him. Paul told him that he liked his work which made Ken happy because that was the first time that anyone of importance had told him that

Do you remember that?

Later that day, John Laurinitis came and found Ken and told him that Paul wanted him to go and do some pre tapes. Ken said that was the first time that John ever gave him the time of day really. The pre tapes didn't end up happening

For the fans that don't know, what are pre tapes?

Ken said that Paul told him to call the main office on Wednesday and ask for ihm and they'd put him right through. Ken ended up calling for about 2 months, but never heard back from Paul

Ken continued to get booked on the loops with Dreamer and the day before the first Taboo Tuesday pay per view in 2004, Laurinitis told him to come back the next day and he'd get to work in the ring before the show started

Ken went the next dya and sat around all day waiting and about 10 minutes before the doors opened he was sitting down by the ring and Arn Anderson, Laurinitis and HHH were all there and Ken got Arn's attention, Arn then said something to Johnny and he then told Ken and Davari to get in the ring, so they got to work for a few minutes until the doors opened

Afterwards, Arn pulled Ken aside and told him that he had something and the next time that there was hirings there, Arn told Ken that he'd put his name in there. About 3 months later, Ken got a call from Davari. He asked Ken if he got a call from the office, Ken said no, and Daviri told him that they just hired 7 guys from Louisville, so he knew that they were hiring

About a week later, Ken was working his job as a personal trainer, he had started at 5am and about noon he took a break and went into the breakroom and called Tommy Dreamer. Tommy said that he had been trying to call Ken, but he couldn't get ahold of Ken because the number he was calling was disconnected. Ken was calling him from his number, so he said no the number wasn't disconnected; Tommy was just calling the wrong number.

Tommy told him the reason he was trying to call him was because he got him a job. Tommy told him he dind't know if he was going to send him to Deep South which was just opening at the time, or OVW. Later, Ken talked to Daviri, who told 

him he felt going to OVW would be better for him and told Ken he'd talk to Tommy and try to get Ken sent to OVW

Tommy decided to send Ken to OVW, which was in Louisville

Jim Cornette was running OVW at the time but didn't see too much potential in Ken until he let him cut a promo one day on OVW TV and after that, Jim told Ken that he saw something in him and a few weeks later the Santino Marella incident happened with Jim and he was fired, and Paul Heyman came in to OVW to replace Jim. Ken said when Paul came in, everything was different

How did Jim and Paul run OVW similiarly and differently? A lot of people have said the reason they didn't get along too well was because they were pretty much the same person

Ken really hit it off with Paul. He said next to himself, Paul was the 2nd most important part to Ken's career at the time. Ken said Paul really helped him with his promos, which we've heard a lot of people ove rthe years say that about Paul, such as Steve Austin, from Steve's time in ECW in 1995

What does Paul do to help people with their promos and why do you think he's so good at that?

Speaking of Steve Austin, Ken said one day at TV, Paul called him into his office and it was just them in there and Paul told him that he sees the same things in Ken that he saw in Steve and The Rock. Paul told Ken that he was a big fan of his work and over the next few weeks, he's going to do so many things with Ken, that WWE was going to have to call him up. Paul told Ken that he had it and he was going to be the next guy to get out of there (OVW)

Did Paul ever talk to you about what he saw in Ken, while Ken was in OVW?

Over the next 5 weeks, Paul came up with a lot of things for Ken to do on TV to get the exposure and time that he told him that he would. Paul also let Ken come up with his own things and when Ken would, Paul would tell him that he loved the idea, which would keep Ken encouraged

One day as Ken was about to go through the curtain to the ring, Paul stopped ihm and told him to cut the ring announcer off and tell him that he wasn't worthy of doing his introduction and to do his own introduction. Ken announced basketball when he was in high school and he would sometimes say the guys last name twice, so immediately Ken thought of that when Paul told him to do his own introduction

When Ken got back to the dressing room he got a bunch of compliments from guys saying they popped when he said his last name twice and over the next few weeks the introduction kept getting bigger everytime he did it. A few weeks later, Tommy called Ken and told him that they wanted him on TV on the main roster the next week

Why was the decision made to call Ken to the main roster, and what was the opinion on him at the time?

Who was his big supporters and was there anyone who wasn't very supportive of him coming up to the main roster?

