411’s WWE Broken Skull Sessions Report: Kevin Nash on Winning The WWF Title, The nWo, More

411’s WWE Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions Report: Kevin Nash

-It’s a week later than expected, but the latest episode of Broken Skull Sessions with Kevin Nash has dropped. Let’s get to it!

-Original Air Date: 07.18.21
-Run Time: 1:22:01

-Austin welcomes us to the show as he sits down with his long time friend and 2 Time WWE Hall of Famer, Kevin Nash!

-Austin cracks open a beer and Nash has some wine as they toast to each other. Nash mentions they first met in 1990. Austin says it was in WCW as he got the call when he was in USWA as Dusty was interested in him. He mentions Nash was part of The Master Blasters (they show a photo) and Nash mentions Austin told him he “was the drizzling shits.” They hit it off and started traveling together. Austin had a Honda CRX and people were always amazed Nash could fit in the car. Apparently if you moved the seat back there is a ton of room. Nash says the deal they had was Austin bought the gas and Nash bought the beer and Nash got killed on that deal. No kidding!

-They talk about college life and Nash was a psychology major and a Philosophy of Education minor. Nash says he was not going to live a real life as his goal was to have a job where he never had to wear a tie. He will go to your funeral if he loves you, but he’s not wearing a tie. Austin asks Kev about his height and Nash says after the knee surgery he is close to the 6’10” mark. The tallest he measures was 6’11.5” when he was 17. That leads to talk about Nash playing basketball at The University of Tennessee where the team made the Sweet 16. Nash had issues with the coach and went and played basketball in Europe. Nash compares it to playing basketball in the MAC (Toledo, Akron, etc). He blew his knee out and decided to join The Army.

-Austin gives Nash respect for joining The Army and Nash mentions he went because he watched “Stripes.” Nice! He did three years and came home to work Ford Auto plant in Detroit. After a few years he was bouncing in The Cheetah and Barry Windham ran into him. Austin puts over Windham and how generous and giving he was to him. Barry told Nash he was a big guy with a good look and needed to get into this. Nash is all about that money and asked what he was making and Barry told him a little over 3. That got Nash’s attention as Austin laughs. Nash then asked how does he do it and they sent him to see Jody Hamilton. He talks about his training as it was a Saturday morning with a bunch of squats, and conditioning, running the ropes and then 2 shooters came into the ring to “sugar” you. “You paid $1500 to basically get sodomized.” Then nobody shows back up on Monday, but Nash came back and Sarge was amazed he came back. They were shocked that of all the people to come back it was the 345 lb giant. Nash was 28 when he broke into the business while Austin was 24. Nash tells Austin he was not a natural. They trained him for 9 months before letting him go in the ring.

-They discuss The Master Blasters and Nash says his partner split because he didn’t want to job to The Steiners. Austin is blown away and Nash says that if it was a real fight they (he and his partner) wouldn’t have even lasted the 5 minutes they were going to get with The Steiners. “Nobody would ever beat The Steiners. The Steiners are still undefeated.”

-They talk goals and Nash says when he broke in he was pretty much the wheel man. All he wanted was someone in the car ride to say that Nash was a good hand. He just wanted someone’s respect.

-Speaking of respect they move to Oz. Austin asks if Nash came up with the idea and Nash responds, “No, God rest his soul it was Dusty.” Austin asks how they broke it down to him. Austin brings up the crate and how it housed all the gear for Oz. Nash mentions the cape weighed over 100 lbs. Nash says all he could think was Kevin Sullivan telling him (in a decent Sullivan impression), “they are paying next to 56,000 take the money Nash.” Austin cracks on the impression of Sullivan. Dusty sold it under the premise of the movie “Tron.” To this day he loves Dusty for it as he gave him that albatross to get out from under it.

-They move to Vinnie Vegas next and Nash says that character came from “My Blue Heaven.” Nash agrees that this character was a bit closer to who he was. Nash loved getting help from Austin and Pillman as they picked apart everything he did. They were honest with him and out of the clear blue Shawn Michaels saw that character and made the pitch to bring him to WWF.

-Austin wants to tell a travel story before getting to WWF and says he will start and Nash can finish. Nash starts laughing as soon as Austin mentions Chattanooga. They were in a Chevy Corsica and were in no hurry, but hit a sharp curve. Nash just rode with it and Austin woke up and told Nash, “you have a lot more confidence in this piece of shit car, so slow the fuck down.” They toast to each other.

