DR: Let's jump right in. Would you ever be interested in working with McMahon again down the line?

KN: Oh yeah, I enjoyed working with Vince. Creatively, we never had any problems. I left there for money. But I know he's not going to take me (and be stuck) with these giant contracts, so looks like I'll be sitting at home getting paid for the next 11 months, which is fine with me. You know, let me get this right, I get paid 2 million bucks if I work the next 10 months, or I could sit at home and make the same amount of money.

DR: It's old news, but what's your take on the David Arquette World Title angle?

KN: It was horrible. I told him that a lot of guys work hard, there's still some prestige in the belt. When you've got David Arquette and Vince Russo - two guys who have held the World Belt, it's no wonder why our ratings went to hell.

DR: Do you think that was Russo's idea or something handed down from above?

KN: I think it was Russo's.

DR: What's your take on the XFL?

KN: I watched a couple of games, but I'm not a football fan, I don't watch the NFL. I've watched more NFL than I have XFL.

DR: Are you enjoying the NCAA Basketball Tournament?

KN: Yeah. I like Stanford. Duke doesn't match up well... they're too small.

DR: Did the fake Diesel bother you?

KN: No, it was a compliment to me. Name another time in the history of this business when two guys left the Federation, and they tried to make impostors of them.

DR: Do you think the nWo was the best idea for an angle ever?

KN: It revitalized the wrestling business.

DR: Do you think that did or that ECW did?

KN: ECW is Dead.

DR: Well, sure, but before they died they brought a new style of wrestling to the forefront.

KN: ECW has great finishes, but it was ridiculous. They're all small. Name a guy. Mike Awesome was a giant in ECW, and he came to our league and everybody went 'Oh God, I thought he was 6'8.' On top of that, they were stupid enough to put him with me his first night - somebody that's a foot and a half taller than him. He's a great guy, he's talented, but most of those ECW guys are too small.

DR: Is being small a big problem in this business?

KN: Look at Malenko, Saturn, Benoit, Jericho... they're in the same spot now as they were in WCW, but with better production. They're not any higher up in the card that they were with WCW. They're all still mid-card guys because they're all, you know... The only time they're going to be main event guys is when they work against main event guys. They're all great hands, all great talents, but the bottom line is this: to me, to be successful in this business, when you walk through an airport, if you're not a wrestler, someone should think that you are. It's the luck of genetics, I guess.

DR: What's your take on Hulk Hogan?

KN: He's a friend. Good guy, legend. The Babe Ruth.

DR: The screwjob at Bash at the Beach with Hogan and Jarrett and Russo, a lot of people thought it was a work, but it looks like it was a shoot after all. Did you have a feeling that is was?

KN: I knew it was. I talked to Hulk that night. I mean, Hulk and I went through a lot of **** early, but we became really good friends. He wanted creative control. He didn't mind doing a job. He asked Russo what he had to do, he asked 'I'll do a job tonight, what do you have for me?' and Russo said 'well I don't have anything for you.' So Hogan said 'well I've got creative control, that's why I have it so I'm not in the hands of idiots like you.'

DR: What's your take on the Jerry Lawler/Kat situation?

KN: Kudos to Lawler because they were gonna fire his wife. You're not gonna back Vince down.

DR: Would you have done the same thing?

KN: My wife would have never been in the business.

DR: What's your take on the wrestling internet media?

KN: I think it's bogus. If it was policed and had some responsibility to the journalism, then that's fine. But until then it's f*cking bogus. I've had sh*t written in there about me that my wife had read that wasn't true. It messes with people's lives. The thing that always kills me is everybody in the sheets buries this business. Like no matter what, it's never any good. They'll try to find a negative in it, but sooner or later there's not going to be one. There's not going to be a business, so what the f*ck are they going to do for money? Huh? What are they going to say? 'My resume is that I wrote some xeroxed piece of sh*t for the last 10 years?' What the f*ck is their resume going to say? They didn't work for anybody, they worked for themselves. Might as well have been j*ckin' off if they're going to have this much on their resume. They're f*ckin around and burying the business, burying all the guys. When I was up and coming, and I started, they praised me. I needed a break, needed a break... as soon as you take a break, they hate you. Just like an actor. If you're Arnold Schwartzenegger, they'd say 'Oh, he's a sh*tty actor.' Who gives a f*ck? He makes 20 million dollars a movie. I never said I was a great worker. I never said I was a match of the year guy. F*ck, people buy my sh*t. Sorry if you don't like me because you're f*ckin 5'5" and you don't get laid everyday.

DR: If you wrote a column on the internet, what would your first one be about?

KN: P*ssy. I know more about that than anything else.

DR: Is charisma more important than workrate?

