Kevin Nash has been officially booking WCW since the beginning of the year. This week on Nitro he had a chance to showcase some of the changes in the WCW product to a larger audience than usual since Raw was preempted.
One change is the increase in skits and out-of-ring segements during Nitro. The first hour of Nitro had only two matches, the second hour had two matches, and the third hour had only three matches. During several of the matches, they cut away for commercial breaks or aired totally unrelated skits.
The hierarchy of the roster has also become clear. Nash has aligned himself politically with Hollywood Hogan. When they were political foes fighting over power, Nash vied for top billing on cards. Now he has become subservient, even handing the WCW Title to Hogan in deference to his status.
The allies of Nash and Hogan are clearly winners while those who aren’t allies are having to fight to keep a prominent role. Wrath, whom Nash has never been a fan of dating back to their days in the WWF together, found himself jobbing to Nash in a short match on Nitro, ending his winning streak. Now Wrath also finds himself on a hiatus from television.
Ric Flair, who has had battles with Nash behind the scenes, has made out okay thus far. He is such a proven drawing card that it’s difficult to justify not pushing him. Flair main events a PPV a week from Sunday against Hogan. Hogan is expected to win, but Flair even being in that position is a surprise. Once SuperBrawl is over, though, Flair and the Horsmeen may be relegated to mid-card status.
Bret Hart is the biggest loser thus far. He is slated to main event Halloween Havoc ’99 against Hogan in a WCW Title match. Between now and then, rather than build up Bret, Nash has pushed for a plan that would degrade Bret. Nash has told people he doesn’t believe Bret “still has it.” To make that a self-fulfilling prophesy, some suspect Nash wants to have members of his “new clique” beat Bret between now and Havoc. That way, if the buyrate is low, Bret will “be proven to be a has-been” and Nash can justify not pushing him. Why would Nash want to get rid of Bret? Bret isn’t his ally and the more power non-allies have, the less leverage he wields.
Bret isn’t even going to be on SuperBrawl the way the line-up now looks. Bret was scheduled to defend the U.S. Title at SuperBrawl, but Nash booked him losing the title to Roddy Piper on Nitro on Monday. Now no. 1 contender Hall can beat Piper at SuperBrawl, adding one more title to his clique of friends.
In WCW there is very little loyalty to the company. The atmosphere just hasn’t bred such an attitude. Instead, the attitude is “get what you can while you can.” Despite their truce of sorts, Hogan is leery of Nash’s master plan (to get all of the belts, bury everybody else, and gain leverage over Eric Bischoff). Hogan continues to have problems with Nash’s heel group booking themselves in ways that put themselves over as being cool, thus encouraging fan cheers, rather than “showing ass.” Critics of Nash say he continues to portray himself as a heel on the air, but pushes himself as being so cool that he “shows up the babyfaces.”
Hogan and Nash, if push came to shove, would probably have to admit they think more of Vince McMahon than Eric Bischoff. Some go so far as suspecting that Hogan was instrumental in securing Giant’s WWF contract. Nash has openly said he wants to return to the WWF when his WCW contract expires. He’s confided in some he wants to end his career as “a gray haired Big Daddy Cool.” That’s years away because of his current contract.
Lex Luger, Sting, Scott Steiner, Buff Bagwell, and Scott Hall are the closest part of the new Nash clique. Luger and Hall, though, do not get along, which makes things more difficult for Nash as he tries to keep everyone on his side content.
Nash and assistant booker Dallas Page have stayed friendly with Goldberg. Goldberg, though, has not joined any cliques. He remains his own man and as he gains more political savvy, he could be a strong opposing force to any of Nash’s monopolizing attempts.
Nash’s speech to wrestlers last week was snickered at for its hypocrisy regarding doing jobs and being on time. Nash’s leadership skills will be tested. He is unpopular enough in certain cirlces that the current non-clique wrestlers hope Nitro ratings don’t do well while he is pushing his crew to the top.
