By Sean Radican, Torch columnist

TIMELINE THE HISTORY OF WWE 1995 WITH KEVIN NASH
RELEASED BY KAYFABE COMMENTARIES
BY SEAN RADICAN, TORCH COLUMNIST

Kayfabe Commentaries’s latest edition to their WWE “Timeline” series features Kevin Nash talking about 1995, which was a really bad year for WWE from a financial standpoint. Watching this release, Nash points out why his reign as WWE Champion in 1995 didn’t work out, but it’s not a totally satisfying account of 1995 because of Nash’s insistence on taking zero accountability for his lackluster reign as champion.

There’s no doubt that Nash is a smart man and he delivers his side of things the way he wants to in interviews, which may not be satisfying to some viewers. On one hand, there’s a load of great stories on this release and Nash has a fantastic sense of humor. One of the highlights is his story about getting revenge on Bill Watts in WWE for something that Watts did to Nash during his first run in WCW.

In 1995, WWE still used a blue steel cage and it took a long time for the crew to put it up. Nash was booked to wrestle Yokozuna in the cage with Watts handling things backstage. Needless to say, Nash goes on to tell the rest of the story of wrestling Yokozuna and what he says to Watts backstage after the match is priceless.

Many times on the DVD, Nash tells a story, but seems to contradict himself a short time later. For instance, he talks about the incident where Shawn Michael’s was beaten up by a bunch of servicemen at a club. He refers to reading about Sean Waltman, who was also at the club, being referred to as having a reputation in WWE as being a legit tough guy in the Wrestling Observer by Dave Meltzer when he reported on the incident.

On the flip side, Oliver asks Nash about Ahmed Johnson coming into the company a short time later and Nash says they didn’t read dirt sheets and if they were found with one, they would have gotten a ton of heat for having it on them backstage.

Another thing that could have been explained more in hindsight is towards the end of the interview, Nash talks about setting himself up in the past to get back to WWE, but only on his own terms. This didn’t jive with me, as Nash did a lot of complaining about WWE constantly throwing him under the bus even up until recently when Nash questions WWE several times for putting him in a TLC match against Triple H last December.

I wish this topic had been explored further, as I was left confused because Nash seemed to be none too happy about being put in a TLC match at the age of 52, but at the same token, he seemed to be talking about past events where he was setting himself to go back to WWE on his own terms.

Nash talks about business being down and how difficult it was for wrestlers, especially those on the undercard, to make money. Watching the release feels somewhat incomplete as Nash constantly points the finger at WWE for undermining his title reign right from the start when he had a long match with Bret Hart that ended with a bunch of people running in at the end for a DQ.

Nash’s position that he was done no favors during his time as champion can certainly be understood as he was constantly booked against other wrestlers like Sid and Mabel who he didn’t have good chemistry with, but on a release like this, it would have been more interesting to see Nash reflect on his own role in the company at the time in a manner where he goes beyond pointing the finger at how he was booked while at the same time stating he would have had no problem on them pulling the plug on his reign and going in another direction.

During this time, WWE was still under a great deal of scrutiny from the government after Vince McMahon’s steroid trial and Nash claims he liked the idea of going to WWE because it was an even playing field and none of the wrestlers were using steroids because they were being tested. Several wrestlers from that time period, including Shane Douglas have come out in interviews and claimed that members of the Kliq during this time were notified when and where the testing was taking place and were able to avoid being tested it all. If Oliver had questioned Nash a little bit more about his claims about the even playing field in WWE when it came to steroids, it would have been interesting to hear what Nash had to say.

Overall, there are a lot of good stories on this release and of course, Nash touches on figures like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, who were a huge part of the company during this time. It’s not surprising that Nash found Bret to be difficult to work with and he tells about a story about Bret that led to a confrontation between Nash and Michaels at one point because Nash was supposed to drop the belt to Hart, who in turn was eventually going to drop it to Michaels.

There’s also a lot of interesting discussion about WWE trying to compete with Disney at the time in terms of being a kid friendly product, which leads to some interesting comments about the Goldust character from Nash, who talks about the debut of the character and the problems people could have explaining that character to a young child.

Despite its flaws, I would still give this release a solid recommendation. Nash is entertaining to listen to and he tells some good stories over the course of a three hour plus interview. If Nash could have offered more introspection and clarified some of the things he discussed that I touched on previously, this would have been a much more enjoyable release.

You can purchase this release at KayfabeCommentaries.com

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