But as usual, I digress. Last week’s randomness sparked off a few emails, and the most commented on part was my declaration that Kevin Nash may well be cool. Say what I like about Nash, and I often do, the fact remains that all through his career, from the Diesel era onwards, Nash has had this air of coolness surround him.
Through the joys of Sky Sports re-runs of NWA Worldwide shows from 1990, I am just experiencing Nash’s run in The Master Blasters for the first time, and to be honest, watching his work in that team, you have to ask yourself how he became the star that he still is today.
The answer lies not in the ring, but in his personality, and his use of the mic. Let’s lay the cards on the table - Nash is not a good wrestler. He is, however, an eminently likeable guy on screen. He has a very dry sense of humour and sarcasm which readily comes across, especially when he has the mic, and is surrounded by his clique buddies.
One of, if not the ONLY memorable stunts the HBK led nWo had last year was when Nash & Michaels were doing commentary on Raw, which obviously just broke down into Nash and HBK attempting to outdo each other’s jokes. Didn’t do a lot for the match, but it did make great TV.
Nash has a habit of making great TV without actually doing anything spectacular in the ring. Probably Nash’s 2 finest in ring moments both happened in 1994 - the Royal Rumble and his WWF title victory in November.
In the 1994 Royal Rumble, Nash (using the much talked about Diesel gimmick) eliminated seven men on his own, being left alone in the ring with the crowd chanting for him. When he was finally eliminated by a handful of other wrestlers, his name was again chanted by the crowd, who had been thrilled by the display that Nash had put on.
At that moment, Anyone near Vince would have seen dollar signs in his eyes. Vince realised he had a guy that was near enough 7 foot tall, had a good gimmick, and better still, could hold his own on the mic - money in the bank if marketed right. And marketed right he was.
By November of that year, Diesel was pushed into the world title mix, having already held the Intercontinental title for four months (winning it from, and losing it back to Razor Ramon) and being one half of the World Tag Team champions, albeit at war with his partner, none other than Shawn Michaels.
At a Madison Square Garden on November 26th 1994, WWF Champion of three days Bob Backlund faced Diesel in the main event of a house show. Nobody expected anything unusual to happen, after all, titles never changed at house shows... until this one. Nash destroyed Backlund in 8 seconds and took the title. He’d won the Triple Crown in just under 8 months, and was easily the most over guy in the company.
Nash would even have passable matches at 1995’s Royal Rumble with Bret Hart (a near 30 minute draw) and at WrestleMania XI with Shawn Michaels (pinning him after 20 minutes) to show that while he wasn’t a wrestling great, he could be dragged kicking and screaming round the ring to a good match.
Nash would leave the WWF in 1996 and pop up in WCW using his real name as part of the “invasion” that would eventually become the nWo. It could be argued that WCW and the nWo was where Nash really learned how to use backstage politics to his advantage - after all, he learnt from Hulk Hogan, perhaps the all time master of using leverage backstage to get what he wanted.
Nash would even be allowed to book WCW for a while, and during this spell, guess who was WCW Champion, AND ended Goldberg’s much vaunted (if fictitious) winning streak? That’s right, our boy Nash. The situation wasn’t all that different to Triple H in the WWE right now - if Nash was allowed all that power, and could basically do what he wanted, why not?
WCW would eventually vanish from the face of the Earth and Nash with it, until his WCW contract expired and he got all the money that was due to him - again, if you can do that, why not? - and the nWo resurfaced in the WWE. Hall and Hogan by his side, Nash remained on the sidelines standing around, trying to look menacing, something he’s perfected over his career.
Injuries have halted his WWE comeback to date, but now the man with the coolest hair on the planet (according to fellow Smash writer “Shibby” Scott Meekings, anyway) is back in the saddle, surrounded by his old friends, and heading for the main event again, and guess what? He still can’t wrestle for toffee, going by the house show reports.
But no doubt Nash will go into matches with Triple H and Shawn Michaels and they’ll both carry him along and make him look like the next coming of Kurt Angle... well, OK, that’s going a bit far, but you get the idea. And Nash will carry on his merry way, cracking jokes, and being Kevin Nash, and for whatever reason, he’ll still be cool... just don’t make me watch him in the ring, or with a title round his waist, that’s all.
Until next time, have fun, go mad.
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