Kevin Nash just took responsibility for one of the most hated decisions of Rey Mysterio’s WCW career — and he still doesn’t sound sorry about it. During the Kliq This podcast, Nash was asked who actually made the call to strip Mysterio of his mask, and Big Sexy immediately pointed the finger at himself.
The question came up while Nash was discussing his history with Mysterio in WCW, including the infamous decision that forced Rey to wrestle without the mask that had defined his entire career. Nash didn’t dance around it.
“Number one, I think I f^cking booked that.”
That alone is a massive admission, but Nash then explained exactly why he wanted the mask gone. According to him, WCW was preparing a major advertising campaign and the people handling it had seen Mysterio without the mask — and apparently liked what they saw.
“We were doing a huge — WCW was doing a huge ad campaign, and they wanted to, because they had seen Rey, you know, the ad people had seen Rey without his hood on, and they want — like, you’re not going to be in Times Square with a luchador mask on, on an ad.”
So Nash’s solution was simple: take it off. He knew the decision was going to piss off people who understood how important masks were in lucha libre, but he clearly wasn’t interested in hearing the cultural argument at the time.
“So I looked at it as, well, I’ll f*cking take his mask off so everybody can see this f*cking — he can always — because, I mean, everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God, you don’t understand the luchador.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, the hair versus mask. Like nobody’s ever f*cking lost their mask before. Like, come on, man. Shut up.’”
That explanation is pretty wild considering how Rey himself has talked about the situation. Mysterio has said WCW didn’t respect the lucha tradition surrounding his mask, and losing it became one of the most controversial moments of his run with the company.
Nash, however, still sees a big difference between Rey Mysterio the performer and Rey Mysterio the merchandise machine. In his mind, the mask never made Rey a star — it just gave him something incredibly valuable to sell.
“But to me, the mask doesn’t make Rey Mysterio. The mask makes Rey Mysterio money because he can sell a new one every f*cking day that he wears on TV.”
Nash even admitted that taking the mask away probably hurt Rey financially when it came to merchandise, but he argued WCW wasn’t exactly built to maximize that kind of money anyway. His goal was to get Mysterio’s actual face in front of more people.
“So, from a merchandising standpoint, I’m sure it f*cking killed him. But it didn’t because WCW didn’t have the wherewithal or the machine to f*cking make that money for him. So I looked at it as, let me get this handsome motherf*cker’s face out there.”
The irony is that WWE eventually went in the complete opposite direction. When Mysterio arrived in WWE in 2002, he revealed that the company wanted the mask back on him, and it went on to become one of the most recognizable and marketable parts of his entire WWE career.
Nash also dropped another big detail about his WCW history with Rey. He said putting Mysterio over clean wasn’t some random booking decision — he wanted the locker room to understand that giant wrestlers weren’t automatically going to crush smaller guys just because of their size.
“I mean, I was the first guy of size that — f*ck me — in the middle of the ring, one, two, three. And that was when I started — I just started getting the pencil and I put him over.”
Nash said he believes the match happened in Sacramento and that the finish was intentionally designed to send a message backstage.
“I think it was in Sacramento I put him over, and I wanted it to be a clear f*cking message in the locker room that we’re going to do clean finishes and the smallest guy is going to — it’s like f*cking baseball. The pitchers do hit home runs. So that was my mentality.”
Nash and Mysterio already have one of the craziest histories imaginable. Rey recently revealed that he actually volunteered for the infamous WCW spot where Nash launched him headfirst into a production truck, and now Nash is taking credit for another moment fans have argued about for decades.
More than 25 years later, Nash isn’t hiding from the call. He says he believes he booked Rey Mysterio to lose his mask, he did it because he thought Rey’s face could be marketed bigger, and he still believes the man underneath the mask was always the real attraction.
What do you think about Kevin Nash admitting he believes he booked Rey Mysterio losing his mask? Was WCW completely wrong to mess with one of Rey’s biggest traditions, or can you understand Nash’s business logic behind the decision? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
