Kevin Nash thinks fans hate the “Finger Poke Of Doom” because they managed to fool them.
The “Finger Poke Of Doom” is one of WCW’s most controversial matches. On the January 4th, 1999 episode of WCW Monday Nitro, Kevin Nash defended his WCW Championship against Hulk Hogan in the main event.
It saw two sides of the NWO collide. Nash was the leader of NWO Wolfpac, while Hogan led his own NWO Hollywood stable. Kevin Nash was fresh off ending Goldberg‘s undefeated streak, so had huge momentum going into the bout.
However, as soon as the bell rang, Hogan poked Nash in the chest as he threw himself to the ground. The Hulkster quickly pinned the champion, taking back the WCW Championship, much to the surprise of the fans.
While many think this was the beginning of the end for WCW, Kevin Nash agrees. He spoke on the “Who Killed WCW?” documentary, to give his views on the angle.
Kevin Nash said, “You know why people hate that so much? Because it got them. Look at the crowd! They don’t know what the fuck they’ve seen.”.
Eric Bischoff followed up on that in the same video. He said the thought that the Finger Poke of Doom was where WCW’s downfall started was “dirt sheet material”. Meaning, absolute rubbish.
“Wrestling fans around the globe say, ‘that’s exactly where WCW started to go downhill!’. It’s dirt sheet material”.
While you could argue that, creatively, it was the start of the downfall, ratings did not reflect that. TV ratings for WCW Monday Nitro increased compared to the weeks prior. PPV ratings were slightly different, as there was an immediate dip on the buy-rate for Souled Out just two weeks later.
However, that was followed by Superbrawl IX, which ended up having WCW’s third-highest buy rate in history. So, there seems to be truth to what Eric Bischoff and Kevin Nash were saying.
