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VIP EXCLUSIVE - FROM PWTORCH NEWSLETTER #997/998

Torch Talk with Kevin Nash, pt. 6
Originally Published: November 13, 2007
Torch Newsletter #997/998

The following is the sixth and final installment of a two–and–a–half hour "Torch Talk" with Kevin Nash (conducted on June 24), focused on the fallout and ramifications from the Benoit Family Tragedy. It picks up after Kevin Nash said he feels wrestlers have changed over the last ten years and the current generation will have fewer problems than in the past.

Wade Keller: So Kennedy and John Cena are right when they say with an earnest expression and conviction that this is a business that is different than it was years ago, and you Kevin think it was different enough that if things stay the way it is right now, including no extended time off - which you endorsed earlier - but you think things are good enough right now with the schedule and the lifestyle that the guys who are in their 20s and early-30s and think things are great are going to have learned enough from the previous generation to not fall into the same trap?

Kevin Nash: I worry about the testosterone and the 4-to-1 and the 10-to-1, and I don't know a lot about what the testing is. I don't understand the testing. But, people need to go back to 1993 when we went by the Olympic code when they drew above 1,200 as far as nanograms, you were dirty. So that basically, it wasn't even 4-to-1. A normal guy is 4-to-500 [under this measurement], and if you were 4-to-1200 that was basically a 2-to-1. I think they need to bring it back to the Olympic standards of drug testing. But, I mean, I really think that the guys that are in the business now - I go out with the young guys, I party with them, I was out with them the other night for Jeff Jarrett's birthday, we all went out to Universal Studios to the Oceanwalk or Riverwalk or whatever it's called. The guys were nursing beers. Nobody was drunk. We didn't carry anybody home and nobody got into a fight. I watched the whole situation and thought to myself, This is absolutely such a different crew of guys. I want to tell you, I'm talking about TNA guys. I haven't been around the New York [WWE] guys. I'm sure if guys like Kennedy are that adamant about what they say, it's kind of the same situation. I know when I came back [in 2001], I looked at Edge and Christian and that bunch of guys and it was like, Wow, these guys are like dweebs. I remember going to the bar and it would be, like, me and [Eric] Bischoff and that's be it. Me and Eric would have beers on some road trips because nobody else would go out. I didn't chastise or belittle anybody. I was actually impressed the guys were a little more restrained, a little more controlled. So I think as this business grows and transpires, I think there will be a lot less deaths. I just think my generation, whether we were house painters or auto workers, whatever we were going to be, it was an absolutely crazy bunch of guys. At the same time I look at it and say to myself, 80 percent of the guy in the locker room now wouldn't have been in our locker room when I was broke in because it was a crazier locker room than it is now. I don't see Kennedy in the locker room in 1993. He would not have taken Bob Holly's spot. Bob Holly was more intense and had a better body and that was a drug-tested time. That would have been the spot he would have taken, so a guy like Kennedy wouldn't have been in my locker room in 1993. So there's a lot of guys that have a job right now that wouldn't have a job in 1993. It's a different locker room. There were several guys 400 pounds in that locker room and probably ten guys at about 300 pounds, and those were natural guys. There weren't drugs in that locker room. I don't mean to say this to be shitty, but there were a bunch of men in that locker room. There weren't boys in that locker room. It was a bunch of men in that locker room. A lot of those men have died and, god bless their souls and god rest their souls, but a lot of guys I worked with when I was younger were men. I work now with a lot of young kids and it's a different business and a different sport.

Keller: You've talked about the T-ratios and the drug testing back in the day and how strict it was. But you've also made some comments that you think guys are getting away to some degree with muscle-enhancement programs that are off the record and are getting by. I talked to Dr. Gary Wadler earlier today, who is the go-to guy when it comes to quotes about drug testing and anti-doping and he brought up the three ingredients that are favored by bodybuilders - which is a low level of testosterone that maybe you can even pass a test with, combined with HGH and insulin. You can't really test for those - it's either impossible or difficult. Is that the secret to some of these guys' bodies, and if so is it a relatively safe alternative not to worry about?

Nash: Well, I know when I got hurt and tore my quad, it was the first time I ever took growth hormone. I took growth hormone for, geez, probably nine months and I took that with a little bit of test and a little bit of insulin and I went from probably 290 to 340. I was looking on the Internet the other day, a buddy of mine pulled up a web page, and put up some pictures of me and I was absolutely gigantic, which I don't remember because of course you don't remember how gigantic you were; you remember that you were trying to make it back from an injury. But, the testosterone that I took was very minimal. I would have passed the test. But the IGF1 and the growth, I'm sure, I only took minimal. I took two-and-a-half IUs a day of growth [hormone] for five day a week; I didn't take it seven days a week. It's basically a therapeutic dosage for a guy that's 42 years old. But everything synergistically taken together made me just, I mean, I grew. I've got pictures of me and when I look at it now, Jesus Christ, I was big. I have a picture of me and my wife sitting down at St. Thomas on the beach. I've got abs and I'm jacked and I'm a 42 year old guy. I mean, I don't look like I'm 42, I look like I'm 22. My arms are 25 inches, I'm as big as a house. Nobody said anything to me. I pissed twice in that situation. During that time I didn't take a high level of anything. I took a very low level of everything.

Keller: Is that a dangerous mix from what you know? Is that going to be the new thing that gets the next generation if that's what a lot of guys are sneaking by?

