Slam Wrestling interview- 12/05/04
All in the family for happy Nash
By TIM BAINES- Ottawa Sun

To say Kevin Nash is feeling good these days ... well, that might be an understatement. He's working again as one of "The Kings of Wrestling" ... he's watching his eight-year-old son grow up ... it's all good.

And he's involved in the main event of TNA's Turning Point pay-per-view tonight. Nash will team with Scott Hall and Jeff Jarrett vs. Jeff Hardy, A.J. Styles and Macho Man Randy Savage.

"I've got a lot of mileage on me, but I'm feeling pretty good," said Nash on the phone the other day. "When I first broke in, I'd already had seven knee operations (from basketball). I was limited physically by a bad knee. But those are the cards that were dealt to me.

"I'm 45 years old now, but I look in the mirror and I see the body of a 35-year-old guy. I'm fortunate. I can sit back and work when I want to work and not work when I don't want to work.

"I'm a dad and a husband. It's a 90-minute drive each way (to TNA's studio in Orlando), so I'm home in the morning and home at night. It's the best possible situation."

He's more limited in what he can do in the ring, but that's not such a big deal.

"I don't think doing flips off the top rope has ever drawn money," he said. "I've been in a lot of bar fights and it's pretty much punching and kicking. I don't remember flying off the top rope."

Nash says some of today's wrestlers don't understand the tried and true formula that is wrestling.

"When I broke in, all the guys would say that less is more. A lot of these guys think more is more.

"Years ago, my four-year-old punches me in the nose. You sell it. You go, 'Ow!'

"Sometimes, these guys don't sell. They're so consumed with getting everything possible into an eight-minute match."

And instead of cutting anything out, wrestlers just speed it up. Nash is happy to be along for the ride with TNA, a company he says has a load of potential.

"Basically, I'm working on a handshake agreement with Jeff (Jarrett)," he said. "I work month to month. Jeff is a friend of mine. We're trying to build the company ... and get a better time slot.

"We work in front of a small studio audience, maybe 1,500 people. It's not like walking out in front of 60,000 people at WrestleMania in Toronto, but it's still electrifying in front of a live audience.

"Some of the young talent in TNA is incredible. They just need exposure. Competition would help (WWE). I look at it as if everything on the road was a Mercedes S class, then Mercedes S class wouldn't be so special."

Nash says his favourite matches are: Survivor Series against Bret Hart, In Your House against Shawn Michaels and Hell in a Cell vs. Triple H. And he remembers his first match, tagging with Corey Pindarbus vs. Brad Armstrong and Tim Horner.

"It was pretty well rehearsed," he said with a laugh. "But it was pretty miserable. My partner missed (an opponent) by about eight feet off the top rope."

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