Kevin Nash On Why The Undertaker's WrestleMania Streak Could Have Ended Very Early
Kevin Nash and Scott Hall's defection to WCW from WWE in 1996 shook the wrestling world. On his appearance on the After The Bell podcast with Corey Graves, Graves asked Nash what would have happened if Nash had stayed with WWE and not left WCW. Nash says that he would not have had dropped the WWE Championship to Bret Hart, which he did at Survivor Series 1995.
Nash has previously talked about how his WWE title run could have lasted three years rather than 358 days, as it did. Nash reiterated that point saying that losing to Hart would have led him to defeating The Undertaker at WrestleMania XII.
"Well, if I would've stayed, I wouldn't have dropped the belt to Bret to give to Shawn unless I was guaranteed a win at Mania against Taker.
"I wouldn't have done it. I would've had too many losses in a row. I would've needed a big win right there, so there goes 'The Streak'. I'm just saying. Mark wasn't a mark. For me to do business, that could've been a possibility. I'm not saying it would've happened. I'm not saying Vince would've booked it that I would have been over," Nash said. "I definitely wouldn't have coughed it up without something. I was leaving, so it was like alright. There was a lot of things that could have changed."
Nash compared WCW to WWE at the time. Nash made the point of Turner broadcasting upholding standards of practice laws that would have prevented WCW from having angles like Val Venis and adult film star Jenna Jameson on screen together.
"Vince got smart that [WCW] had standards of practice breathing down our throat, and Vince just put the pedal to the metal. He had Val Venis and Jenna Jameson on the program," Nash said. "Bischoff was like, 'we can't do any of this stuff.' We got a guy in standards of practice sitting in the creative process shaking his head no no no."
A misstep that WCW took in Nash's point of view was the deviation from a storyline that would have seen the nWo take over Nitro with the nWo feuding over the WCW roster over control of the flagship show. Nash also noted about the lack of tension between the split nWo factions. However, while things were not working out, Nash says that he didn't care much about it because of the amount of money he was making at WCW.
"The biggest mistake they did was the original idea was to have the nWo get to the point where we took over Nitro. WCW would get Thunder, and we would battle back and forth. And eventually they would slowly start to get guys to turn back to WCW and they would come back and everybody would take over the flagship show. Well when the two factions of the nWo split, there was never conflict between them," Nash said. "The Wolfpack never fought the White and Black, and when we split, Hogan and Savage should've went one way [and] Scott and I should've went another way. They split me and Scott up. That killed it. Scott and I would never have split. We would've been together. There was a lot of mistakes along the way, but at the same time, it's one of those things where you're getting that check every two weeks you're like, 'eh, it is a work.' I walk into my bank, and everybody says, 'Hi Mr. Nash.' I guess I'm doing OK."
In celebration of Nash and Hall being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame for a second time with the induction of the nWo, Nash admitted that he thought that the nWo's peak was Hogan's heel turn. Nash talked about the context of WCW at the time calling it "rotten" and how he and Hall only went to WCW for the money and not for the storylines being shown on WCW television.
"I don't think it went any higher than Hogan turning. When Hogan turned, that was the pinnacle to finally get the ultimate babyface to turn heel. That was the tsunami, and after that, how far does that wave go? People always look at and say, 'wow you guys were over there with the nWo'. The pay per view before we got there, Big Show was on top of Cobo Hall in a monster truck with Hogan. He went over the side like 11 stories and came back that night. He and the Yeti double bear-hugged Hogan in the middle. It was beyond rotten," Nash said. "We were leaving the Queen Mary and getting on the Titanic as soon as the three guys stopped playing. We were going for money period. We knew that we weren't gonna get anything creatively."
Hall and Nash talked more about their appearance on WCW and how fans thought it was real. Nash also gave his thoughts on today's wrestling compared to when he was wrestling. You can listen to the full podcast by clicking here. If you use any quotes in this article, please credit WWE's After The Bell with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.