Ken was set to work with Funaki on Velocity and he said while he was at gorilla position before he went out, Vince came up and sat down which Ken said he didn't normally do for the dark matches. Ken went out and had the mathc and when he came back, Vince gave him a thumbs up and told him that he liked it

Then Johnny came up and told him he's got a job and guys on the crew said while Ken was wrestling, Vince was on the headset saying things like this guy gets it, where's he been for the last few years

Did you know that Vince seemed to be high on Ken right away?

A few weeks later, Ken was told that Vince wanted him to change his name. Beofre that, he was just going by his shoot name, Ken Anderson. Ken was told that Vince wanted to have a meeting with him about it

During the meeting there was several people in there with Vince, Stephanie, Johnny, Kevin Dunn and others. Ken said that Vince asked him several questions like what kind of person is he, does he do drugs, etc then they got to the name subject.

Earlier in the day, Ken called Paul Heyman and told ihm that Vince wants him to change his name. When Ken was on the indies, he worked as Kamikaze Ken and h e had a KK logo on his tights for that, and he told Paul he wanted to try and come up with something that started with K, and Paul told him that he should come up with something that's near and dear to Vince's heart.

They were throwing out ideas and Paul said his dog's name is Rukus, and his other dog's name was Rumpus, maybe Kenny Rumpus, but none of the names they were picking really fit. And then Paul said what about Kennedy? Ken was unsure of it, then Paul said Kennedy is Vince's middle name. Ken said he'd think about it

Back to the meeting, Ken told Vince that his personna was that he was an asshole. So Johnny said what about Adam Hole, then you could say something like thankfully I'm an A-Hole....Ken said Vince looked at Johnny and asked Ken what did he think. Ken said that's a good idea but he thinks that's a gimmicky name and he planned on being there for a long time and he thinks that'd be a name for someone that'd be there for about a year and be out the door. Vince said he agreed with Ken

Then Ken said, what about Ken Kennedy? Vince said hmm, there's never been a Kennedy before in the business. Vince then asked Ken if he liked it and Ken said no, honestly I like Anderson, but are you hell bent against me using the name Anderson? And Vince said yes, absolutely because I don't want you being associated with the other Andersons

Ken then said, I like Anderson but you can call me Mr. Dickhead if you want to, it's your show. Vince said, alright, he then turned to Kevin Dunn and said make sure he's got Kennedy on his trunks when he goes out to the ring tonight

Ken said that not long after that, Vince told him that he wanted him to start hanging around him so Vince could get to know him and Ken could get to know the system etc. Ken said that he it dind't feel right, so he never did it.

Do you think that might've worked against Ken in the long run with Vince? Does Vince often want the new guys to hang out with him so Vince can get to know them?

Ken started traveling with Bobby Lashley and Daviri and one day Batista came up to Ken and asked him why he's traveling with him, he told Ken he's not going to learn anything from them and he should start traveling with a vet. So, Ken asked Chris Benoit if he could start riding him with, Benoit said he could, so Ken started riding with Chris and Eddie Guerrero. Ken said that he'd always be the driver and he learned a lot from them

How was Ken received by everyone when he came in?

What did Eddie and Chris think of him?

Kennedy made his PPV debut at the No Mercy 05 ppv where he defeated Hardcore Holly

Do you think Bob had a problem working with and putting over a new guy on his first ppv?

On the November 11th Smackdown, Kennedy faced Eddie Guerrero to compete for a spot on SmackDown's Survivor Series team. He lost the match when Guerrero tossed him a steel chair and played possum, a move which Guerrero had made famous. The groggy referee turned around and saw Guerrero on the ground with Kennedy holding the chair, and DQ'ed Kennedy, awarding the place on Team SmackDown to Guerrero. 

In retaliation, Kennedy struck Guerrero over the head with the chair after the match. This was Guerrero's final televised match,as he died on November 13th in his hotel room in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I'm sure we'll talk more about this in the future and in more detail, but what's your memories of the day that Eddie passed?

In December 2005, Kennedy participated in WWE's overseas tour. On the second day in Italy, Kennedy suffered a serious latissimus dorsi tear. Even after surgery in December, Kennedy was still forced out of the ring for nearly six months while he rehabilitated the injury.

