Kevin Nash Addresses Criticisms Of His WWE Title Run

Kevin Nash addressed criticisms that his reign as WWE Champion did bad business in a recent interview with JBL on the WWE Network.

Appearing on Legends With JBL along with fellow Outside Scott Hall, Nash spoke about the widespread belief that Nash drew poorly when he held the title. Nash cited his inexperience and the general downward trend of wrestling at the time as the major reasons instead.

“I always get the quotation of ‘I didn’t draw’. Nobody drew,” Nash said. “I look at it like people don’t realize, when they made me the champion, I probably hadn’t had 100 matches. I mean, I just never worked. I came in with the mohawk as Steel. My partner [in the Master Blasters tag team] and I had eight, ten matches. We go to a Christmas television taping. He doesn’t want to do a job to the Steiners, they fire him, and tell me to grow my hair out. I sat home for a year and a half. I come back, they put a dunce cap on me. That works for about a week. I go home and sit out for that. I become Vinnie Vegas. I work a little bit. Then, I come in, the first 12 months at the WWE, I’m a bodyguard. And finally, I worked some tags here and there with Shawn, but nothing [extensive].”

Nash, who was wrestling as Diesel, defeated Bob Backlund in eight seconds to win the title three days after Survivor Series 1994. He held the championship for nearly a full calendar year, losing it to Bret Hart at Survivor Series the following year. Less than a year after he lost the title, Nash and Hall left for WCW, sparking the New World Order invasion storyline, which gave WCW an initial leg up in the Monday Night Wars.

“People can say whatever they want to say about Eric Bischoff, but the one thing I always say is there’s only one person on this planet that can say that they beat Vince McMahon for any period of time,” Nash recalled in the interview with JBL.

Nash was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015.