People think that Kevin Nash has been unimportant in the great history of the sport of wrestling because he has been a "poor draw" as both WWF and WCW champion. In fact, this statement is some indeterminate distance, which I will arbitrarily denote as "large", from the truth.

There.

Here is an outline of my argument. Nash left the WWF for WCW, and:

· His entrance sparked the nWo angle, which would never have worked with just Hall.
· This catapulted a number of careers (Bischoff) and revitalized others (Hogan).
· Which gave WCW revenue with which to hire a roster of hundreds, launching and revitalizing even more careers (Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero).
· This resulted in WCW becoming the dominant wrestling organization in America for a while.
· Which in turn resulted in the WWF rethinking it's entire roster and marketing concept.
· Which resulted in the launching of a number of careers (the Rock) and revitalizing of others (Austin, the NAO, HHH).
· Which gave the WWF the money to hire a lot of the good wrestlers away from WCW (Benoit, Jericho, Malenko).
· Which coincided in the WWF becoming the dominant wrestling organization in America.

All because of Kevin Nash. Why do I think the (nWo) angle would never have worked with just Scott Hall? Well, Kevin Nash had some things going for him that Scott Hall never had:

· He was a bigger, more impressive physical specimen.
· He was more popular.
· He had won every title the WWF had, and in impressive fashion.
· He kept himself sober.
· He could play not only every backstage game yet known, he knew a few he invented himself.

So, sports entertainment as we know it owes a tremendous debt to Kevin Nash, because without him, none of the reshaping of the sport in the US from 1996 on might have happened.

Now, there are those who judge him by things like match ratings, workrate, or his success while a booker, I say: you're missing the point. Kevin Nash got booked (sometimes by himself) to beat people up and look good doing it. This may not have been wrestling, in the pure sense, but people liked to see it.

If Kevin Nash doesn't jump to WCW... the Hogan heel turn would have been different, or never tried... Steve Austin might have had DiBiase speaking for him until he died the inevitable "Million-Dollar Corporation" career death... the WWF might not have ever tried boosting their match quality or reality-based, edgier characters, because without ever losing to WCW in the ratings, the WWF would not have ever changed.

Without the roster shakeups that came from WCW's new found competitiveness, the general stagnation of the mid-nineties might have continued. And the WWF wouldn't have made back to network television, or become publicly held... so WWF stockholders might owe Kevin Nash a little thanks, as well.

The entire hierarchy of successful wrestlers, the legacy of modern storylines, the advent of both network contracts and public holding of wrestling organizations may all ultimately be traced to Kevin Nash leaving to go to WCW.

Well, that proves that - kind of.

I read years ago that Nash got into wrestling when Dustin Rhodes saw him while Nash was serving as a bouncer at a bar. Rhodes invited Nash to come try out at WCW, and the rest is history...

Say... you know...

People think that Dustin Rhodes has been unimportant in the great history of the sport of wrestling because he never became the star his father was, or became one of the top few names in the business.

But he and Big Sexy might just have saved wrestling.