Andrew Lutzke
Jim Ross was called in to WWF in January to help inject some life into the storylines. Ross and Nash became buddies while Nash was a lower card WCW jabronie via Ross’ radio show where Nash was able to come on and be himself.
Nash blames his lack of push in WCW on not being in Dusty Rhodes’ good ol’ boys club.
Coming out of Castle GreySkull isn’t a push?
Ross was already around the business for over 12+ years by the time they were in WCW together and knew what would draw and how to get things over – but translating that to booking is a different beast in Nash’s opinion.
Kevin starts the blame game early as his terrible booking reign that managed to set WCW up for the kill is brought up and he says basically “I can come up with brilliant ideas but if the guys executing it botch it….” Four minutes into the shoot and I’m ready to slap Nash, God love him!
Nash and Bob Backlund’s matches are discussed. Nash says Backlund was crazy strong, but their styles clashed. He blames Backlund for calling the poor matches, since he was the heel and the veteran.
Steve Regal and others are great workers, but just couldn’t translate that to working with guys like Nash’s style. #restholds
MANTAUR debuts in January – Nash manages to turn this into burying Vader. That trolled me so hard I almost gave myself the Curly slap.
Kama debuts – Nash says Godfather created this gimmick himself and had nothing to do with Vince reacting to UFC.
Scott Hall saw potential in the jobber Hardy Boyz and would bump for them in squashes despite Vince being flustered by this.
Nash discusses finding ways to lay around during long matches –especially while hungover/lacking sleep.
Vince seeing Nash was still all muscle after everybody else got off roids (Nash claims he was clean) basically got Nash his World title run.
Bill Kazmaier’s lack of wrestling ability is derided by Nash. Nash hopes he himself was considered a good worker by others. (Update – nope.)
Kevin Nash has the distinction of being the lowest drawing WWF champion ever as well as one of the worst bookers of all time. If Nash hadn’t had the genetic gift of being 7 feet tall, he probably would have never seen the lights of a wrestling arena. Thankfully for Kevin, he had natural charisma that could con people into following his bullshit. He combined this by mastering the political maneuvering that his sniveling little buddy Shawn Michaels had utilized to avoid doing jobs and masterfully obtaining titles that he’d never lose in the ring. Nash, Sean Waltman and Scott Hall leaving the WWF in 1996 opened up the landscape to allow a new batch of experienced stars to rise within the WWF and eventually set the stage for the Attitude Era which allowed Vince McMahon to become the omnipotent ruler of the wrestling world.
The damage Nash and the Clique caused in 1995 is still felt in the WWE in the modern day as they set up HHH for his rise to power that kept many new stars from fully blossoming in the early 2000’s and continues to the modern day where HHH gets to enjoy masturbatory booking despite being a part time worker who is using Dusty Rhodes’ tried and true method of booking himself with who ever happens to be the hot act in the current moment and leeching off any heat possible.
Nash was only a draw for a brief period of time in WCW in 1996 (by being a part of the revolutionary NWO angle that gave WCW a year and a half of competent booking that begat solid ratings and actually drawing non-embarrassing numbers of fans to arenas.) Of course Nash squandered the positive vibes by going to war backstage with Hulk Hogan and eventually briefly winning the political war by beating out Hogan as the choice to defeat WCW’s hottest act in Bill Goldberg. Nash and Hogan then pissed on all the fans a few short weeks later via the infamous “Fingerpoke of Doom” angle that saw fans turn off Nitro at an incredible pace over the next few months. Nash was named WCW booker and Bischoff was AWOL from the empire he created – allowing Nash to book PPVs with glorified jobbers like Mike Enos, Scotty Riggs, Van Hammer and others to take up time while also making sure Dean Malenko and Chris Beniot were jobbing to guys 5+ years past their peak like Barry Windham and Curt Hennig as well as Nash booking himself to beat Rey Misterio Jr. and win his mask in the process.
While the WWF was creating new stars basically every month, WCW remained focused on main events with Nash, a broken down Savage, a contractually obligated to rule the roost Hulk Hogan, as well as a key upper-card feud featuring 50 year old Ric Flair fighting Roddy “I have a fake hip and nothing left in the tank” Piper feuding over who was the “President” of WCW. The closest we got to new “stars” was a renewed push for Buff Bagwell that was aborted and DDP winning his first World title while in his 40’s.
