How Good Was Kevin Nash Actually?
10. Presence/Look/Presentation
What’s most interesting about Kevin Nash in this area is that the best presentation he ever had was being his authentic self. We’re going to ignore Oz, Vinnie Vegas, and The Master Blasters for now (and we’ll get to his time as Diesel), but Kevin Nash came into his own when he was known by his actual name and joined Scott Hall in invading WCW.
Nash was crucial in the presentation of the nWo, too. Big Kev is a super smart individual who had his finger on the pulse of pop culture. Gangsta Rap and '90s reality show Cops were showing the grittier side of life on the streets, which was something that had never been presented properly in WWE or WCW.
On the shoot of the first “The following announcement has been paid for by the New World Order” video, Nash felt edgy and had close-ups on his Ray Ban sunglasses, while Hulk Hogan was still cutting promos like he was preaching to the Hulkamaniacs. It took Nash to smarten Hogan up to the West Coast rap vibe the group was reaching for (with limited results at first). Nash has even revealed that the “for life” in “nWo for life” comes from Ice Cube’s intro in the Mack 10 song "Foe Life”.
Hogan's heel turn could have fallen flat on its ass without Nash having the balls to tell Hulk that he still sounded like the old Hulk. Can you imagine trying to explain 2Pac’s All Eyez On Me to Terry Bollea?! Without Nash doing so, the nWo probably would have been over before it began.
Back to Kevin Nash’s individual presentation, Big Sexy was a master of facial expressions who excelled in sarcasm. He was an attractive charisma bomb, whose seven-foot frame did a lot of the heavy lifting in selling him as a dominant force. His level of cool felt effortless, and he was incredible to watch in the background of other people’s promos.
Most crucially of all, the “Turkish wolf” hand signal may have been a Kliq signature, but it was Hall and Nash who made it a phenomenon. Watching The Outsiders greet each other with it in the first nWo video is still electric to this day, and wrestling fans around the world will use this iconic gesture to greet each other from now til the end of time. Hell, even Nash's ‘W’ gang sign for the Wolfpac is legendary in its own right.
His time as Diesel felt like a Diet version of the character Nash would portray on Nitro. He was a cartoon bodyguard when backing up Shawn Michaels, and there’s just a little too much mid-'90s Vince McMahon in Diesel’s presentation. Who else do you think OK’d the name Two Dudes With Attitude and had his entrance music open with a blast of a trucker’s horn?
Nash’s entrance themes were always on point, though. Jim Johnson’s Diesel Blues is famously a play on George Thorogood And The Destroyers’ ‘Bad To The Bone’ and fits the “cool guy” vibe of the character perfectly. The original nWo ‘Rockhouse’ theme is an anarchic blend of classic rock and industrial that feels as chaotic as the group itself, and has there ever been a better hip-hop tinged entrance music than C-Murder’s Howard Helm and Jimmy Hart’s Wolfpac theme? No. No, there has not.
Kevin Nash’s presentation may not be flashy on the surface, and his nicknames feel increasingly '90s, but he played an enormous part in taking wrestling's childish presentation and making it more adult-friendly.
8/10