-Now we move to Nash getting his release from WCW as Rick Steiner helped put in a call from Shawn to Nash to get the ball rolling. Nash told Windham that his wife wanted him to quit the business or she was leaving him. He told Barry he was going to work back at The Cheetah and Barry told him to go talk to Ole. He says Ole didn’t even look up and just signed the release and Nash faxed the release to the WWE. By the time he got home he had a call saying WWE was flying him up the next night. He worked a house show the next night and tripped Marty to let Shawn get the win. He laughs at his track suit and how he worked in it for seven straight days.

-Austin wants Nash’s first impression of Vince McMahon. Nash talks about making the ride in a limo that had a phone. He went to The McMansion and Vince greeted him in Zubaz with an IcoPro doo rag. He compares it to being a baseball player and wanting to play for The Yankees and now he was in Vince McMahon’s house. He says that as a wrestler at that time whatever Vince said was like gospel and his goal was to do whatever he asked.

-Nash talks about meeting Shawn for the first time and being shocked at the voice. He says Shawn would say if he had Nash’s frame he would be making $10 million. Nash told him he needed to quit beating himself up and he brought him up here so he was hitching his wagon to him, so let’s do this.

-Austin says that Shawn carried himself like a star and Nash says Shawn knew he was special. Austin mentions when the bell rings there is nobody better than Shawn and Nash agrees but mentions there are different styles. Austin brings up Bret and Nash agrees though Austin says that Shawn could do any style. Nash calls Bret, “Dean Martin” and Shawn, “Frank Sinatra.”

-1994 Austin asks about Nash getting the call about being WWF Champion. Nash says he dropped the IC Title to Razor and they were on a European Tour and getting drunk on the bus in the Austrian loop. The AC died on the bus and that meant the beers were going to skunk in an hour. Nash started guzzling the beers and had a stinker of a match. It just so happened that Tony Garea told him that he was flying to Vince’s house instead of Atlanta. “I fucked up so bad, he wants to fire me in person.” Nash made the trip and Vince got busy, so Nash fell asleep on a couch in the house. Vince walks in and tells Nash, “damn make yourself comfortable.” He then asks Nash what he thinks about him putting the belt on him. Nash says he just had the IC Title and Vince tells him, “No, the World Title.” Nash was waiting for Vince’s famous laugh as he suspected it was a rib. He told Nash he felt he was ready and doing it at The Garden in a house show was to help bring up attendance since they hadn’t done a title change that way in a bit. Vince put Nash up in a hotel in New York and Nash just spent the day walking the streets and made the walk to MSG. He was doubting if he was ready for it, but he wasn’t going to be the one to say no. Austin agrees that you can’t say no. When he won the title his initial run was against Backlund (which Nash says was like oil and sand) or Bundy (which was like a piano in the sand). He couldn’t do any of his moves to Bundy obviously. Backlund wanted Nash to sunset flip him every night and he did it once in Sacramento. As soon as he got through the curtain Taker had Nash against a wall and told him if he ever did that again he was hitting the ring himself. Nice!

-They show the entire 8 second match with Backlund and it did get quite the pop. Nash mentions again that house show attendance was down and The Garden was down, so it was done there to boost things. It showed that something could happen at house shows.

-Austin brings up they crossed paths at a Denny’s around that time. Austin gets off topic as he has another story of them staying in the cheapest and worst hotels they could find. Austin can’t remember why and Nash says it was because Austin had a hotel he liked to stay in Memphis. In WCW he and Nash stayed in that same hotel as a rib and just decided to find cheap/crap ones.

-Another story as they upgraded to a Mazda 929 as it was like a luxury car to them. They apparently liked to push it to 100 MPH on the back roads with the lights off. They work in some impressions of Brian Pillman while telling the story.

-WrestleMania XII vs Taker: Austin is always great watching matches with people as you can tell he is just a fan. Nash says that Taker was served papers from his first wife the day of the show and was gone and left everything up to Nash as far as putting the match together. Nash always laughs at his bit of a beer gut as he had already given his notice and was heading to WCW in a few months. They both put over how safe Taker is to work and Nash says he felt like a baby when Taker scooped him up. Nash laughs as he laid in the ring for 5 minutes and if you watch back you can see him pass Piper and Goldust when they came down the aisle.

-He talks about working with Taker in casket matches in Europe before Mania. He had so much fun on that trip and he nearly changed his mind about leaving for WCW. They mention the famous photo of the group of them on the back of the bus.

-Nash had to give a 90 day notice and tried to write as nice of a letter as he could to Vince. He just told Vince that his wasn’t allowing his contract to roll over. He would have stayed had Vince matched what WCW offered. He gets pissed because people don’t understand. The last house show they did was a sell-out at Garden with them on top that made $360,000. The kicker was when he had a match with Bret at In Your House inside a cage. The previous month Taker had Bret beat and Nash cost him the match. He felt for the story he should have Bret beat before Taker cost him the match. Bret didn’t want to do it and Vince sided with Bret. Nash made the decision to leave for the money then as Vince didn’t do what was right for business. I mean, I have to side with Vince as really Bret should have been booked stronger considering he was the Main Event with Shawn and Taker/Nash was on the under card of Mania.

