Kayfabe! – Guest Booker with Kevin Nash

This interview is pretty much broken down into three subjects, Sean and Kevin casually talking about booking/writing, and why the writing today generally sucks. Then, they talk about why Hall and Nash jumped to WCW, and, finally, Nash does his booking of the WWF if they’d decided to stick around. It’s a Kevin Nash interview, so there’s two things that are almost guaranteed, Nash won’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, and, it’s sure to be funny.

The general booking discussion isn’t very focused, but, they both bring up some good points. They agree that the problem with today’s product is that there are too many writers and committees, and Sean points out that a movie may have a bunch of producers, and executives, but, there is only one director. Nash says that the product was the best when it was just Vince and Pat Patterson with a bunch of legal pads, he says you could walk into Vince’s office in January and ask what the plan was Summerslam, and Vince would grab the pad and say “I’m seeing you and Mabel.” Nash thinks that it goes too far when the writers start trying to write your verbiage, and tells a story about his 2011 WWE run, where Freddie Prinze jr was writing out his promos based on stuff from his run as Diesel from 15 years earlier.

Sean gives Nash some names to get his opinions on them, and eventually gets to Greg Gagne and they joke a bit about all of his claims, and Nash says that Gagne came up him backstage while he was Oz and whispered “New World Order.” Nash also takes a minute to trash Dave Meltzer, and Sean actually steps up to the plate for Dave a bit and points out that people can judge wine without having made it. Nash’s reply is that if you give 100 people a sample of the same vintage, the palates are going to be somewhat similar, but wrestling is far different. (Note from Mike: I get the point he’s trying to make, but I disagree).

The really interesting part of this was Nash talking about him and Hall leaving. The decision was purely financial, because, at the time, nobody knew what sort of year they were going to have until the WrestleMania payday. It started with Hall asking what he was doing wrong, and Vince said nothing, and Hall asking why he couldn’t improve his position. Nash was going to stick around, but, then the finish of the Bret/Nash cage match got changed to placate Bret’s ego, which pissed off Nash and Undertaker, since they were going to be a co-main event, and Nash decided to go too. Nash tells a story about WCW freaking about when JR said Diesel and Razor were coming back, and he and Hall got $800,000 raises to sign iron clad contracts. Good story, aside from the fact that WWF was taping Raw four weeks a time, and JR’s announcement and Diesel and Razor’s returns were at the same taping, and it’s been established that Bischoff was well informed about the WWF’s tapings.

Nash’s actual booking, is fairly friendly to the kliqe (Sean: “I can already see the reviews for this.”) He’s clearly got some good ideas, but it’s not really all that focused as far as angles and feuds go. For example, he wants to turn Hall heel on the basis that he’s sick of being a starving artist and wants some coin. Fair enough, but, even though Sean is asking him how he’d actually do it, be it a promo or an in-ring turn, its not explained. It culminates with Razor winning the title from Shawn at Summerslam. He wants to put HHH over Warrior at WrestlMania XII, which would never see the light of day, and then put the IC title onto him, which would be hard when Goldust and HHH were both heels at the time. He wants to do Shawn/HHH at King of the Ring as WWF Champ vs. IC Champ, again, that’s a fine idea. But, then he wants to actually put the IC Title onto Shawn, and have him keep defending it after losing the WWF Title to Razor at Summerslam.

The mid-card stuff is a bit better, he wants a Jim Jones type of character to help get rid of the goofy gimmicks, and later realizes that Raven would be perfect. The hog farmer gimmick was stupid, but Henry Godwin was a decent worker and would be a good babyface in the vein of someone like Billy Jack (I assume he means the movie character) and would work well with someone like Glen Jacobs (not as a dentist with bad teeth).

7.0

The final score: review Good

The 411

No matter what you may think about him, Nash is a very funny guy, and that comes off during the interview. The booking isn't the best, but it's clear that Nash has some good ideas in him.