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VIP EXCLUSIVE - FROM PWTORCH NEWSLETTER #989 / 990

Torch Talk with Kevin Nash, pt. 4
Originally Published: September 15, 2007
Torch Newsletter #989 / 990

The following is part four of an ongoing two-and-a-half hour "Torch Talk" with Kevin Nash conducted on July 24, 2007 focused on the fallout and ramifications from the Benoit Family Tragedy.

Wade Keller: I disagree with you in a couple respects [regarding fans inherently wanting to see bigger wrestlers]. I think you might even agree with me here, but I don't want to be presumptuous. I think that UFC has shown the public - and WWE's target demographic watches UFC, whether they're addicted fans and fanatics or casual observers of it, they know it exists and they've seen it - and they know that Chuck Liddel who is not Batista and they know that Anderson Silva who looks different than Ken Shamrock and Bobby Lashley - they are the killers in that sport. UFC has helped remind everybody dating back to Royce Gracie back in the mid-'90s, which is part of what I think helped Shawn Michaels, in a small way, get over as credible against the bigger guys. We've seen for ten, fifteen years now this reeducation to the public that it isn't bodybuilders who necessary win fights. The second point I want to make is that I think you're taking an extreme example when you talk about a who is a 140 pounds and weak with no muscle definition versus a human action figure. I think there's a middle zone which is the athlete who can do more.

Kevin Nash: I'll give you an example of my 11 year old son. My 11 year old son, you could put Chuck Liddell in the ring you could put Batista on the other side of him, my son would say Batista will kill him.

Keller: But did you just say that a fan can be reconditioned to believe differently after several Mondays in a row [with the Jeff Hardy pinning Bobby Lashley example]?

Nash: I think he can. I think he can, but... UFC's a different animal.

Keller: But pro wrestling is a simulation of fights in a way that is meant to draw the most money, first of all, and I'd say the way to draw money is a combination of the presentation, the characters, and the charisma and putting on a believable, realistic looking fight, but doing so in an exciting way. But I would assert that Vince McMahon doesn't maximize the traits that Shawn Michaels has and feature the people who have his traits to prominent degrees and instead focuses on guys who, frankly, are clunky and unathletic in there. I think there's a role for a variety of body types, but I think right now the proportion is so great on the bigger guys at the expense of some of the smaller guys. I think there are big, naturally muscular guys who are talented who deserve a spot on the card, but I don't think there should be so many big guys who aren't talented who get the lion's share of TV to the point that they are over, but it takes the destruction unnecessarily so of athletic guys - who I think could draw even more money - to get them over (as with Great Khali squashing Jeff Hardy, the IC Champ, on Raw this week).

Nash: I agree with you because we've both been around this business for so long and we understand workrate. But my son who watches a wrestling match, I mean, workrate doesn't matter to him. He's just as soon as see the guy who eats worms [Boogeyman] because he's 11 or 12. What we want as adults in that higher demographic doesn't really matter to the young guys.

Keller: But he knows that he likes Rey Mysterio more than Chris Masters.

Nash: Yeah, he does to a degree, but I know that my son would much rather see Batista and he likes the bigger guys because his dad's a bigger guy. I think he'd rather want him to win a match. If Batista was working against Rey Mysterio, my son wants Batista to win. Because Batista's the monster.

Keller: Let me try to ask a question that will focus in on what you believe. Because you've said a few things such as wanting more Shawn Michaels, you can condition the fans to believe if Lashley loses to Hardy seven weeks in a row, but what do you think is the best for the wrestling business in terms of, yeah, maybe a ten year old would rather see Batista, but for the overall health the company and the wrestlers and where the talent is available, would you have more of a mix of different bodytypes if you were trying to build the promotion that would do the best and be safest for the wrestlers in the long run?

Nash: Yeah, absolutely. I think the most important thing you can do is that if you start from tomorrow - if you open the page tomorrow and it's the first time you open the page, I think you absolutely have to push everybody absolutely equally whether it's a 170 pound guy or a 270 pound guy. I think the whole thing is, I've always looked at pro wrestling as professional baseball. National League pitchers still bat. Occasionally a pitcher hits a homerun. Which means a pitcher is on that given bat as proficient as anybody else in the league, and that's the way it should be in professional wrestling. These are all professionals and on any given night, anybody can win. So if you put that kind of a psychology into what you're doing, then anybody can win a match. That's the story I tried to tell with Rey Mysterio when I was in WCW when he beat me. Of course, everybody misconstrued it and said nobody would believe that because they're all freaks. But my whole thing was, I was trying to set up a situation in the locker room where the smallest guy could beat the biggest guy because everybody's that good because everybody is a professional wrestler. Everybody at that level can beat anybody. It may be a fluke - he may only beat the big guy one out of ten times. But the situation is, he can win a match.

Keller: And the little guy has got to be talented and charismatic and his punches have to look good and he's got to be snug in the ring. I mean, you've gotta [use as an example] a Mini Cooper with turbo charge not a discount Yugo when you say "smaller guys."

Nash: Absolutely. But the thing is, if you do that, and you make that kind of a precedent, that the smallest talented guy can win, then the next guy up that's a little less talented can win, and you go to the next guy up who is the least talented, but maybe 205 or 217, he can beat the 250 guy. But the whole thing is, all you have to do is cover storyline. They sit there every night and tell how this guy is a collegiate background. Why can't a guy who doesn't have a collegiate background have a collegiate background. You know what I mean? I mean, it's a TV show that's a complete work. Why does it have to be this guy is a crack dealer from Baltimore and he's never been athletic in his life; why can't we make up that he was Delaware State Champion in high school. I don't understand why we can't make more out of what it is because everything we do is a complete work.

Keller: That's why people who don't follow pro wrestling at all have such a tough time understanding anything about it because it one of those things that you have to grow up with it or absorb yourself in it to even start to wrap your mind around the strange rules of the culture and the expectations that the fans have in how change happens slowly. There was a time where if somebody made up an Olympic credential, there's be outrage. Now it does seem like kind of the obvious thing to do as long as the guy can carry out the role credibly. If a guy can portray it, you might as well say it.

Nash: The thing that absolutely amazes me is...

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