He continued to make appearances on SmackDown and Velocity throughout January and February and even made an appearance on the January 11th Byte This with Todd Grisham to maintain visibility 

Do you think that injury set him back a lot as far as the plans WWE had for him?

Who was his supporters and detractors around this time since he'd been up on the main roster for a little bit at the time?

At the OVW tapings on May 10th, Kennedy returned to in-ring action facing the Heavyweight Champion, CM Punk, in a title match that Kennedy lost. 

Ken said when they were in OVW together, Ken ddin't like him because he felt Punk buried him on commentary once and he didn't overall like Punk's attitude. However, they later became friends and got along great. Do you think a lot of people felt that way about Punk in his early days in the company?

Kennedy made his return to SmackDown on the June 9th episode with a victory over Scotty 2 Hotty after using the Kenton Bomb.

On the July 14th SmackDownMatt Hardy used a roll-up to defeat Kennedy, ending Kennedy's streak of never being defeated by pin or submission.

Ken said that after Eddie passed, Chris Benoit started traveling with friends like Rey Mysterio and Chavo Guerrero and Ken realzied they were great friends and dealing with Eddie's tragic passing, so Ken stepped back and removed himself from traveling with Chris. After that, Matt Hardy approached him about traveling together and they started to do that and hit it off great. Soon after, Hurrican Helms joined them and those 3 started traveling a lot together

On the July 21st SmackDown, Batista put out an open challenge to find an opponent for The Great American Bash, as his original opponent, Mark Henry, had been injured. Kennedy accepted the challenge and won the match by dq, however, he suffered a severe injury during the match after being thrown headfirst into the steel steps, resulting in an exposed cranium laceration which required twenty stitches to close.

He then entered into a short feud with Batista, defeating him by countout in their second match, but losing via pinfall in the third. 

Do you think Kennedy was pushed too fast in working with main event guys like Batista, or do you think he was a good fit for the role at the time?

Kennedy helped The McMahons (Vince and Shane) in their feud with DX, appearing at both SummerSlam and the August 28th Raw to attack DX 

Ken said he wanted to work an angle with HHH, but that never happened. He said he worked with HHH one time and the next week he was back working

mid-card guys. He said HHH was always nice to his face, so if Trips had any problems with him, he never said anything directly. Do you think if HHH didn't like Ken?

On the September 1st of SmackDown, Kennedy defeated Finlay and Bobby Lashley in a Triple Threat match to win the United States Championship, his first and and what would turn out to be his only Championship reign in WWE.

On the September 8th SmackDown, Kennedy announced that he wanted to move over to Raw, because SmackDown did not interest him anymore because he had already defeated every top performer on the roster. This led to Smackdown GM Teddy Long making a match between Kennedy and The Undertaker, who Kennedy had never faced, to be held at No Mercy. In that match. Kennedy won the match by DQ

Ken said that Undertaker helped him out a lot. Taker liked how Ken worked. For example, when Taker would have him in the corner and punching him, Ken would cover up and try to get away, like a real fight and Taker told him to keep doing that because that set him apart. 

However, he did also tell him that it could cause him problems down the line with other guys

What did Taker think of Ken personally?

On the October 13th SmackDown, Kennedy, now with a win over The Undertaker, again stated his desire to move to the Raw brand. However, Long put him against Chris Benoit with Kennedy's US title on the line. Long said that, if Kennedy were to defeat Benoit, he would be given his release and be allowed to go to Raw. Ultimately, Kennedy lost the match and the United States Championship to Benoit after submitting to the Crippler Crossface, following a distraction by The Undertaker, which also marked Kennedy's first loss via submission 

In November 2006, Kennedy teamed up with MVP in matches against The Brothers of Destruction (Undertaker and Kane) in various combinations. On a November episode of SmackDown, Kennedy and MVP lost to the Brothers of Destruction three times. After first getting counted out, Theodore Long restarted the match with no countouts. When they disqualified themselves following a low blow by Kennedy, Long restarted the match again with no countouts and no disqualifications.

