Jim Herd Says He And Tully Blanchard Got Rid Of Each Other, Talks Reneging Blanchard’s Deal In 1989

Jim Herd responds to claims that he broke up The Four Horsemen.

In 1988, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard left Jim Crockett promotions amid their sale to Turner Broadcasting and joined the World Wrestling Federation. Spending a year as “The Brain Busters,” Tully and Arn enjoyed their time working for Vince McMahon but were ready to go back to WCW and reform The Four Horsemen. However, as often happens, fate had other plans.

Tully Blanchard failed a drug test performed by WWE and when Jim Herd got word of this, he rescinded Tully Blanchard’s offer, cut the offer he made to Arn Anderson in half, and we would never see the original Four Horsemen together again.

Because of this, Tully Blanchard’s mainstream wrestling career was all but over. Outside of some appearances for ECW and an appearance at the 1994 WCW Slamboree event, Blanchard would be out of the major wrestling spotlight until joining All Elite Wrestling in 2019.

Speaking to Conrad Thompson for Ad-Free Shows, Jim Herd responded to the criticism that he took Tully Blanchard out of wrestling. Herd would say that oftentimes in these situations, both parties take each other out.

“I think a lot of these things you get rid of each other because there’s no other corner to go around. There’s no basement to hide in, you know? 

“When you’re dealing with wrestlers that are, I want to say smarter, and I don’t mean that as a wrestling community [term], but there are certain guys that are saying, ‘Hey, from my point of view…’ Most wrestlers accepted their fate from the bookers and the owners and did what they could do to make that be viable as far as audience, money, and all.”

Herd continued, “Then, there were other guys [that would say], ‘Hey, I’m looking at this from a different point of view,’ and if they are, it’s very, very hard to change that point of view if you just totally don’t agree with it.”

On the other side of the coin, Jim Herd would praise Kevin Sullivan as the antithesis of what he had previously described with Blanchard saying that Kevin Sullivan will work for hours with talent helping them find their way.

Elsewhere in the interview, Jim spoke about his relationship with another one of the four horsemen, Ric Flair. Read his comments on “The Nature Boy” at this link.

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