Nash was rewarded for helping to kill WCW by remaining under contract to Turner for a year after WCW went belly up – being paid a high downside guarantee to sit at home. Then Vince McMahon felt the WWF needed a freshening up and he brought in 52 year old Ric Flair, along with Hall, Nash and Hogan all within a 4 month period. Nash used his friendship with Shawn and HHH to float around the top of the WWE card, before eventually heading to TNA for another run on top of a failing company. Nash would align with X-Division workers for some entertaining vignettes, but when it came time to do some jobs to make up for goofing on the workers, Nash was conveniently able to avoid the situations.
HHH and Vince then gave Nash yet another WWE run despite having ever declining skills and basically zero track record of bumping business. Nash was even allowed to get the best of CM Punk when Punk was at his hottest in the Summer of 2011 and once again, when it was time for Punk to get his comeuppance – no losing would be had by one Kevin Nash.
Seriously, he’s fun to listen to when he’s shooting the shit in shoot interviews, but when it comes to the actual wrestling world….just fuck this guy….
Bruno Sammartino was quoted as saying the business is “filled with human junk” in a New York newspaper after Eddie Gilbert dies at 33. Nash discusses how the feds had hardcore testing for roids and pot and he and most everybody was clean.
Nash expects to die young due to bad genetics and then have his name added to the list of “wrestling tragedies” erroneously.
Shawn and Nash had to sell the idea of the WWF signing Sid Vicious to Vince since Sid had stabbed Arn Anderson in late 1993, as well as Sid’s erratic behavior.
The WWF cut back in catering and everywhere and the guys couldn’t even get coffee at MSG before working.
Lex Luger’s “Lex Express” pissed guys off as some guys were sleeping in cars and what not; meanwhile Luger was being pampered in this giant bus on the company’s dime. Then he didn’t get over.
Lawler and Nash were to wrestle and Nash excitedly told Lawler he looked forward to working together and learning, Lawler then told Nash “I’ve spent 25 years learning this sport – you learn it yourself!” Nash says he stiffed Lawler for it. (A quick search tells me that such a match never happened. The only time they ever worked together was when both were in the 1996 Royal Rumble.)
Crush and Nash partied hard but could always push each other to get up early and work out.
Nash was a Hogan fan and that was a big part of what drove Nash to join the business.
Shawn started using “insider terms” like “I’m going over” on TV. Nash says that was all part of making people believe they were shooting.
Michaels wanted to blow Nash up at Wrestlemania since Shawn wanted to earn Nash’s spot on the card. Nash would do his best to blow Shawn up when possible. Nash says Shawn intentionally botched the finish to make Nash look bad.
Shawn didn’t doink Pamela Anderson. :/
The pay days were terrible at this point, which is why the “Kliq” started trying to influence Vince’s decisions since they were the guys in place to take advantage of the success.
Nash was pissed that Carl Oulette (Quebecer Pierre) wanted to change a finish when working Nash in Quebec. The agents bent to Carl’s wishes so Nash dogged the match. It was a sign for the Kliq that the office didn’t support them.
The Undertaker formed his own Kliq to combat Waltman, Shawn, Razor, Nash and HHH. Taker’s was The Godwins, Yokozuna, Fatu, Kama, and Savio Vega.
Nash decided to quit the WWF after going through hoops with Bret Hart over the finish of a PPV cage match between the two of them. Nash wanted to give Bret the power bomb before Taker interfered and Bret refused and the office sided with Bret.
Shawn took six weeks off after Wrestlemania 11 by faking a back injury.
Hall’s wife grew tired of Scott’s partying and tried to contact the other Kliq’s other wives to tattle on the guy’s behavior.
Nash still gets nice paychecks for NWO merchandise.
Nash shares some Yokozuna travel woes stories of Yoko in a town car and an airplane.
The Kliq would often only worried about amusing themselves during matches. “Fuck those 12,000 people”.
The dress code of the locker room stated you couldn’t wear your own merchandise. Nash goes over the ridiculous look most of the guys walked around with. When Scott Hall was quitting the WWF, many of the guys wore Razor’s bright yellow T-shirt and it drove Vince crazy.
Nash credits Shane McMahon for helping innovate the business. This includes crediting him for possibly coming up with the In Your House PPV concept, which is highly unlikely.
Regarding matches with Sid: “I have four moves and I can’t do any of them on a guy that big!” (At least he’s honest.)
Nash tore his triceps’ muscle in a match with Kama. He woke up and his whole arm is black and blue from blood leaking out. Nash was supposed to sit out 9 months and instead got the surgery and was back in 3 weeks. Nash’s arm is still messed up.
In May Vince had all the guys come to Titan Towers for a “pep talk” that ended with the guys ripping the shit out of each other instead.
Next time: Nash takes us through the second half of 1995!
