10 Awesome Wrestling Matches That Had Harsh Consequences

There are a number of major criticisms to be thrown at Kevin Nash’s pro-wrestling career, and his inability to draw as WWE Champion is near the top. WWE decided they’d had enough of Bret Hart as champion, so they came up with what they thought was a smart solution. They gave Bob Backlund a transitional three-day reign as champ before gifting Diesel the belt in an 8-second squash match in New York City, but if they thought Hart’s last title run was bad, things were about to get a whole lot worse.

Diesel’s reign was a complete disaster, and it almost ran WWE into the ground. All of the company’s major PPVs saw major buyrate drops during Diesel’s custodianship, with WrestleMania losing 80,000 buys from the previous year, SummerSlam 95,000, and Survivor Series at whopping 126,000.

Absurdly, WWE decided to keep the belt on Diesel for close to a year, despite seeing their financial world come crashing down around them. All of this could’ve been avoided had they nipped his run in the bud earlier on, and they had a great chance to do so at the 1995 Royal Rumble.

There were a bunch of run-ins throughout Bret Hart vs. Diesel, but it’s one of the best matches of Nash’s career. The duo worked a classic big man vs. little man strategy, and while a daft no contest finish reduced its impact, but the match exceeded every expectation. Unfortunately, in keeping the belt on Diesel, WWE effectively doomed themselves to another 10 months of misery, which effectively enabled WCW’s mid-90s rise to prominence as America’s top promotion.