Finger Poke of Doom DID NOT KILL WCW (read description) Part 4 - The Philosophy!

Kevin Nash on the Finger Poke of Doom (WWE.com) [1/4//13] WWE: Kevin, what do you think about Jan 4, 99, as the night that changed wrestling? NASH: Oh, I disagree. WWE: Please elaborate. How do you mean? NASH: The year that [Mike] Tyson showed up for WrestleMania [XIV] in 98 changed wrestling. Who thinks Jan. 4, ’99, changed wrestling? A lot of [know-it-all fans]? WWE: You could say, in a spiritual sense, the momentum went to WWE. NASH: There’s nothing spiritual about it. When Tyson came to WrestleMania, Vince knew that everybody was going to be watching. They put a movie-trailer-quality piece before every match that caught everybody up to date if you hadn’t been watching the show every week. It got a great buyrate. When I watched that WrestleMania, I said, “We’re dead in the water.” That’s what changed wrestling. WWE: Can’t disagree with that. NASH: You’re not talking to some [know-it-all]. You’re talking to somebody that was in the process, in the middle of it. We could never out-produce Vince. Our production was never anywhere near Vince’s production. And then Vince went edgier than we were, & all of a sudden standards & practices started pulling the cord back on us. Raw became the hip show & we became the un-hip show. WWE: So you don’t think Jan 4, 99, played a big role in the Monday Night War? NASH: The “Finger Poke of Doom” was nothing. The “Finger Poke of Doom” was just trying to realign The nWo to face off with Goldberg. I love how the story of my life is how I beat Goldberg to turn around & take the “Finger Poke of Doom” a week later. Boy, that did me a lot of good. When you look at how people perceive the whole thing, it’s ridiculous. WWE: Why do you think fans were upset with it? NASH: The number one problem people have with the “Finger Poke of Doom” is it “got” everybody. And nobody likes to be “got.” So, of course, [know-it-alls] are going to hate it the most because they never called it. They didn’t see anything coming. WWE: How far in advance was the “Finger Poke of Doom” planned? Was it because you heard the Raw taping results of Mick winning the title? NASH: We were more worried about when Sable would come out, because those quarter-hour ratings of Raw would go through the roof. It was planned for about two or three weeks. It got to the point where people were disenchanted because Goldberg was undefeated. When we went to WWE territory people were chanting “Goldberg sucks.” They started pumping in the “Goldberg” chants & it became a situation where they were trying to fabricate a situation that had been organic. WWE: Kevin, what are your overall impressions of that night in general? NASH: It’s like a situation where you call a play in football & it doesn’t work out. In retrospect you wouldn’t want to run that play, but you don’t get that chance. Live TV is live TV. You don’t get a replay. You don’t get any of those in life. WWE: Do you think WCW closed because it wasn’t run well or do you think it was a series of