Reliving A Feud #17: Kevin Nash vs. Randy Savage In WCW ’99
In May of 1999, Kevin Nash was able to win his second WCW World Heavyweight Championship by defeating Diamond Dallas Page at Slamboree. At the same event, Randy Savage was reinstated to compete in WCW when Gorgeous George, his girlfriend, defeated WCW referee Charles Robinson. Yes, that’s true.
During the main event at Slamboree, Savage got involved by hitting Nash with the championship to cause a disqualification. However, Eric Bischoff restarted the match and Nash won the belt. It was clear that Nash would have his first feud with Randy Savage. Savage wasted no time demanding a match with Nash, as he did so on the May 17th edition of Nitro. Savage would do more than just ask, he had Gorgeous George hit Roddy Piper with a crutch and Savage powerslammed Bischoff. Randy almost hit the elbow drop on Bischoff, but Nash came down to make the save. Randy wanted Nash to hand the belt over to him just like he had done for Hogan four months prior. That wasn’t happening this time.
Later on in the same show, Savage attacked Konnan, who was a friend of Nash’s. This was an attempt to get inside of the champ’s head. Guess what? Savage still wasn’t done. Nash had a rematch with DDP in the main event and was attacked by Savage, Bigelow and DDP. After the beating, Savage put makeup on Nash’s eyebrows, cheeks and lips to embarrass the new champion. Savage managed to hit the elbow drop on Nash, too.
Savage would go on a rampage on the following Thunder where he attacked Rey Mysterio Jr., Billy Kidman, Konnan, Disco Inferno and Buff Bagwell all on one show. Nash made reference to Savage going insane on Nitro, where he also tossed insults at Madusa and Gorgeous George. That didn’t end well for Nash as he was attacked by Savage again, who would also put makeup on Nash for a second time.
On the May 31st edition of Nitro, it was revealed that the flying elbow drop was illegal. Obviously, a heel Macho Man who doesn’t care about anything is going to follow that rule. Savage would wrestle Kevin Nash on the show. It wasn’t exactly Kevin Nash, though. Instead, it was a skinny tall guy dressed up as Nash. Naturally, Savage beats the crap out of “Nash” and won with the illegal elbow drop.
The real Nash would appear later on in the show, where he would block Savage’s limo from leaving with a septic truck. With Savage and his ladies in the limo, Nash ended up putting the septic tube through the top of the limo and sprayed everyone inside.
There would be more poop involved in this feud. I can’t believe I just typed that. On the June 7th edition of Nitro, Savage had a bucket of poop with him and decided he was going to get revenge. During the show, Kevin Nash came to the ring with a bag and a chair. Eventually, Savage was in the ring, and a female ended up coming out of the bag. She was able to get the bucket and dumped the poop on Savage. That marks the second time Randy Savage had poop dumped on him.
Later on during the same show, Savage got revenged with the help of Madusa and Gorgeous George. The ladies slammed one off the doors into Nash and trapped him in the limo. Savage is driving the white limo and drives into the limo a couple of times. This all happened six days before their match at Great American Bash. On Thunder, Nash revealed he had a cracked rib along with swollen ribs.
At the Great American Bash, the elbow drop was made legal, but Savage still couldn’t put Nash away. Instead, we saw the return of Sid Vicious to the company. Sid showed up and hit a powerbomb to cause the disqualification and for the feud to continue another month.
On the June 14th edition of Nitro, Nash defended the championship against the returning Sid Vicious. As most Nitro main events finished, this one ended with a disqualification as Randy Savage got involved and attacked Nash. Eventually, Sting ran out and made the save. The following week, tension between Nash and Sting arose as Nash accused Sting of driving the hummer due to Sting coming out of a hummer earlier and not attacking Savage and Sid. Sting assured Nash he wasn’t the driver, though.
Randy Savage would form an alliance with Ric Flair to try and get the belt off of Kevin Nash. The deal saw Savage begin to work with Flair on the condition that the elbow drop would be reinstated. On the June 28th Nitro, Savage and Sid were recruited to be lumberjacks for a title match between Nash and Flair…. David Flair. Thankfully, Nash retained and fought everyone off. Nash also took Gorgeous George after the match. However, as Nash was going to his car, he saw Sting’s face in the hummer side mirror adding more tension between the two.
On the July 1st Thunder, Savage was seen freaking out over where George could possibly be and demanding that Nash give her back to him. They meet up with Savage and Sid jumping Nash and taking George back. However, at the end of the show it was revealed that it was actually Torrie Wilson and not George because as Torrie put it, Nash knew this would happen.
A controversial moment takes place on the July 5th edition of Nitro. At the end of the show, Savage finds George and Wilson in Nash’s locker-room, which Nash told him George would be in. Savage proceeded to slap Wilson and shove George roughly into the hallway. If you go and watch the show, you will see that they face to black very quickly. That makes me believe that wasn’t approved of considering this is a PG era for WCW.
On the Thunder prior to Bash at the Beach, Nash revealed that the tag match where he will team with Sting against Savage and Sid will now be for his championship. Which means whomever pins him will win the championship as well. Nash was aware that he would likely be defending the belt against three people at the show. Why not just make it a four way bout?
At Bash at the Beach 1999, Nash was about to powerbomb Savage but Gorgeous George low blowed Nash and allowed Sid to slam Nash, which lead to Savage to hit the top rope elbow drop to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship for his fourth and final time. This marked the end of the feud between Savage and Nash.
The next night, Savage would drop the belt to a returning Hulk Hogan wiping out Savage’s main event heel push.
Bob’s Opinion:
Well, this was an interesting feud to say the least. I’m not saying that in a good sense, by the way. The fact the feud started off with constant use of poop to advance the feud is just ridiculous. These two are hall of famers and used “poop” more than once to advance their storyline. I mean, why would a wrestler even think of dumping poop on their opponent is beyond me to begin with. The part where the lady came out of the bag to dump the poop on Savage was actually entertaining and a unique idea for the time, though. Regardless, I’ve typed poop too much in this article.
I didn’t understand why they would have Savage ram the limo into Nash’s car six days prior to their Great American Bash showdown. Considering how vicious that would be in real-life, it just shows the audience how fake and scripted pro wrestling is. Besides, you then have Savage not win the championship at the event. Why wouldn’t you just have Savage to advantage of the clearly weaken and hurt Nash to win the belt? You could still have Sid debut and all that. Instead, they continue the feud with a tag team feud. I’ve never liked tag team feuds for the major singles championship.
The decision to put the belt on Savage at BATB makes sense only because of who returned the following night on Nitro for a heel to drop it back to the Hulkster. The quick title change basically tossed out any chance of Savage to be a top heel at the time and he would feud with Dennis Rodman before leaving in August. Nash retired in August as well for about two months after losing a retirement match to Hogan at Road Wild.
I could look at the positives that the feud provided. We got the major hummer angle that never was resolved and was forgotten about eventually. Plus, it saw the return of Sid Vicious! Wait, that doesn’t exactly sound like good things. Huh, maybe this feud just sucked. Yeah, it did. I wasn’t a fan of most of what they did. Crazy Randy Savage is entertaining but this feud just failed to deliver high quality stuff.
What are your memories of the Savage vs. Nash feud from WCW ’99? Feel free to leave them below.
Thanks for reading.
— Bob Colling (@bobcolling89 at wrestlecaps.com)