You Won't Believe What This WWE Legend Wanted To Call Himself
Copyright issues for merchandise forced this former WWE Champ to get creative.
Kevin Nash has always been quite the shrewd businessman.
Now, via his 'Kliq This' podcast, 'Big Sexy' has revealed something else: WWE knocked back a big pitch for him to tweak his famous Diesel ring name. It's true. Nash recalled seeing Diesel brand jeans (and other items) everywhere when he was playing basketball in Germany and throughout other parts of Europe.
Kev figured it'd be problematic for the then-WWF to successfully market merchandise items for the Diesel character due to the emergence of that brand, especially if Diesel jeans caught on in the United States. So, he pitched changing his on-screen moniker to "Diezel" for copyright purposes.
Apparently, Vince McMahon said no. In fact, according to Nash, "they (the WWF) looked at me like I was f*cking insane". This is funny for several reasons. Firstly, the company eventually started experimenting with deliberate misspellings for trademarking. Second, "Diezel" was hardly the most out-there name pro wrestling has tried to market.
Nash pointed out that most of his Diesel shirts said something like, "Diesel Power" on them. That was a bid to circumvent legal run-ins with the 'other' Diesel brand.