Kevin Nash Talks The Kliq, How Triple H & X-Pac Joined, The Group's Influence, More
As noted before, Kevin Nash recently sat down with Steve Austin on his podcast. Here are some more highlights from the interview.
X-Pac joining the Kliq: "Pac did that angle when he was the 1-2-3 Kid. It was his 21st birthday, Kid's, Hennig and the Smoking Gunns took him out, Bart and Billy Gunn. The next day he shows up at TV and he's missing an eyebrow. They got him all f***ed up and shaved his eyebrow. Now Kid makes the decision to shave both his eyebrows. So he gets to TV and lo and behold, they're going to shoot his 8x10. So that son of a b**** on his 8x10 has got no eyebrows. Back then there wasn't no money in the WWF so I think that photo followed him for about two years.
"The funniest thing was he knew it was either the Smoking Gunns or Kurt. And because him and Kurt were buddies for many [years], he made the calculation that it had to be the Smoking Gunns. We're in El Paso, and I look over and see Kid's over there and he's got super glue and he's putting it around the brim of the cowboy's hats. I'm like what the f***. The Kid's like a buck 70, Billy and Bart are two big ol' raw bone dudes. That's one thing people don't realize. Until you shake hands with Billy Gunn, look him in the eyes, you have no idea how big that dude is. That's a grown man. Bart was the same way.
"We go to the curtain, Smoking Gunns, they put their hats on, they go out there, shoot the pistols and go to pull off their hats and the s***'s glued to their hair. I about p***ed myself. We looked down at Kid, he was standing there, he watched it, he turned, looked at us and smacked his hands together like f*** you, job well done. We said dude, you're going to need some protection. You need to get in our car. He jumped in [with the Kliq] on that there. I want this mother f***er in our car.
"The thing was, that mother f***er could go. He's been going since he was 17, you know, so he was a working mother f***er. He was another one of the people that loved to talk the business."
Triple H joining the Kliq: "Hunter, we were on the road so much we were watching the Saturday, it was called Main Event back then, the WCW Main Event. Me and Shawn's favorite wrestler was Terra Ryzing, who was Hunter's deal when he was in WCW. He was Terra Ryzing. We were in Wooster or some place like that, Kowalski came in and Hunter came in with him. He had a sports coat and slacks on and we were like look at this mother f***er, but we knew he was Terra Ryzing, with that long Fabio hair. So he had his tryout match and we all sat there at the monitor.
"Scott looked back at me and said mother f***er's money. He walked out of the ring and Scott was walking step for step, maybe three feet behind him. Kind of being a goof. Paul turned around and looked at him, he said who do you ride with? He said Walters, he said not next week. Next week, he said, you ride with us. Then we found out that he didn't drink or do anything. He didn't drink, he didn't take pills, he didn't do s**. It was like f*** yeah, designated driver because my big ass had been driving those guys around for like two years. "
The Kliq's influence: "We had pull because the spots we were in. The Intercontinental Championship spot was always the precursor to the World Title. Between Scott, myself and Shawn Michaels, we had that mother f***er pretty much wrapped for about three years. I had a year run with the strap, with the World belt. Shawn and I popped in there a couple times as tag champs. We were always in the mix, upper echelon guys. Hunter hadn't lost, he was unbeaten. He was an up and coming star. Kid was always in the mix because he was so talented, he could have a match with anybody. When Bret debuted, Bret actually worked on RAW, which was a big deal. They put Shawn Waltman in there with him just because they knew they'd have an incredible [match]. They never gave s*** away for free back then and RAW was a one hour show and I think they did a two or three segment match that was just off the hook.
"And we had Vince's ear because we loved the business. We talked the business 24/7. We lived the business. We were vocal and it wasn't like we just booked s*** for us. We watched other s*** that was on TV and was like this could be better by this. We just talked business all [the time]. When you're on the road 320 days a year, that's at this point, and you're with five guys that are hand picked brothers, and all you're trying to do is a) make as much money as you can, which the only way you can do that is march your ass up the card.
"It was a shark tank mentality. We made a pact, the five of us, that if we stayed strong and don't turn on each other, we could do what nobody else could. The thing was, they always worked the boys against the boys. We were the first guys to say f*** that, man. So when we started getting pay offs, instead of being like the rest of the boys and saying what'd you get? I'm not saying. What'd you get? I'm not saying. We'd get a pay off for Survivor Series and I'd say what's your pay off and Shawn would say I got 40 grand and I'd say f***ing 40 grand? I got 10. What the f***? I was in the same match. So all of a sudden, immediately JJ called me and made the call over to Vince and said hey, these mother f***ers are talking.
"So now we were calling ourselves the Kliq. We got ourselves a name. We would go to the arenas early, put a sign on the door that said Kliq locker room and then go leave and eat. So when the boys would come back, they'd think the office put the sign up. We just stirred s***. We'd be like ah no, we don't need our own locker room, take it down. Come on in, guys. They really thought that we were getting special treatment. So it finally got to the point where DiBiase and a bunch of guys were getting ready to strike if they didn't dismantle the Kliq. Vince came to a house show or TV or something and he pulled the five of us in a room. We thought we had heat and Vince stood there and he just said I got one question, how do I become part of the Kliq?
"Shawn said you're already in, you love the business. We just sat there and laughed. We knew right then that we had Vince's ear. He knew that all we were trying to do was make it the best product we could. We weren't trying to hurt anybody. I remember one time we had a big meeting in Columbus and Vince was asking about different guys, what we thought. We didn't like Bam Bam as a guy. We thought he was a d***. He almost got me and Scott shot in Sacramento. But could he play on our team when it came to being a worker? F*** yeah, that f***er could go, he was money. We didn't give a f*** about whether or not we liked ya in the bar, we just gave a f*** whether or not you could go, whether you could work hurt, if you were one of the boys.
"That was that era. You'd be at a bar some place and you look over and you see someone giving one of the boys s***. It wasn't your friend. Hey, I don't like the mother f***er but he's one of us. You put your hands on him and you're going to fight 15 guys in here. It was just a different [time] because we spent so much time on the road together, so much time in buses together in Europe because we had to strip mine that mother f***er just because the States were dead and Europe was still pretty hot. I remember sitting in the back one night with you [S.A.] putting Corona's on top of our heads, seeing how fast we could drink them. It was about four seconds apiece, then all of sudden we look at each other and we've done about 12 each."
What order were his championship reigns: "IC first. Real shortly after I got the IC, we beat the Shrinkers in Indianapolis at a house show. I remember walking through the curtain in Indianapolis and there were a bunch of boys standing there and they said how many belts do these boys need? I dropped the IC belt back to Scott at Summerslam then turned around and got the World belt. I had gotten all three belts in 95."
You can check out the whole interview (part two) here.
Source: Steve Austin's Podcast