Kevin Nash's Top 10 Opponents

WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash aka Diesel recently did an interview with Sports Illustrated for their Weekly Top 10. The Weekly Top 10 was about the top 10 wrestlers Big Daddy Cool squared off with during his career. Just a heads up, he talked about more than 10.

Nash started off by saying he only worked short times with the likes of The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin so he didn’t include them in his list pointing out he had never worked one on one with Austin. Interestingly enough he mentioned CM Punk ahead of his UFC debut. Nash said “I would have loved to have had the opportunity to work with Punk. I hope he takes all the naysayers and shoves it up their a**.”

Nash mentioned that Hulk Hogan could technically wrestle but it’s not what he would like to see. Opposite a Hulk Hogan, Nash enjoyed working with the likes of Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Ric Flair, Lex Luger, Raven, and Jeff Jarrett. Nash credited Ricky Steamboats selling abilities to elevating him before he left WCW originally. With Lex Luger, Nash explained that he never threw the prettiest punch but he really looked the part. Nash explained that Luger was “underrated”.

When stars like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and Rey Mysterio came into WCW in 1996 Nash doesn’t think anybody overrated those guys. Nash stated that they were all “poetry in motion.” Nash pointed out how much he enjoyed working with Mysterio in particular. Fun fact for those that didn’t know Nash was responsible for Mysterio being unmasked while in WCW. Nash was quoted saying:

“I wanted to take Rey’s mask off, but it was a different time,” said Nash. “I wasn’t a true wrestling historian with the history of the mask–or, in later years, the merchandising power of that mask–but I saw a pretty, young Latino man. We didn’t have that, and I thought he could be a crossover star for us. If I had to do it over, of course I wouldn’t do it.”

There was a separate wing for his boys in The Kliq which surely comes as no surprise. With Shawn Michaels and Scott Hall as Hall of Famers and Triple H as a future Hall of Famer apparently they deserve their own list. There was love shown for Sean Waltman (X-Pac) as Nash quoted “There’s no way that I become the wrestler I do without the matches I had early on in my career as Diesel with Sean Waltman”

Nash summed everything up into a top 3 wrestlers that he enjoyed working with. Coming in at number 3 was Bret “The Hitman” Hart.

“I would definitely include Bret Hart in my top three. I probably had a hundred matches with Bret, but we never had one bad match.”

The Undertaker came in at number 2 with high praise from Nash for being a big guy who could do it all.

"Taker was the only big guy who, night in and night out, I could have a match worth watching with. That’s hard to say, there aren’t many big guys like that. He could do everything. Storytelling, his ability to always work scripted, work on the fly, casket matches, gimmick matches, everything.”

Nash had a phenomenal (sorry for the pun) choice for number 1 in AJ Styles.

“AJ Styles is special,” said Nash. “I’ve worked a lot with AJ, and I never had a bad match with him. He was great in TNA. I was in my mid-fifties when I worked with him, but I could still have a really, really good match with him. He’s that good.”