Last week, rumors broke that Kevin Nash’s name had come up in speculation regarding the supposed search for new forces on TNA’s creative team. In an interview with Newsday, Nash says that he has no desire to take on such a role.
“I have a 13-year-old son who needs a father way more than TNA needs a booker… I don’t do anything half-assed. If you put me in there, it means I’m thinking about it 24/7,” said Nash, who added, “I don’t need the stress and they can’t put enough zeros at the end of my paycheck.”
Nash, reflecting on his time booking for WCW, discussed the often unfair scrutiny creative team members face.
“No. I love that there are these books that came out about how I was like the reason that WCW failed. And it amazes me that… It had nothing to do with the dot com crunch, or the fact that the stock went from like $73 to $19. It was Kevin Nash’s booking. It not only caused the end of WCW it also caused them to sell the Braves, Philips Arena,” said Nash, who added that the only show for which he had complete control was a Thunder episode that got good reviews.
On the subject of critics, Nash lashed out at “dirt sheet” writers who review in-ring ability, claiming that the “I can’t make movies but I can tell you whether the movie is good” argument is not a valid analogy.
“I’ll tell you something right now. Somebody who’s never been in the ring sure as hell can’t tell me who can work and who can’t work,” said Nash.
Nash was very complimentary of both Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett in the interview, praising Angle’s work ethic and Jarrett’s wrestling sensibilities. Tied indirectly to the recent conflict involving the Jarrett-Karen Angle relationship, Nash explaiend that alpha male personalities do flair up in the lockerroom, especially when new females are found walking around backstage–“The boys are the boys. They see a pretty girl and it does cause controversy.”
A veteran of the business, Nash recalled a conversation he had with Shawn Michaels and Triple H about the wrestling business’ future stars.
“We were just sitting in the coach talking. We were kind of going through the rosters and saying who are the guys who are going to replace us. Which guys are going to replace us when we retire? And everybody through names around and there weren’t a whole lot of names of guys who we thought were going to replace us,” reflected Nash.
Believing that it is hard to fault creative teams for not making new stars–industry veterans are better at working crowds and thus draw more viewers, so a promotion running a business would be foolish not to showcase them–he also feels injuries play a major factor in determining who makes it as a long-term industry legend.
“You look at a guy like Edge, and now he’s starting to realize – and, gosh, I don’t even know how old he is but he I think he’s in his 30’s. And he’s getting to the point where he’s had a ton of injuries. John Cena has had a ton of injuries. With these guys, it’s almost [a question of] who can last,” said Nash.
The former nWo member also talked about his meetings about returning to WWE last year. Nash said that he was talking about working 120 dates with the company.
“My whole thing was that I came into prominence with Shawn. And I know that Shawn is thinking about – I don’t think he’s going to be doing it that much longer. And I kind of wanted to have that circle of life. I wanted it on my wall of shame in my house to have that 1993 picture of Shawn Michaels doing a double-bicep pose with the black headed Diesel behind him and then I wanted a 2010 photo of Shawn Michaels doing the double-bicep pose with the gray-haired Diesel behind him,” said Nash.
The full, very in-depth interview: http://www.newsday.com/blogs/sports/the-steel-cage-1.811995/kevin-nash-interview-big-sexy-on-a-wwe-comeback-the-jarrett-angle-love-triangle-tna-booking-1.1363283