Known to offer a hot take on occassion, WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash casually dropped a pair of them on the newest episode of his Kliq This podcast. Both are observations Nash while bantering with co-host Sean Oliver.
Nash’s first conversation-starter came in response to some fantasy booking of the CM Punk/Bron Breakker World Heavyweight title feud. It sounds like Big Sexy thinks the Best in the World should hang them up soon…
“I watched Punk in the main event of that match last Monday… Number one:
if you’re the Heavyweight Champion of the WWE and you wrestle in a T-shirt — ouch.
“Number two: his punches looked really slow. He looked slow. I think it’s time for him, I think he’s done… I think Bron should beat him.”
Then, before we had time to wonder if Kev was trying to restart the horrible, no good, very bad program he worked with Punk and Triple H back in 2011, Nash had thoughts on the man who retired John Cena. Oliver brought up the current Raw main event scene, which he listed as Punk, Breakker, and Gunther, and said the Der Ring General has had “real heat” on Raw the past two weeks.
“He doesn’t have real heat… No. No, he doesn’t have real heat.”
Asked to explain by his co-host, Nash did. He also conceded that Gunther has more heat than anyone else on Raw, but didn’t seem to think that was very impressive:
“He has manufactured heat. It’s the closest thing that there is to heat on that show, but he doesn’t have heat… It’s like last week when he came out, and so, his music plays, and then his graphic plays. Then he goes out and cuts a promo, and then [Raw General Manager Adam] Pearce comes out and tells him to get the fuck out of the building. So, they played his music, played his entrance, gave him a microphone, he cut a promo. But when he got done, it’s time to get the fuck out of the building, because you’re a bad guy and you got heat.”
To the nWo OG, “real heat” disrupts the flow of the show, and someone who has it doesn’t leave without incident when an authority figure tells them to.
My take? Maybe Punk was banged up in his first match since WarGames, and since the dog he loved like a child died. If he didn’t get his pump on before a pre-taped holiday show, I’m not going to jump to any conclusions. If he seems to be sleepwalking through the title match with Bron next Monday, I’ll get concerned.
The “real heat” comments…. some of you probably weren’t around for this, but that was one of the big internet wrestling debates pre-AEW. But back then, it wasn’t “real” vs. “manufactured”. It was whether or not the heat was “go away” or “X-Pac” heat (Sean Waltman was not always the beloved, dog rescuing, elder statesman he is today). With Gunther, the fans definitely seem to be playing along with the story, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less invested in it than if they were peppering the ring with concessions like it was Bash at the Beach 1996.
Like the big man, though, what I really want you to do is engage with this here content. So now that you’ve read his takes and mine, give us yours in the comments below. And check out the entire episode of Kliq This Nash’s quotes came from here.