Nash: I look at myself and my father died at 26 years old. And I look at heart disease in my family. I'm on a statin drug, I'm on Plavix. I've got early signs of heart disease at 48 years old. I asked my doctor, "Do you think it was contributed to by the steroid abuse? He goes, "I don't think so because your father died at 36. I think it's just something in your blood." In my heart, I think the steroid abuse that I did, which was minimal, it was '96, '97, '98, and then some little bit when I hurt my quad in 2002 to try to come back because Dr. Andrews told me nobody has come back from a torn quad at my age, so I wanted to come back. I ended up coming back and worked the program with Hunter. But that was nothing that was discussed by Vince or anybody in the WWF. That was my situation, my deal, and I was in Birmingham with some NFL guys, and the NFL guys said, "If you want to come back, this is what you do at your age." So I did what they told me to do, and I came back. I got another run. I made a couple million bucks, which was in my mind worth it at the time. But I have an 11 year old son and I was laying in a pool with him this past couple of weeks and I wondered, like, did that take a few years off my life? Did I take a year off my life? Was it worth it? No, it's not worth it now. But, you know, I watch these guys come on TV, and they say this, this, and this. Marc [Mero] comes on TV and says we need to have a congressional this and that. I mean, I was in the locker room with you, Marc, in 1999 and I don't remember you saying anything about we all need to join a union and stop doing steroids. I remember you pretty much doing what you had to do to make your three grand or four grand a week and getting as jacked as you had to get and making sure you had a job. Nobody asked him to do that.

Keller: But he knew if he didn't do it, someone else would fit the part better than him.

Nash: You know what, though, that's going to be everybody's copout. That will always be everybody's copout. Well, yeah, if I didn't do it. What is it, like gay porn, if I don't blow somebody I don't get a job? No, man. P.N. Newz wasn't on steroids and he was working.

Keller: There's always an exception to the prevalent body type, but there's a line of guys who were willing to take chances and experiment and do what it took to get spots, and the big picture here, and it's not a simple answer that works well with a soundbite on TV, but the point is that ideally the business would be one where the guys with the most charisma, the most talent, who've got a naturally good body - if they work hard and eat right, it looks really good - are going to get spots and don't get pushed out by a guy who has a little bit less of everything, but is willing to give himself something to give him an edge that, like you said, might knock some years off the time he can spend with his kid when he gets a little older.

Nash: Yeah, but I always say this. I've listened to all of this shit these last couple of weeks and said to myself, you know what, everybody I know that was on steroids in wrestling were on steroids way before they got into wrestling, way before. I've never met anybody who got in the business and somebody pulled them aside and said, "You know, dude, you need to get on steroids to make it." We came from that culture.

Keller: That's somewhat incriminating in a sense that the only people who get into wrestling are guys who are using steroids. You can turn that around and use it against the argument you're making, which is, shouldn't the industry be set up where some people who aren't taking steroids beforehand might think they've got a shot at it?

Nash: Well, yeah. I agree, but the thing was, there wasn't a guy in the gym at that point in my life whether he wanted to just look good for his girl or not that wasn't on something. In '86 and '87, I was selling it to guys and I knew who the guys were that I was selling it to. The guys I was selling it to were guys working on the assembly line in Detroit. They just wanted to have bigger arms. They wanted to go out on Friday night and be able to pull the shirt a little above their biceps and have a little bit of a vein going down. They didn't give a shit about getting into the business. They just wanted to be jacked when they went to the local bar. That was the whole culture of what was going on back in those days... I had so many of my buddies before I broke into the business and I'd say, "How big do you want to get?" They'd go, "Like, dude, I want to get big enough where it takes eight people to carry my casket, not six." Nothing to do with wrestling, that was just that kind of culture at that time - that meathead, musclehead culture. Of course it bored into wrestling.

Keller: Is it different now, or is this current generation going to find it's new way to stay big, pass the tests, beat the system, and possibly find a totally new way to die?

Nash: (Deep breath) I don't know what's going on in New York. I really don't. I'm not going to even guess what's going on. But all I know, with TNA, there's not a whole lot of guys who are on the shit. I guarantee there's a couple guys and I could point them out, but they're not pushing guys because they're on the gas. They're not pushing A.J. because he's on the gas because he's not. They're not pushing Joe [for his muscles]. Christian's not on anything. Abyss is not on anything. Sting is not on anything. So there's several really top guys getting a push that are wrestling week in and week out on top for our company who aren't on anything. If you can look at those guys and say they are, I would just say, okay, anytime you want to test, I'd be more than happy to do so. I don't think our company looks at things and says they want the biggest jacked guys and that's who we're going to push for our next pay-per-view. To me, with New York pushing Lashley and Cena after the Benoit death is kind of, I mean, unless Lashley is clean, it's not a great move.

Keller: Should John Cena and Bobby Lashley, if California won't pay for it, if Nevada won't pay for it, should they offer to actually pay the athletic commissions there to test them however which way they want because they have nothing to hide? John Cena declared that for years, including last week, he's got nothing to hide. Why not just say like Vince McMahon did when he was going to trial, he said anytime you guys want to drug test me, just ask and I'll provide a sample. Would that be a good p.r. move, or would that just be a grandstand that would draw more attention to the problem?

Nash: I don't think Cena's on anything. I really don't, because I've seen Cena when he came in and he was the Prototype, and he was a big jacked up dude. I think Cena is an absolutely physically gifted guy. I don't know anything about Lashley. Lashley just looks very synthetic to me. That's just my opinion and I could be completely wrong, and if I am, I apologize to......

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