He’s long been known for speaking his mind about the business side of pro wrestling, and never letting his money be messed with. Kevin Nash is also pretty invested in the current business of WWE. That’s both because Nash is as an actual stockholder in parent company TKO, and because he’s a member of the unofficial backstage fraternity The Kliq, since his brothers from that group now hold a lot of power in WWE.
Only one of those Kliq brothers really come up on the newest edition of Nash’s Kliq This
podcast with Sean Oliver. He responds to a listener question about his current level of support for WWE by saying that “if Triple H is ever not at the helm” because TKO pulled “some kind of a power play” that he’ll “have nothing to do with that product” for the rest of his life.
The question came up because Nash has A LOT of issues with how TKO’s running WWE these days. He’s talked before about the impact of cost-cutting on talent, bringing up both the lack of catering at the lengthy pre-WrestleMania 42 Hall of Fame Ceremony and the lack of security at the wrestlers’ hotel for ‘Mania in Las Vegas on recent shows. This week’s episode is entitled “50%”, and focuses on the pay cuts some number of talent were asked to take recently — and that Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods of The New Day rejected, ending their historic WWE runs (at least for now).
Nash told Oliver that Kingston and Woods “absolutely” made the right decision in walking away from WWE rather than signing the new, less lucrative contracts TKO was replacing their non-expired, higher dollar deals with. He added:
“Both of those guys have been there 16-17 years… it’s a slap in the face. Both of those guys are my friends.”
Like many of us, the legendary big man finds the executive pay raises TKO’s reported to be especially galling in light of the alleged talent paycuts:
“”You can’t have it both ways. You can’t play Endeavor at the top with the 300% increases and 1099 [the Federal tax designation pro wrestlers fall under as independently contracted labor] the dock workers… If they’re going to play by those rules, let the boys play by the same rules.”
Talk of leveling the playing field had Nash referring to Jesse Ventura’s failed efforts to unionize pro wrestling in the 1980s:
“This could be one of those times where this whole 1099 thing finally fucking just… Bring the folders out. Bring them all out. Jesse… you said on the Hulk thing your era’s over. It’s not, come here… we need you Jesse.“
As to how wrestlers should organize themselves? The nWo founder thinks Zelina Vega was on the right track back in 2020:
“Go through Screen Actors Guild. They’ll be more than happy to take their cut of your money. It won’t be 50%, but it’ll change the ball game. Take one of the [WWE] programs that’s written down and you tell me that that program isn’t more heavily written and more produced than Curb Your Enthusiasm was when all those actors got SAG paid.”
That wasn’t the only rumored TKO meddling Nash aired his thoughts on this episode either. Back on the subject of Levesque, and reports those above him have dictated changes to the creative department he runs as Chief Content Officer:
“Levesque takes over and everybody loves the direction that this Levesque guy is carrying the new flagship WWE program into the Netflix era. And then lo and behold, like every other business on earth, the fucking guys above him that don’t have a fucking clue [but] get paid more higher up on the food chain decide to start sticking their dicks where they don’t need to. ‘We’re going to throw this guy in. Let’s put this guy in. How about him in the main event? What if we throw this guy in? Why would we throw that guy in?’We got a $500 million deal that this guy is locked into. While we’re at it, let’s make the arena look like a NASCAR.’”
“It doesn’t take anything away from Paul Levesque, because Paul Levesque still knows what the fuck he’s doing. If anybody out there seems to be, maybe thinks this might apply to them, how about leaving the fucking company alone? Get your fucking noses out of creative.”
Weigh in on Kevin Nash’s TKO critique in the comments. Here’s the full video edition of the “50%” episode of Kliq This:
