Kevin Nash was supposed to tear up Augusta Expo. That he didn’t is still a mystery to me.
One thing I’ve learned in my year in the pro rasslin’ business is that the other business that I commit a lot of my time to – the politics business – is a lot less political.
In politics, at least, you’ve got two main teams, the Democrats and the Republicans. In rasslin’, there’s no I in team, but there are enough Ms and Es to go around to make life difficult for anybody trying to make sense of it.
For example, me. I had the honor of being a member of the creative team putting together the storylines for last year’s Awesome Wrestling Entertainment “Night of Legends” pay-per-view. It was in my living room where AWE CEO Marvin Ward and I came up with the main event – “Big Sexy” Kevin Nash vs. Ricky Morton of The Rock-n-Roll Express.
It was at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Waynesboro where we came up with the idea to have Nash tear up Augusta Expo, not literally, of course.
Ward, in the storyline as an ally of Nash, was to turn on the seven-footer toward the end of the main event to side with Morton, and with the heel turn of his ally, Nash was going to suffer a controversial pinfall defeat.
Enraged at the turn of events, Nash was then going to lash out at everything that he saw on his way back to the dressing room, then file his frame into a limo as the credits rolled.
That was the plan as of the afternoon of the show. Somewhere between the final booking meeting and the lights going on, things got changed.
I’ve heard from fans who questioned the way the main-event match ended – with Nash power-bombing Morton into oblivion, then leaving the ring to get counted out by special guest referee Ronnie Garvin.
As one of the bookers, I had questions, too – as in, when Nash walked by me backstage, I asked Ward, standing next to me, “Did that just happen?”
And I’d thought Senate filibusters made no sense.
Nash was in WWE two nights later. Morton, for his part, will be back in the area Friday night, wrestling on the LTW Entertainment show at Waynesboro High School against youngster Gregory Vercitti.
If nothing else, I have to say that I like the way what I expect will be Morton’s last pay-per-view main event ended – with his hands raised in victory.
Morton was great to work with in the months leading up to the pay-per-view. He drove up from Bristol several times for video shoots that turned into Rasslin’ 101 for me. I learned more in those pow-wows than I did in a couple of semesters studying politics at UVa. as an undergrad there.
That politics stuff, I’ve come to learn, that’s easy. You want to take on figuring out something that’s a challenge, try getting two wrestling superstars to agree to play out a storyline that you’ve written and been executing for six months in front of a live crowd and a national-TV audience. I’ll take figuring out a trillion-dollar budget deficit any day.
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Chris Graham
