“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."

“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 McMahon.

Kennedy, by the way, is Vince McMahon’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.

“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."

“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."

“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.”