Add as a preferred source on Google Mr. Kennedy revealed that Paul Heyman played a direct role in creating one of the most memorable entrances from his WWE run.
During an appearance on Tagging In with Chris Harris, Ken Anderson was asked about the origin of the famous bit where he would interrupt the ring announcer, call for the ceiling microphone, and introduce himself before matches.
Anderson said it all started in OVW, when Heyman took over creative for WWE’s former developmental brand. At the time, the former ECW figure began giving him plenty of TV time and told him to interrupt Dean Hill, the company’s announcer, take the microphone, and do his own introduction.
“I remember Paul Heyman had come to OVW and taken over creative. He was giving me a lot of TV time. One night, he told me, ‘Go out there tonight and interrupt the ring announcer.’ The ring announcer at OVW at the time was Dean Hill. He said, ‘Interrupt him, take the microphone, chew him out, and do it yourself. Do your own introduction and do it like this.’ Paul did a variation of what I ended up doing, what I still do to this day.”
Anderson also explained that repeating the last name “Kennedy” did not come from Heyman, but from a sudden memory of his school days.
According to him, when he announced high school basketball games, he would put extra emphasis on the players from his team by repeating their last names, while opposing players received much colder introductions.
“In that moment, I had a flashback. I used to announce basketball games when I was in high school. I always said the last name twice for the guys on our team. When it was the other team, I would just throw the name away. I would do this huge introduction for our players, and for theirs, it was just something like Bob Jones. So I repeated the last name. I was about 27 at the time, almost ten years after high school, maybe even ten years. I wasn’t even thinking about it anymore. I just thought, ‘I’m going to repeat my last name twice,’ and I did it.”
Mr. Kennedy was asked about his WWE entrance and where the mic drop idea came from.
— Fightful Wrestling (@Fightful) June 7, 2026
“I remember Paul Heyman had come into OVW, taking over the pencil. … He was giving me a lot of TV time. He just told me one night, he was like, ‘Come out there tonight and cut the ring… pic.twitter.com/m22DHSCaPg
When he got back backstage, the reaction was immediate. Anderson said everyone told him to keep using the idea.
The connection with Heyman was not just an isolated memory. In 2005, OVW’s TV shows were written by Heyman, and Kennedy was already being treated as one of the top names in the territory, while also being positioned as a former top heel in the company and a rising standout on SmackDown.
In WWE, Kennedy brought the introduction to the main roster and turned the microphone into an essential part of his character. The high point came at WrestleMania 23, when he won the Money in the Bank Ladder Match against Edge, CM Punk, King Booker, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Finlay, and Randy Orton.
Still, his run as Mr. Money in the Bank ended in unusual fashion. Kennedy lost the briefcase to Edge on the May 7, 2007 episode of RAW and became the only winner of the contract to never cash it in.
After leaving WWE, Anderson began using the name Mr. Anderson in TNA, where he won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship twice. Even outside WWE, however, the microphone introduction remained the defining trademark of his career.