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interviews
12.5.04
exclusive interview with kevin nash (2001)
by "downtown" dave richard
wrestleline staff writer
note: the following interview with kevin nash was conducted on march 23, 2001, backstage at an independent show in sanford, fla. it was literally hours after the announcement that the wwf had purchased wcw, heralding the death of wcw and victory for the wwf in the promotional wars.
other notes of interest: nash wasn't working the indy show, but was backstage visiting with scott hall, who worked a main event match against john "earthquake" tenta that night (tenta ran this promotion). kevin nash was friendly but frank, agreeing to do an interview, but pulling no punches about his thoughts on the internet, small wrestlers, and other issues. scott hall, on the other hand, was adamant that he would not give any reporters the time of day. during the nash interview, hall repeatedly stepped in and interrupted, saying things like "hey, kev, come on. you don't have to talk to these guys." to his credit, nash repeatedly said "no, it's ok," and continued the interview.
this interview is a look into what was on the mind of one of wcw's biggest stars of the 1990s on the day the company folded, and where he thought his future was headed. it also illustrates his feeling that little men can never be main eventers. note that since this interview, chris jericho, chris benoit and eddie guerrero each held a version of the world title.
and tonight (dec. 5, 2004), nash and hall are working a tna ppv main event match with jeff jarrett against randy savage, jeff hardy and aj styles. i wonder if nash ever thought he'd find himself here... or indeed, if he cared one way or the other.
enjoy this encore presentation of the kevin nash interview conducted by wrestleline's "downtown" dave richard on march 23, 2001.
- denny burkholder
dr: let's jump right in. would you ever be interested in working
with mcmahon
again down the line?
kn: oh yeah, i enjoyed working with vince. creatively, we never had
any
problems. i left there for money. but i know he's not going to take me (and
be stuck) with these giant contracts, so looks like i'll be sitting at home
getting paid for the next 11 months, which is fine with me. you know, let me
get this right, i get paid 2 million bucks if i work the next 10 months, or i
could sit at home and make the same amount of money.
dr: it's old news, but what's your take on the david
arquette world title
angle?
kn: it was horrible. i told him that a lot of guys work hard,
there's still
some prestige in the belt. when you've got david arquette and vince
russo -
two guys who have held the world belt, it's no wonder why our ratings went to
shit.
dr: do you think that was russo's idea or something handed down
from above?
kn: i think it was russo's.
dr: what's your take on the xfl?
kn: i watched a couple of games, but i'm not a football fan, i
don't watch
the nfl. i've watched more nfl than i have xfl.
dr: are you enjoying the ncaa basketball tournament?
kn: yeah. i like stanford. duke doesn't match up well... they're
too small.
dr: did the fake diesel bother you?
kn: no, it was a compliment to me. name another time in the history
of this
business when two guys left the federation, and they tried to make impostors
of them.
dr: do you think the nwo was the best idea for an angle ever?
kn: it revitalized the wrestling business.
dr: do you think that did or that ecw did?
kn: ecw is dead.
dr: well, sure, but before they died they brought a new style of
wrestling to
the forefront.
kn: ecw has great finishes, but it was ridiculous. they're all
small. name a
guy. mike awesome was a giant in ecw, and he came to our league and
everybody
went 'oh god, i thought he was 6'8.' on top of that, they were stupid enough
to put him with me his first night - somebody that's a foot and a half taller
than him. he's a great guy, he's talented, but most of those ecw guys are too
small.
dr: is being small a big problem in this business?
kn: look at malenko, saturn, benoit, jericho... they're in
the same spot now
as they were in wcw, but with better production. they're not any higher up in
the card that they were with wcw. they're all still mid-card guys because
they're all, you know...
the only time they're going to be main event guys is when they work against
main event guys. they're all great hands, all great talents, but the bottom
line is this: to me, to be successful in this business, when you walk through
an airport, if you're not a wrestler, someone should think that you are. it's
the luck of genetics, i guess.
dr: what's your take on hulk hogan?
kn: he's a friend. good guy, legend. the babe ruth.
dr: the screwjob at bash at the beach with hogan and jarrett
and russo, a lot
of people thought it was a work, but it looks like it was a shoot after all.
did you have a feeling that is was?
kn: i knew it was. i talked to hulk that night. i mean, hulk and i
went
through a lot of shit early, but we became really good friends. he wanted
creative control. he didn't mind doing a job. he asked russo what he had to
do, he asked 'i'll do a job tonight, what do you have for me?' and russo said
'well i don't have anything for you.' so hogan said 'well i've got creative
control, that's why i have it so i'm not in the hands of idiots like you.'
dr: what's your take on the jerry lawler/kat situation?
kn: kudos to lawler because they were gonna fire his wife. you're
not gonna
back vince down.
dr: would you have done the same thing?
kn: my wife would have never been in the business.
dr: what's your take on the wrestling internet media?
kn: i think it's bogus. if it was policed and had some
responsibility to the
journalism, then that's fine. but until then it's f*cking bogus. i've had
shit written in there about me that my wife had read that wasn't true. it
messes with people's lives. the thing that always kills me is everybody in
the sheets buries this business. like no matter what, it's never any good.
they'll try to find a negative in it, but sooner or later there's not going
to be one. there's not going to be a business, so what the f*ck are they
going to do for money? huh? what are they going to say? 'my resume is that i
wrote some xeroxed piece of shit for the last 10 years?' what the f*ck is
their resume going to say? they didn't work for anybody, they worked for
themselves. might as well have been j*ckin' off if they're going to have this
much on their resume. they're f*ckin around and burying the business, burying
all the guys. when i was up and coming, and i started, they praised me. i
needed a break, needed a break... as soon as you take a break, they hate you.
