This week’s WWE After The Bell was indeed “too sweet” as soon-to-be two-time WWE Hall Of Famers Scott Hall and Kevin Nash joined Corey Graves for some discussion regarding the NWO getting the nod into Vince McMahon’s hallowed halls of pro wrestling prominence. Hall starts out the interview by giving major love to The Outsiders’ best friend in Sean Waltman, who Hall noted will be the first of a notable class to enter the WWE Hall Of Fame.
“Hey, Pac, Kid Pac, is the first back-to-back Hall of Famer so much love to my buddy Pac and I know he’s down at the PC now in Orlando, smartening them young cats up and he has a vast knowledge of the wrestling business and any time he spends down with those kids, they’re benefiting.”
As far as who should be joining Hall, Nash, Waltman and Hulk Hogan on stage with them for their induction, Hall and Nash gave a couple of major influences some shine.
“I guess from a fan’s point of view maybe they wouldn’t agree, but from somebody who was like behind the curtain, I would think Easy E. I would think Eric Bischoff because the whole thing was his idea, but I guess if you’re a viewing fan, you don’t see it that way. That’s the way I see it. I would have Bischoff up there with us.”
Nash went with an individual who flew under the radar a bit as far as the NWO’s impact, but the man was certainly up to the task at getting the heat on wrestling’s hottest faction.
“I’d have Kevin Sullivan,” said Nash. “Sullivan was the one that made sure, there’s always been the equation of that if you’re a heel in order for you to be successful, it’s like a hot air balloon – the more heat that you allow inside of that balloon and the higher it goes and the more viable that heel entity is and Sullivan just really battled day in and day out to make sure that they took heat off us. Nobody got to the NWO. Sullivan always booked heat and he continued to book heat and his booking of that heat is what made the NWO.” Scott also gives major credit to Sullivan for his work at making the NWO what it was.
Corey asks the NWO forefathers if the NWO work today in today’s social media infused climate, and Big Kev gave an answer that had several layers.
“Put it this way – if you took the two top guys at WWE and put them on another company, tell me that doesn’t make a difference immediately.” Nash adds, “You gotta remember there were so many parameters – violence – we used aluminum baseball bats on television. I mean you can’t do that now, you know? Could you imagine Roman Reigns with coming down and smashing somebody in the head with a baseball bat?”
“Our culture is so different now and we also have the advantage of coming off of that red-hot Death Row, west coast rap culture and we kind off pulled in off – like there were so many cultural phenomenons going on that we were able to just as far as pop culture, pick it at its ripest and just kind of pull it into our storylines. There wasn’t a whole lot of 35-year-old guys wearing their bandannas like Tupac back then.”
Hall added that having that ability to make the most of live television certainly had its benefit to giving the Wolfpac some creative freedom. “The cool thing about being on live TV is it’s much easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. You can always go through the curtain and do whatever you want. When you come back through you go, ‘Oh gee, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ but I already did what I wanted to, thank you very much.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
The Bad Guy splits soon after, but Big Daddy Cool remains on the line with Graves for more conversation, all of which you can hear below:
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