Kennedy and MVP continued to feud with the brothers, with MVP feuding with Kane while Kennedy challenged the Undertaker to a match at Survivor Series, which was later announced as a First Blood match. Kennedy won the match after MVP turned on him and aimed for his head with a steel chair, but missed and hit the Undertaker instead, leaving him bleeding. After the match, the Undertaker attacked Kennedy, causing him to bleed. At Armageddon, Kennedy and the Undertaker met in a final match; they were scheduled in a Last Ride match. In the match, the Undertaker defeated Kennedy 

Kennedy was getting a good push working with Taker so much at this time. Was he mostly thought of as a top guy during this time in 2006?

After a brief hiatus, Kennedy returned to SmackDown on January 5, 2007 and defeated Chris Benoit in a "Beat the Clock" match, with the overall prize being a shot at Batista's World Heavyweight Championship at the Royal Rumble.

After he prevented The Undertaker from beating his time, Kennedy's time of 5:07 ended up being the fastest, which earned him his first World Title match at a pay per view

At the Royal Rumble, he lost the match as a result of a Batista Bomb, as well as a rematch. However, he really started to get even more of a main event push after those matches

Did his performances in those matches with Batista open Vince's eyes that he could be a future World Champion?

From there, Kennedy began a short feud with ECW World Champion Bobby Lashley, leading to a match at No Way Out for the title which Kennedy won by DQ. Then Kennedy challenged Lashley unsuccessfully for the title on ECW and Smackdown

Kennedy earned a spot in the 2007 Money in the Bank ladder match by defeating Sabu in an Extreme Rules match on ECW

At WrestleMania 23, Kennedy won the Money in the Bank ladder match, giving him the right to challenge any World Champion in WWE at any date up until WrestleMania  24. Also in the match was CM Punk, Edge, Matt Hardy, Booker T, Randy Orton, Jeff Hardy and Finlay

Ken said that he was led to believe after he won this match, he was going to get a World Title reign. Was that the plan?

Kennedy announced on the April 30th Raw that he would be cashing in his Money in the Bank championship opportunity at WrestleMania 24. 

Undertaker was the champion at the time & Vince told Ken he was going to win the title because Taker had an injury, he was going to cash in the money in the bank contract on Taker after he beat Batista and win the title. Vince said the whole scenerio was about Batista and he'd eventually get the title once his stock started to drop, but since Vince felt he was doing good, he dind't need the title at the time

A few days later,Ken was working Batista and Batista sent him into the corner and when Ken came out he took a clothsline and when he took the bump, he felt a pop in his arm. He said his arm immediately started to swell. He had an MRI and it found out the triceps muscle was torn off the bone, and he had to get surgery and he was gonna be out 7-8 months.

What's your memories of that?

Stephanie called Ken with the MRI results, and told him that Vince's jet was on it's way to pick him up and bring him to the arena so he could drop the Money in the Bank briefcase to Edge because they had to get the title off of Undertaker right now

Ken said that he regrets that he dind't say something to Steph like what if he do this, throw out another alternative instead of him dropping it because after that, he felt like they thought he didn't care about the opportunity because he gave it up so easily without putting up a fight for it. Do you think that was the impression people got? He said that wasn't the case, he was just trying to do business

On the May 7th Raw, Kennedy, however, lost his Money in the Bank contract to Edge. Edge later cashed that in on the May 11th Smackdown and beat Undertaker for the title. That was the night Ken was supposed to do that

Do you recall if Ken was going to have a length run with the World Title? Do you think he was ready to be the World Champion at that time?

On the June 11th Raw, Kennedy was drafted from SmackDown to Raw.

On the August 20th Raw, Carlito  hosted the interview segment Carlito's Cabana. During the segment Carlito challenged his special guest, Umaga for his Intercontinental title at SummerSlam, and Kennedy also demanded a shot at the title.

Raw General Manager William Regal, scheduled a match between Kennedy and Carlito, in which the winner would receive an opportunity to face off against Umaga at SummerSlam. After the match ended in a draw, Regal booked a triple threat at SummerSlam between the three men for the Intercontinental title. Umaga ultimately won that match at SummerSlam when he pinned Kennedy

On the September 10th Raw, Mr. McMahon revealed that Kennedy had, in storyline, been suspended for "impersonating a McMahon". This angle was written because Kennedy being named one of the eleven wrestlers implicated in a steroid scandal and therefore suspended for thirty days in accordance with WWE's Wellness Policy

Ken said that he did take steroids to help him get to WWE and after the Wellness Policy started, he was led to believe as long as you had a doctor's note, you were able to take things, but that wasn't the case here. What's your memories of his suspension, and how bad did that hurt him in the company's eyes?

