Kevin Nash Gives Insight Into a WWE Run by Triple H and Praises His Leadership

In a new exposé regarding the WWE Performance Center published by The Miami Herald, former WWE Champion Kevin Nash gives insight into a WWE run by Triple H and praises his leadership. Nash and Triple H were once part of one of the most influential groups of friends and superstars in professional wrestling, The Kliq.

When asked about the Performance Center and all the good it can do for the company, Nash explains his thoughts on much more, giving a lot of credit to Triple H (real name Paul Levesque) in the Performance Center’s success. Nash also discusses the current state of the company and what the future holds with Triple H at the helm.

Nash says,

“I’ve been to NXTs. Me and Bret [Hart] did some commentary, and I love it.

I think what Paul’s got going is they include the legends in a lot of things. I just got a call from one of the guys in merchandising. There’s a Topps card set that’s coming out, and they’re including me. They’ve always had Diesel cards, but I don’t think they’ve really ever had a Kevin Nash card. Three of the 500 are going to be signed, and they said, ‘Would you participate and sign these cards?’ I was like, ‘Sure.’

It’s just nice to be included in almost everything now. They take good care of the guys who put the time in for the company. For me, I’ll do anything they need me to do, because they treat us well.

For a long time there, when you were done, you were done, and now you’re still part of the team.

The thing you’ll miss the most. You absolutely will always miss the crowd, that electricity when you come down the ramp. There’s not a drug on the planet that can replace that. The second thing is the comradery with the guys in the locker room. We’re all athletes. We’re all jocks. It’s that jock mentality, hanging out, talking crap, seeing the boys.

Me and Stone Cold [Steve Austin] spent most of WrestleMania [30] in a suite sipping wine and reminiscing. He had a couple of people doing his podcast. It was nice to hangout. Lita did the podcast, and it’s nice to catch up with old friends. WrestleMania is like a reunion for all of us now; we can be part of one of the biggest spectacles on earth.

It’s amazing. When [Paul] first got into the office, we sat down, and he kind of gave me his vision, what he wanted to do,” Nash said. “[Paul] said the biggest problem we’re going to have moving forward is… Talent is always going to be. It’s a talent driven entity… We’re going to produce our own talent. We’re not gonna bring in talent from other places who have bad habits and have to correct them. We’re gonna build an actual productive farm team.

Then he said the NXT arena will look just like a miniature Raw, so when they walk down that ramp… because that’s really what you see. You see the ring, the barricade around you, and when you’re in the ring, maybe 50 rows of people. Where you see the vastness is when you come out at WrestleMania; your walk to the ring. Once you get in the ring, it becomes a very intimate experience, and Paul’s recreated that to a tee.

From a production standpoint, we had guys at WCW who shot Monday and Tuesday WCW, and then Thursday and Friday they shot NASCAR or an Atlanta Braves game. [Pro wrestling/sports entertainment] is very job specific camera work, especially doing the hand helds. To almost be able to know through experience, when you watch a combination where that next move is going to happen and be ready for that shot.

[WWE Executive Vice President Television Production] Kevin Dunn has been inside the truck calling the shots and doing the production for WWE for 30 years. You’ve got guys lugging hand-helds around for 25 years. Sooner or later, they’re going to retire.

So when they built NXT, not only was that place to refurbish your talent but to also refurbish your complete production crew. That whole crew at NXT is a different production crew than the one doing WWE TV programs. They’ve really built the infrastructure deeper. They’re getting people ready to plug in now.

Paul’s done a really good job from a personnel standpoint both wrestling and production. Making sure that happened, that was all his insight. Those are things he wanted to accomplish, and he did it in a very short time.

The next thing was he wanted to build that Performance Center. He wanted to be close to NXT, and he wanted to have a ring where people could practice high flying stuff but also have a degree of safety. So they built that ring, almost like a wire ring, and when you land or over rotate yourself, you won’t kill yourself.

When I broke in, there wasn’t even a doctor. We taped our own ankles. Now there’s trainers, doctors.

Here’s another thing. About [four] months ago I got a letter from WWE. I read it. They’re offering scholarships to guys who’ve worked for WWE that no longer work for them. It’s available for wives of guys who are deceased. It’s financial assistance for their education. So guys who didn’t save their money, they’ve got a chance to go back to school and get a degree and do something else. The company doesn’t have to do that, but they do.

Every year, by January 3rd, you get the Wellness Program letter [from WWE]. If you or you know anybody who has a drug or alcohol problem, the company will pay for [that person getting help].

All these things they do for the guys who’ve paved the way.

People say, ‘Well, you don’t have pensions. You guys don’t have this. You don’t have that,’ and it’s true. We don’t. We don’t have a pensions like the NFL and like Major League Baseball does, but we’re also 1099s. We’re independent contractors. That’s your job to set up your finances. Though, now the company also has people who are financial planners. If you don’t have a financial planner, and you’re one of the young guys breaking in, the company can take care of that for you.

They’ve really done a good job taking care of talent since Paul’s been there.

One of the things is as soon as you put somebody who was and still is a top talent in that position of being your personnel director, in charge of talent relations, then things get done, and Paul’s done a fantastic job.”

You can read the entire Miami Herald piece on the Performance Center here.

Editor’s Note:
Nash giving some mad props to his boy. This makes me excited for the future. Too bad Triple H said that Vince will have to die before he is allowed to take over.