WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash discussed various topics on his Kliq This podcast, including his final negotiation with former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon before leaving for WCW in 1996.
Nash said, “I told this to Vince when I was leaving, and he said, ‘We’re family.’ I said, ‘No, we’re not family. My family is sitting in f***ing Arizona right now, and my wife’s about to give birth to my son in f***ing three months. And I need to know how much I’m going to make in order to start — it’s very hard to financially plan when you don’t know whether you’re going to make $1 or f**ing $2 million.”
On McMahon’s reaction:
“And I just said, ‘I’m not even going to tell you what it is.’ I said, ‘I’ve already written it down.’ And I gave it to him, and he read it — and it was great, because it was so classic Vince. He read it, he kind of dropped his head, and he turned his back and took like four steps. And kind of like he was pondering it. It was great. He comes back and he was like, ‘Yeah, I can’t match that.’”
On whether he’d have stayed if McMahon matched the offer:
“F**k yeah. You got to realize that on TV f**king in WCW, is the Dungeon of Doom. You know? ‘Sullivan and my son.’ I’m the hottest I’ve ever been. I’m I finally f***ing, I’m no longer a baby face. I’m working with f***ing — I’m gonna stay in the top, wouldn’t be one of the top five guys.”
On the WWE schedule:
“F***ing at that point man, we’re already so f***ing operately conditioned, it was just like — I did it for f***ing $700[000]? I mean, knowing that you’re going to get $750[000] knowing that it’s guaranteed? Because then you can, when you get — and you’re getting paid every two weeks. Like, you can run a household. You can take money and put it into f***ing — all you could do when my first three years in the WWE is, you could pretty much put your money in a SEP. That was your best option financially for taxes. I was incorporated, but it was just — you never knew how much. And then every f***ing receipt that you had to have, you know? And then finally we got a platinum card. And then the platinum card would give you the breakdown, and then you would put everything on your platinum card. But you would literally come home at the end of the month and f***ing have a bag of receipts that you would have to handle. If you were f***ing conscious and conscientious. But if you were conscious of what the f**k you were doing and knowing that you were gonna make you need to f***ing have these write-offs. And I ran every f***ing scam you could. I f***ing rented the vehicles because I had a Diners Club, and then that made the loss damage waiver free. So at the end of the f***ing 24-day run, everybody f***ing gave me cash for what the bill was. And I wrote the whole f***ing thing off, and I was only paying about f***ing a fifth of it.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