-Nash knew Bret always had that “in case of emergency break glass.” He will never utter a bad word against Bret though as he made him look great. Austin of course mentions that Bret made him.

-The Curtain Call: They show the infamous fan footage that we have all seen a hundred times. Nash says it was not done with malice. He says they did get caught up in the moment of being in The Garden with the crowd cheering. Their goal certainly wasn’t to get HHH punished. Nash says he was pissed at Shawn because he let HHH get punished.

-We jump to June 10, 1996 on Nitro as Nash makes his debut. Just awesome and Austin laughs at Eric not knowing Nash was standing behind him. “We ain’t here to play.” Nash says he was used to going to Vince and asking what he wants and he didn’t have that in WCW. He laughs at himself for saying adjective and Austin shoots back “adverb, technically…whatever.” Fantastic! Austin’s point is this is where Nash has promos that people remember and Nash says it was because they had them shooting and burying people because they were being pushed to the moon. Jody Hamilton had to tell all the babyfaces to calm down and let Nash and Hall get the heat. Everyone was on guaranteed money and they needed to just let it go.

-Nash says nobody knew how big West Coast rap was becoming and he told Bischoff it was becoming poetry. He laughs as he was 36 years old with a bandana on as he was the closest thing they had to 2Pac. He talks about the angle where they used aluminum ball bats (June 24, 1996) and again, just awesome. Nash had a real bat and banged it off the steps while Hall had a gimmicked one to hit people. This was the same angle where Charlotte police were around the ring with their fingers on the trigger. Eric told Nash they were going to put Vince out of business and Nash told him that what they just did was show 2 WWF guys could take on WCW’s entire roster. Nash and Hogan both told Bischoff there was no chance he was going to put Vince out of business. They knew Vince would just sit back and watch. Nash talks about watching Mania XIV and he knew it was over for WCW and Sullivan had the same thought.

-Bash at The Beach 1996: You can find my review here. I love it all and it just makes me smile watching every aspect of this match from the opening interview in the ring to the close with Schiavone. Austin says Hogan was coming out to help his buddy and Nash responds, “unless you are listening to Bobby.” I was wondering if someone was going to bring up that on going issue. Nash says that Hall was yelling from the ground to not throw the ref out as they needed the cover. He then talks about Hogan and his back issues and how it’s no wonder with all the leg drops he has hit over the years. He puts over how high Hogan gets for the move.

-Nash doesn’t think there was ever any heat lost between Hogan and Savage. Austin had issue with the cover as Hogan was way too high and Savage had to sell it still.

-Nash says he knew for the first time in his wife he was going to be wealthy. To him getting $3 million meant you were healthy as unless you are an idiot you are in good shape. Austin and Nash mention they are lucky to be here as they lost 40-50 people from the days they rode together to The Monday Night Wars.

-Nash mentions Rick Rude and calls him a man’s man. He then mentions Michael Hayes and how he told him if he is going to be late, be 90 minutes as they will be happy you aren’t dead.

-We get back on track as Austin brings up DX and calls it a take off on the nWo. It was more juvenile than nWo. Nash says anytime you go against the WWE they are going to out produce you. When Vince decided to take the gloves off, Turner put in Standard and Practices.

-Nash was pissed when DX came to Norfolk. Austin mentions it was a tank, but we all know it was really a jeep. Nash was pissed they didn’t open the door and let them inside the building. It would have been legendary, but Eric wouldn’t let them inside to drive to the ring. Nash knew everyone would be watching Nitro if DX was invading and was allowed to head towards the ring. Especially since WCW was losing at the time when the battles were still relatively close.

-Starrcade 1998: Austin calls each of them a “big son of a bitch.” They actually had a decent hoss fight and again, the crowd pop for Goldberg losing was nuts. Nash says apparently people hated it, but he and Austin lay out to hear the massive pop from the crowd. Austin asks if Nash if he booked that and Nash says no. He mentions Goldberg mentioned in his book that Nash booked it. Nash says that if he booked it and had the response from the crowd he’s not going through with The Finger Poke of Doom. If he was booking he would have ran with that thing and made as much money as he could. “I would have beat him again and again.”

-They discuss The Monday Night War and Nash says it was a war and you lost contact with guys on the other side. Nash says there will never be a time like that again. No kidding! Austin calls it the best time in the history of pro-wrestling. Nash compares WCW to the 1969 Mets. Nash says he told Eric that one day he was going to end up working for Vince and he would see what they have on production side. That will make Eric proud that he was able to get to #1 with what he had to work with compared to what Vince had.

