Kevin Nash held the WWE (fka WWF) Championship as Diesel for 358 consecutive days, starting at a house show in New York City on Nov. 26, 1994, and ending against Bret Hart at the 1995 Survivor Series pay-per-view. While Nash performed admirably as WWE’s top star, his reign took place during one of the company’s worst periods as it was hampered by the Steroid Trials, a weak roster and legitimate competition from WCW. Nash revealed during a new episode of his Kliq This! podcast that his reign was supposed to last significantly longer.
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As Nash previously explained in an interview with Sports Illustrated back in 2016, McMahon pitched him the idea of facing former boxing heavyweight champion Mike Tyson in New York City’s Central Park for charity. Nash declined the idea as he believed Tyson would easily knock him out, which was followed by McMahon revealing he was dropping the WWF title to “The Hitman” despite initially planning for Diesel’s reign to last for several years. Based on the quote, it’s unclear if McMahon booked Nash to lose purely because he wouldn’t box Tyson.
“He (Vince McMahon) had told me that I wasn’t going to lose the championship for years. No matter what, I wasn’t going to lose the championship for years. Then he starts telling me about this idea he had where I’m going to box Mike Tyson in Central Park and it’s for charity. He’s going on and on about this. I said to him, ‘Mike Tyson will knock me the f— out. He could conceivably kill me.’ I’m a boxing fan. A big motherf—er like me, he can put two or three f—ing shots, he does the f—ing old hook to the body, hook to the body, uppercut. Goodnight Irene. It’s not going to do me any favors,” Nash explained (h/t WrestlingNews.co).
“I said, ‘I’m not f—ing fighting him for less than five million dollars. We go back and forth. Then he clears his throat and says, ‘By the way, you’re going to drop the belt to Bret at Survivor Series.’ I said, ‘You f—ing sat here for 45 minutes and told me this f—ing horses— about boxing Mike Tyson to f—ing tell me that you want me to drop the f—ing strap to Bret. Motherf—er, you could have done that on a goddam telephone.’ Like, I don’t care. You can have it. Are you kidding me?” he continued.
After losing back-to-back title fights against Evander Holyfield and getting his boxing license revoked, Tyson would wind up on WWE programming in 1998 to serve as the enforcer for the WrestleMania XIV main event between Shawn Michaels and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. While initially positioning himself as an ally for D-Generation X, Tyson would align himself with Austin by the end of the night and count the pinfall to crown the “Texas Rattlesnake” as the new WWF Champion.