After his suspension, Kennedy returned to television on the October 1st Raw, facing John Cena the main event.

During this time, Ken had a lot of heat with John Cena. Ken says he was at a press conference of some sort and he mentioned Cena's name and he said the crowd boo'ed him out of the building. So, he decided to have fun with it. He'd say Cena, they'd boo, he'd say Kennedy and they'd cheer. 

He wasn't doing it to take shots at Cena, he was just being a heel

Do you remember that or do you remember the heat that they had with each other?

Then they had a match and Cena gave him a hip toss and somehow during that, he tore his pec, and blamed Ken for it and Ken took the blame backstage over it. How does a guy tear his pec when the other guy is taking the move by jumping and flipping?

Ken said nothing was ever said to him directly, but he heard from people in the know that he took the heat for that. Do you remember that?

At the No Mercy ppv in October, Kennedy took part of a six-man tag team match alongside then Word Tag Team Champions, Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch defeating then-Intercontinental Champion Jeff Hardy, Paul London & Brian Kendrick

For several weeks, Kennedy began a feud with Jeff Hardy, where they wrestled in singles match and numerous tag team matches, most of which Hardy won. At the Cyber Sunday ppv, Kennedy and Hardy were two of the eligible wrestlers that could earn a WWE Championship match for that evening, pending the fan's votes. Neither man won the opportunity, as Shawn Michaels won the vote and earned a shot at the title. Then, Kennedy defeated Hardy in a scheduled match made by William Regal. 

Kennedy next entered a feud with Shawn Michaels on the night after Survivor Series. Kennedy claimed that it was time for Michaels to move on and let the younger wrestlers climb the ladder to success. At the Armageddon ppv, Michaels defeated Kennedy after Sweet Chin Music

On the December 31st Raw Kennedy and Michaels had a rematch where Kennedy pinned Michaels following his new finishing move, the Mic Check. In subsequent rematches, the two traded wins over each other. Their feud ended pretty quickly after that.

Ken did the WWE movie Behind Enemy Lines. Ken said Mark Carano called him one day and said I'm sending you a script for this movie, and we'd like you to read for it. Ken said there was about 15-20 other guys that read for the part. They did it in a hotel room, in New York. 

Ken ended up getting the part which realized a dream for him. When he was a kid he was in plays and he'd get cameras and act in front of them. He even went to college for a semester because he wanted to make movies

Kennedy returned on the April 28th Raw, as he confronted and brawled with General Manager and newly crowned King of the Ring William Regal, turning face in the process.

Ken said that was always the plan was for him to turn face even when he got called up. What side did you like him better on?

On the May 18th Raw, Kennedy defeated Regal in a Loser gets fired match

On the June 23rd 2008 draft, Ken was drafted to Raw

Shortly after he was drafted to Raw, during a match with Shelton Benjamin, Shelton took the turnbuckle pad off so it was an exposed turnbuckle. They worked that into the match where Shelton hit him into the buckle, he then turned into Shelton's finish for the pin

After the match, Fit Finley told them that he didn't think Shelton should hit him with his finish after droipping him on the exposed buckle, he felt it was overkill. The next night they worked again, they did the same spot with Shelton dropping him on the buckle, then Shelton grabbed him to take him down but Ken's arm got caught between them as they went down and hit popped his shoulder right out of socket and dislocated his shoulder

In the back, the doctor tried to put it back in place, but he told Ken they were going to have tot ake him to the hospital, sedate him then do it. But, Ken was in so much pain he told them he couldn't wait and to just do it now. He said to get 3 guys if he had to, to hold him down, and that's what they did. 

They had a guy hold Ken down by his waist, another held him down by his other arm, and the doctor then key locked his arm and started pulling on it to try and put it back in place and it slid back into it's socket, and Ken said the pain went from a 10 to a 1 almost instantly

Do you think Ken was more injury prone, or do you think his injuries were just the nature of the business and things just happen?

Do you think his injuries made Vince think he couldn't be relied upon to be a top guy consistently?

