Arn Anderson or Bobby Eaton?

[JerryvonKramer]

Arn (unsurprisingly) demolished Waltman and (a little surprisingly) saw off Tully with relative ease. But what about Eaton?

 

For some reason I find that Arn is a very useful benchmark. For this one I really don't know. I think Eaton is right there with him.

 

Interested in views here.

[Childs]

Arn feels more versatile on the surface because of his greater body of singles work, but I'm not sure his skill set was actually broader. I probably prefer Eaton because his offense looked so damn good. But both guys will fall in the same middle class neighborhood of my GWE ballot.

[JerryvonKramer]

Arn feels more versatile

On that, do you think Arn works as a face as naturally and easily as Eaton does?

[Childs]

Probably not. I really liked Eaton's little face run post MX. That's why I say Arn might seem more versatile at first glance but might not have been if you think through each guy's career carefully. Arn cut a few great face promos in the NWO years, but they weren't backed by anything notable in the ring because he was done physically.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think people forget too that MX worked face for most of 89 vs. the SSTs and Original Midnights during the whole Cornette vs. Heyman feud. Corny is a surprisingly effective face, but Eaton just works in the context of being a face tag worker either as FIP or as the hot tag. And it gave the crowd a chance to get behind his big bombs.

 

In fact, there's an argument to say that the Eaton / Lane version of the MX hit their peaks as faces.

[Strand Peanut]

In the long run, Eaton is more versatile.

 

But Arn's strength of character work is going to be hard for any of these upper card attraction guys to beat him.

 

He didn't have to be as versatile, he just had to be Arn. It's always going to give him that extra push over a lot of similar talent.

[Karl]

This is a really tough one for me - two of my all timer favourites - I would probably give Bobby the edge if based purely on in ring and definitely give Arn the edge on everything else - the gap between in ring is not as great as the gap on character, promos and other elements, so the nod would have to go to Double A.

[C.S.]

It's currently a tie, thanks to my vote for Arn.

 

It's really close though, and both were very valuable in teams and stables. But I give Arn the slight edge because he could talk up a great feud or scenario. Bobby couldn't.

 

Anyone remember the short-lived but great Anderson-Eaton team with Michael P.S. Hayes as their manager? It was basically promoted as Horsemen + Midnight Express + Freebirds. I loved that. Shame it didn't last.

[goodhelmet]

I just tied it back with Eaton. I think Eaton is such a great tag worker and was always the best guy on his team even if his role changed on the team. Add the face/heel thing and I had to go Bobby but it was razor thin close.

[Goodear]

I think if you look at their peak skills and line them up that Bobby might edge Arn out as being one of the best tag team technicians ever especially when it came to working heel. But when you look at the secondary targets, Arn seems to be clearly better at so many things like working promos, working singles matches, and fitting into a variety of roles that he pulls ahead as a whole. I don't see Bobby having the same kind of depth across categories.