Kevin Nash believes he and Scott Hall helped change the financial landscape of professional wrestling by ensuring other wrestlers understood what top stars were earning.
Speaking on Kliq This, the WWE Hall of Famer reflected on the guaranteed contracts and “favoured nations” clauses he and Scott Hall negotiated in WCW. Hall’s deal ensured his salary would increase if WCW signed another wrestler to a more lucrative contract.
Kevin Nash said the real impact was not simply securing those contracts, but openly discussing them with the rest of the locker room.
“If we didn’t push for guaranteed money and favored nations, if we didn’t do all those things, and the key is, it wasn’t the fact that we got the deals. It was the fact that we went into the WCW locker room and made our deals well known to every top guy in that locker room,” Nash said. “I would just say, ‘Dude, how much are you making? I’m making 800. I’m making this, you need a f**king raise, we’re working in the same f**king matches.'”
Nash argued that making salary information more transparent encouraged other wrestlers to negotiate better deals and helped prevent the industry from reverting to a single-company market after WCW folded.
“So no, it wouldn’t have happened. Because once WCW was dead, if we hadn’t made sure everybody was smartened up, then it would have gone back to WWE being the only game in town.”
The former world champion also discussed pay structures during wrestling’s boom period, saying he had no issue with fellow top stars earning similar money.
“I had absolutely no problem with Bret, or Taker, or Scott, we could have all been like a Magic Mike, where we all make the same 250, and it wouldn’t have mattered to me, because everybody was busting their ass.”
Kevin Nash Looked Back On The Stacked Rosters In Both WCW & WWE During The Monday Night Wars
Kevin Nash also looked back on the fierce competition for television time during the Monday Night War, noting that both WCW and WWE featured stacked rosters filled with future Hall of Famers competing for a limited number of featured positions.
“People can say whatever they want about WCW. But you know what? There’s a lot of guys busting their asses. There were that many Hall of Fame guys on a roster fighting for six spots. It just ain’t gonna happen.”
He added that the same situation existed in WWE, where stars such as Steve Austin, The Rock and Triple H were also competing for top billing during one of wrestling’s most successful eras.
