Kevin Nash has officially entered the Avery Styles drama, and Arik Cannon probably isn’t going to enjoy what he had to say. Nash didn’t just defend AJ Styles’ son—he absolutely torched Cannon, mocked his height and told him to “know your role.”
Speaking on Kliq This, Nash went straight for Cannon over the controversy that started when the independent wrestler accused Avery of not helping with setup and teardown work at a GCW show.
Nash sees a much bigger problem for Cannon here. AJ Styles is still connected to WWE, and Nash thinks publicly going after his son is a pretty good way to burn a bridge in an industry that doesn’t have many of them.
“#1, Arik Cannon, they just retired AJ and he’s got a job at NXT. So I don’t know if you f****** know how this business works, but there’s only so many bridges. And if you burn three of the six and you haven’t been anywhere for 10 f****** years, there’s a reason you’re setting up the ring, motherfucker. I never set up a ring in my f****** career. 5’7″!? God bless him. We’re done, we’re done. He should be happy to be putting up the ring at 5’7″.”
Nash wasn’t buying the “pay your dues” argument either. His question was pretty simple: if a promotion already has people responsible for building the ring, why should Avery jump in and start doing their job?
“Are you supposed to come into a territory and take someone’s job that it is to set up the ring? Are you supposed to clusterf*** the system? Are you gonna stop doing what you’re doing and take me under your wing and let me be your ring-put-together apprentice, or are you gonna do what you’re gonna do?”
Nash then pointed out that putting an inexperienced wrestler on ring construction isn’t necessarily some harmless rite of passage. If Avery tightened a rope incorrectly and somebody got hurt, Nash argued, the same people demanding that he help would probably blame him for that too.
“God forbid if AJ’s kid f****** tightens a rope too much or doesn’t, and causes someone to get injured. Because it’s AJ’s kid, f****** put the heat on him. Doesn’t it make more sense for AJ’s sons to not be part of the process and just be a part of the process on the canvas? Because Nattie thinks he’s got what it takes on that canvas to do something more so than the 5’7″, 10-year veteran that’s bitching about him not doing it.”
Then Big Sexy completely stopped pretending this was a polite debate and really buried Cannon. Nash even joked about what might have happened to Cannon if this situation had gone down during a different era of wrestling.
“LOL. LOL. My d*** and b**** down your f****** 5’7″ throat. Like, f****** come on, dude. Know your role.”
“In the old days, if he got brought up, someone like Robbie Steiner would sugar the f*** out of him. I don’t know the dude, and I promise I won’t go out of my way to. If, I guess, some 5’7″ guy charges me, I’ll say, ‘Watch the boot.’ I don’t know.”
This entire mess started with something considerably less dramatic. Nattie Neidhart praised Avery Styles and Marcus Mathers after watching their GCW match, only for Cannon to accuse Avery of avoiding setup and teardown duties afterward. AJ defended his son, Cannon kept making his case, and Nattie eventually admitted she wished everyone had just handled the disagreement privately.
That opportunity is long gone. What started as an argument over whether AJ Styles’ son should have helped with chairs has now reached Kevin Nash telling Arik Cannon exactly where he thinks his 5-foot-7 frame belongs in the wrestling hierarchy. This stopped being a “pay your dues” debate somewhere along the way.
What do you make of Kevin Nash unloading on Arik Cannon? Let us know in the comments below.
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