Bob Holly has said that he blamed Ken for getting him fired which happened in January of 2009, but Ken denys that and said he had nothing to do with Bob getting fired. Ken said he tried to protect Bob, and keep the incident under wraps and keep it between them two only. Ken said Bob apologized to him and that was good enough for him. However, other people saw what happened and started talking. Ken said someone wrapped tape around Bob's bag and wrote thief on it. 

Ken said after Bob saw it, he went around the locker room making a big deal out of it. Ken said he didnt do it because as far as he was concerned, he and Bob talked about their incident and it was over with. 

However, because Bob made a big deal out of the rib with his bag, management heard about it and Johnny started to look into it, and then Bob was fired.

What happened with all of that? The rumor was it had something to do with possibly pain pills or something of that nature

On April 15,th 2009, Kennedy returned to Raw as Raw's first pick of the 2009 Supplemental Draft. On May 7, Kennedy returned to in-ring action at Florida Championship Wrestling, WWE's developmental territory, to gain some in ring time before returning to Raw

That takes us to the infamous 10 man tag, on the May 25th, 2009 Raw which ended up being Ken's last match in WWE

Going into the 10 man tag, Ken said that for some reason, he just had a bad feeling all of that day, but he didn't know why. 

This is the match where Ken hit Randy with a back suplex and supposidly Randy landed wrong on his head and neck

When the match was over, Randy came back selling his neck, and gave Ken a lecture on safety in the ring. Ken didn't realize that he dropped Randy on his head and apologized to him

Ken said he and Randy rode together for about a year and were really good friends. He said their wives would get together and get their hair and nails done together, so they were all very good friends before this happened.

After the injury in the back, Randy got his head and shoulders iced and Ken sat in Randy's private dressing room with him and kept apologizing to him for what happened. Randy then started apologizing to Ken, telling him that it's no big deal and he overreacted about it. 

He told Ken it was water under the bridge as far as he was concerned.

So Ken thought everything was ok and made a joke about something and Randy said something like, see I don't think this is funny, I don't think you take this seriously enough, and things of that nature. 

Ken said he went home and watched the match, he said when you watch the match when the incident happened, from Randy's shoulders to his ass, Ken said he landed perfectly flat, he couldn't of landed any flatter on the mat, and Randy's neck never came in contact with the mat. 

Not long after, Ken was at home and Johnny called him and told him that he's got bad news and told him we're going to have to let him go. Ken said ok, any reason why? Johnny said they were unhappy with how things went Monday (the Randy incident) and we're not going to go with the Ken Kennedy character anymore.

Do you think Randy set Ken up?

Ken said he was shocked and felt a little betrayed but he also felt relief

He said about about a year leading up to that he was struggling. He said when he was on Smackdown, no one complained about him being unsafe, he said he worked with Undertaker for 9 months straight and Taker even let Ken piledrive him, Ken said at that point, Taker had only let 2 guys piledrive him (one was HBK) but now when he got to Raw, he was suddenly unsafe and a hazard to work with

Ken said it got to a point where when he went out for a match, he'd be nervous because he dind't want to piss Vince off, and he came back through the curtain, Vince would say things to him like, that was the shits, why would you do this or that, why'd you say this, why'd you say that, etc. Ken said at that point, he never got any positive feedback from Vince what so ever.

Ken said during that time, he'd have agents and top wrestlers scratching their heads and saying to him they didn't understand what was going on and why that was happening to Ken

Ken said he'd go into Vince's office many times and ask him if there was something he was doing wrong and Vince would say things to him like no, don't read too much into how I'm acting, that he just flies off the handle sometimes, but I have faith in you, you're going to be someone we can build this company around someday. But those weren't the messages from Vince that Ken was getting after his matches.

What do you think Vince's problem was with Ken?

Did anyone stick up Ken and try to save his job?

From there, Ken did some indies then went to TNA in 2010, where he won the TNA World Title from Jeff Hardy, he'd end up losing it back to him in a ladder match. He ended up winning it again by beating Sting for it then lost it back to Sting

In March of 2016, he was fired from TNA after failing an on the stop drug test

In September of 2019, Ken went to NWA Powerr where he's still at. He and Daviri also opened a wrestling school in 2016.

How would you sum up Ken's WWE career?