Another Sign That AEW Might Be Reviving The Four Horsemen

Rumors of The Four Horsemen being revived as a faction in All Elite Wrestling have been spreading for months. Cody Rhodes and FTR have been subtly flashing the four fingers during episodes of AEW Dynamite, Tully Blanchard has been playing a bigger role on television by managing Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler and "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair has even publicly endorsed the idea. But while nothing has been confirmed, Arn Anderson gave fans another reason to believe in the rumors this week.

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Anderson (real name Marty Lunde) filed for the trademark of "The Four Horsemen" on Sept. 27. The trademark is described as "G & S: Entertainment services, namely, live appearances by a professional wrestling and sports entertainment personalities; Entertainment services, namely, personal appearances by a professional wrestling and sports entertainment personalities; Entertainment services, namely, wrestling exhibits and performances by a professional wrestler and entertainer; Providing wrestling news and information via a global computer network; Providing online interviews featuring professional wrestlers and sports entertainers in the field of professional wrestling and sports entertainment personalities for entertainment purposes."

Debuting in 1985, the original version of the faction ran roughshod over Jim Crockett Promotions and would stick around in some capacity in WCW until 1999. The original members were Flair, Anderson, Blanchard and Ole Anderson, but later versions would include members like Barry Windham, Sting, Sid Vicious, Brian Pillman, Chris Benoit, Jeff Jarrett, Curt Hennig and Dean Malenko. The ongoing theory is that the new group would consist of Cody, Wheeler, Harwood and Shawn Spears, Blanchard's other client.

"Certain organic things happen on planet wrestling that you don't plant the seeds for," Rhodes said in a recent interview with TalkSport. "No one has planted [New Four Horseman] seeds, really. Maybe a few baby seeds have grown into this speculation about a four person group and then people have mentioned the Four Horseman. I don't think you can ever do the Four Horseman; that's ambitious, braggadocios and, very likely, you'd have the most uphill battle ever. You're talking about wrestlers of the calibre of Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, the Minnesota Wrecking Crew and whatever creations of the Horseman you're looking at, but those guys bell-to-bell and in real life, on the microphone, just the total packages. Total packages as a unit, too. Just so special and that's why it lives on today.

"I think in this case, I love flirting with some of the concepts that were out there because my dad and my family was always the antithesis of the Four Horseman," he continued. "Their biggest rival was my father. And now, one of his biggest rivals is genuinely one of my closest confidants and coaches and it's really a different career than I had envisioned. But I love having Double A there and I know Arn has had some conversations with Tony Khan and FTR and I know [Shawn] Spears has had some conversations with FTR.

Rhodes concluded — "There's this kind of lingering situation here, but really the only way you'd ever know if something like that would work is you got to get in there and touch one another and wrestle, wrestle on the same team. Maybe even against each other. That's really the only way to know. So I'm curious to see like everybody — even though my name is all over it — I'm curious to see where that goes."