-Nash mentions he and Eric are very good friend and he would see all the crap Eric had to eat from Turner executives. WCW was structured that the money from each PPV was going to Turner Home Entertainment and not WCW. They talk contracts and Nash says he never got creative control that Hogan had and really he didn’t care. If they were paying him over 2 million and weren’t using him right that was on them. He was making a bit over 2 million and was asked if he wanted to book. He mentions you had to write for Nitro, the next day’s Thunder live show and the taped show after while also doing the next Nitro to fit with the taped Thunder. He told them he would do it if they paid him more and they added another half million on the deal.

-Nash says they had Hulk who would come in at 5:45 PM and see the TV for the night and say “doesn’t work for me brother.” Nash was happy to hear they were bringing Russo in to book as he was cool with giving everything to him.

-We move to nWo jumping to WWE and Nash knows nobody wanted them. Austin could sense the same though he always had synergy with Nash. They show Vince’s promo where he announced The nWo was coming to kill his creation. Nash says he wasn’t signed yet, but Hogan and Hall were. Vince just assumed Nash was going to sign as well. Shane called Nash first and Nash said he didn’t want to come back as Vince lied to him about a pay day. His wife gave him grief and Nash told her to wait as he would get a FedEx tomorrow. Now he also knew once he signed they were like the Confederate Generals and they were going to get killed via a slow death.

-TNA: Credit to them for bringing up this run. Nash says he was there off and on for 9 years. He always wanted to wrestle with gray hair and that idea would piss Vince off. So much so that Vince even wanted Nash to dye his hair for The Hall of Fame. Nice! Nash puts over all the guys they had down there: AJ, Joe, Daniel, Kazarian, Angle, Booker, Sting. Austin asks why the promotion couldn’t be bigger. Nash says they would watch Spike TV and during TNA they would advertise UFC like crazy, but no other time would TNA be advertised.

-They show a photo (courtesy of George Tahino) of The Main Event Mafia and Austin says it was a hell of a roster. Nash mentions he was making the short drive to Universal, working a 6 Man, eating 2 burgers and drinking wine at a Double Tree and getting paid 15 K for it. Austin just laughs as he buries his head in his hands.

-Royal Rumble 2011: Diesel makes a surprise entrance and the place explodes. Nash laughs as he told production to shoot him putting on the black glove as it was all down hill from there. That was the lone time he returned as Diesel. Austin asks about the trademark pose and Nash says when he was given the black glove he did it for Mexico in 68 as we see the famous photo from The Olympics. Nash always thought that was an iconic moment in sport’s history. Nash blows Austin’s mind as he tells him he is left handed and always had to work right handed.

-Hall of Fame: He says that was the only time other than the match with Backlund that was real. Austin agrees with that and you get a chance to see how cool the stuff you did was. Nash says the next night they did the run down with nWo vs DX. Nash knew it was the last time 80,000 people would be cheering him and he told Hall and Hogan to slow down as they needed to enjoy it. Everyone got out of it safe. The day after he was on the plane having Vodkas with Gene and Larry Z. Larry was worried about if he repeated himself too much during his speech and Gene told him he as the drizzling shits. Nash could only reflect on The Hall of Fame, working Mania with his buddies and now having a drink with Gene that if the plane exploded in the ocean he was good.

-Austin asks how active Nash is with the business now that he is done. The COVID thing threw everything off and Nash says he was working with Omos. Austin asks if he is money and Nash says yes.

-What’s next? Nash says he has a movie coming out with Channing Tatum. He says it is difficult to get roles with his size. He mentions Rob Zombie got the rights to The Muensters and he would love to play Herman. “Everyone wants to play Frankenstein and then De Niro did it and fucked it up.” He also gets blown away doing signings and seeing people from 4-60 wearing nWo shirts.

-They talk about Mania 19 and how they were working out together when Austin had his health issue. Neither of them never had a proper send off match, but they have no regrets and don’t feel cheated. “That combination in that CRX didn’t do too bad.” Austin wraps up the show and we are out with this episode.

-Nash is always a great talker and there was some good stories here. The editing seemed weird as I assume there was a ton that was left on the cutting room floor as they breezed through the early days and the first WWE run. Because Austin and Nash are such great friends they would get off topic and tell inside jokes, but that’s fine as it was basically listening to two old friends shoot the breeze. Nash dropped a few tidbits that may raise some eyebrows and some even caught Austin off guard. Overall a fun episode that again seemed to be too short. Thanks for reading!