just like an actor. if you're arnold schwartzenegger, they'd say 'oh, he's a
shitty actor.' who gives a shit? he makes 20 million dollars a movie.
i never said i was a great worker. i never said i was a match of the year
guy. f*ck, people buy my shit. sorry if you don't like me because you're
f*ckin 5'5" and you don't get laid everyday.
dr: if you wrote a column on the internet, what would your first
one be
about?
kn: p*ssy. i know more about that than anything else.
dr: is charisma more important than workrate?
kn: absolutely. it's always been that way, look at gorgeous
george. there
were guys back then that could work. george was one that, if you look back at
that era, he was the shits. he had a gimmick. pro wrestlers will always be
pro wrestlers, but if workers got over there would be sell out houses in iowa
and iowa state with a shoot f*ckin wrestling match. nobody wants to see that
shit. they want to see showbiz.
dr: what was it like booking?
kn: i never had control. no matter what i did, it ran through
errors, and it
wasn't my show. they went out and shot somebody in the head and gave me the
pistol and my thumbprint was on it. i never had complete control. the only i
ever run was the one in indianapolis. i actually wrote, produced, and after
that they went 'uhhhhh.' maybe they thought it was too good.
dr: what could wcw have done to compete instead of end up being
sold to the
wwf?
kn: it's never been run like a business since i've been there.
johnny ace
comes back to book and all of a sudden animal's on tv. animal
hasn't been
over in 10 years. that's the problem. so if you're a young guy in the locker
room like billy kidman, you're thinking 'i'm never going to get a
break
because someone else is coming in and bringing nine of their friends in. it
was never about talent and who was over. in the wwf, vince don't put up with
that shit. if rock pulled a power play, do you know where he'd be?
the rock
would be doing movies. vince don't take no shit. he never has.
dr: take me through how was the nwo idea was presented to you and
scott.
kn: eric asked if i had seen any of the japanese invasion
angles, and i had
seen them on tape though they were hard to understand because you can't
understand the commentating. eric said 'it's basically the same thing - you &
scott are gonna come in and act like you're gonna take over wcw.' in
retrospect, i used to sit there and say 'the only reason the nwo angle ever
worked was because of the perception that we were really the wwf. everybody
we put in was from the wwf, except the giant. so the perception was
that we
were from the wwf. the shittiest thing is - imagine this - two top guys come
from new york to another company. there's 70 guys surrounding the ring with
me and scott with baseball bats and the crowd actually believes that the guys
with the baseball bats could beat the whole company's ass. what does that say
about your company? it says that you don't have anybody.
dr: do you think it ran long enough, or could they have done something
different with it?
kn: what it should have been was the split-up would have been me,
scott, and
x-pac to form the wolfpac. we would have had 18 months
there. (x-pac) can
work, scott can work, i can beat people up, so we would have had enough
angles there for another 18 months. but they were notorious for hotshot
booking, they always have been, from dusty to everyone. they never
paid
attention to details. all the small intangibles that belong with long angles
they never did.
we'd get to tv, it would be 6 o'clock, and they wouldn't even have a show.
they had a sold out united center with a $480,000 gate and they didn't even
have a show. it's 6 o'clock monday.
right now, i think new york's shows are hard to watch. last week, let me get
this right, debra is the rock's manager; why doesn't the rock just
say no?
what's rock's interpretation of the fact that debra was late to the building
with her husband? and why didn't debra go down to the ring at the end with
rock? you're booking and giving me questions without any answers. and the
questions come from the fact that they're not paying any attention to what
they're doing. that's what we (wcw) did.
how about this one? wcw when they first started doing the security camera
thing. so wcw goes to the building and puts in security cameras and feeds
them to the truck at every show? when does this start, sunday night? now
you've got bagwell with a handheld, and that's fed to the truck?
it's a
camcorder! how's that fed to the truck? and you've got these interviews where
the guys are talking to someone off screen. i looked at this and thought
'what are you doing?!' so now you've created four different points of view on
a television show. as i'd sit there writing the show, i'd say 'how's the
camera there?' just like the larry sanders show. you don't have to explain
why there's a camera backstage, the only time you see live action is when
you're on the set with sanders when he's doing the show. it's a television
show. the announcers ask 'how do i call it?' don't say anything. if it's
written well enough, you shouldn't have to comment at all. how is it that one
time in the back a guy gets jumped, and we see it at home, but no one sees it
on a monitor at the show? it's a mystery the whole show.
i went to them about four months ago and said 'why don't we do this: since
it's a work, why not have 12 rows deep of people, and put green screens
around them. computer digitize the whole thing. do it front of 400 people in
the building, pay them $50. now you go into your archives, take your beauty
shots from different arenas, and tonight - from the studio, do the show. why
don't you just say you're in tibet? everything's a work, why can't that be a
work? now you put in a sound stage with your sets - commissioner's office,
locker room. it becomes a television show, and that's what it is. the
reaction to this idea was like i was speaking f*cking latin. what i tried to
explain to them was the reason why people don't watch our shows? because the
production quality is so bad, it makes everything else that shitty.
dr: it sounds like you still have a passion for this?
kn: yeah, i do. i love it. but i was smart enough to save my money,
i drive a
'93 bronco i paid for with my '93 summerslam check. i don't spend money, so
i'm ok.
dr: would you ever start your own fed?
kn: i'm one of the boys, i know what assholes they are.
dr: but knowing that, wouldn't you treat the boys right?
kn: everybody's a mark, so guys would ask why they wouldn't get
pushed, and
you tell guys why and it's because they suck. then they hate you. they'd ask
'how was my match?' 'it was brutal.' they'd get mad at me for saying it, so
then they wouldn't ask me.
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