KN: Absolutely. It's always been that way, look at Gorgeous George. There were guys back then that could work. George was one that, if you look back at that era, he was the sh*ts. He had a gimmick. Pro wrestlers will always be pro wrestlers, but if workers got over there would be sell out houses in Iowa and Iowa State with a shoot f*ckin wrestling match. Nobody wants to see that sh*t. They want to see showbiz.

DR: What was it like booking?

KN: I never had control. No matter what I did, it ran through errors, and it wasn't my show. They went out and shot somebody in the head and gave me the pistol and my thumbprint was on it. I never had complete control. The only I ever run was the one in Indianapolis. I actually wrote, produced, and after that they went 'Uhhhhh.' Maybe they thought it was too good.

DR: What could WCW have done to compete instead of end up being sold to the WWF?

KN: It's never been run like a business since I've been there. Johnny Ace comes back to book and all of a sudden Animal's on TV. Animal hasn't been over in 10 years. That's the problem. So if you're a young guy in the locker room like Billy Kidman, you're thinking 'I'm never going to get a break because someone else is coming in and bringing nine of their friends in. It was never about talent and who was over. In the WWF, Vince don't put up with that sh*t. If Rock pulled a power play, do you know where he'd be? The Rock would be doing movies. Vince don't take no sh*t. He never has.

DR: Take me through how was the nWo idea was presented to you and Scott.

KN: Eric asked if I had seen any of the Japanese invasion angles, and I had seen them on tape though they were hard to understand because you can't understand the commentating. Eric said 'it's basically the same thing - you & Scott are gonna come in and act like you're gonna take over WCW.' In retrospect, I used to sit there and say 'the only reason the nWo angle ever worked was because of the perception that we were really the WWF. Everybody we put in was from the WWF, except The Giant. So the perception was that we were from the WWF. The sh*ttiest thing is - imagine this - two top guys come from New York to another company. There's 70 guys surrounding the ring with me and Scott with baseball bats and the crowd actually believes that the guys with the baseball bats could beat the whole company's ass. What does that say about your company? It says that you don't have anybody.

DR: Do you think it ran long enough, or could they have done something different with it?

KN: What it should have been was the split-up would have been me, Scott, and X-Pac to form the WolfPac. We would have had 18 months there. (X-Pac) can work, Scott can work, I can beat people up, so we would have had enough angles there for another 18 months. But they were notorious for hotshot booking, they always have been, from Dusty to everyone. They never paid attention to details. All the small intangibles that belong with long angles they never did. We'd get to TV, it would be 6 o'clock, and they wouldn't even have a show. They had a sold out United Center with a $480,000 gate and they didn't even have a show. It's 6 o'clock Monday. Right now, I think New York's shows are hard to watch. Last week, let me get this right, Debra is The Rock's manager; why doesn't The Rock just say no? What's Rock's interpretation of the fact that Debra was late to the building with her husband? And why didn't Debra go down to the ring at the end with Rock? You're booking and giving me questions without any answers. And the questions come from the fact that they're not paying any attention to what they're doing. That's what we (WCW) did. How about this one? WCW when they first started doing the security camera thing. So WCW goes to the building and puts in security cameras and feeds them to the truck at every show? When does this start, Sunday Night? Now you've got Bagwell with a handheld, and that's fed to the truck? It's a camcorder! How's that fed to the truck? And you've got these interviews where the guys are talking to someone off screen. I looked at this and thought 'what are you doing?!' So now you've created four different points of view on a television show. As I'd sit there writing the show, I'd say 'how's the camera there?' Just like The Larry Sanders Show. You don't have to explain why there's a camera backstage, the only time you see live action is when you're on the set with Sanders when he's doing the show. It's a television show. The announcers ask 'how do I call it?' Don't say anything. If it's written well enough, you shouldn't have to comment at all. How is it that one time in the back a guy gets jumped, and we see it at home, but no one sees it on a monitor at the show? It's a mystery the whole show. I went to them about four months ago and said 'Why don't we do this: since it's a work, why not have 12 rows deep of people, and put green screens around them. Computer digitize the whole thing. Do it front of 400 people in the building, pay them $50. Now you go into your archives, take your beauty shots from different arenas, and tonight - from the studio, do the show. Why don't you just say you're in Tibet? Everything's a work, why can't that be a work? Now you put in a sound stage with your sets - commissioner's office, locker room. It becomes a television show, and that's what it is. The reaction to this idea was like I was speaking f*cking Latin. What I tried to explain to them was the reason why people don't watch our shows? Because the production quality is so bad, it makes everything else that sh*tty.

DR: It sounds like you still have a passion for this?

KN: Yeah, I do. I love it. But I was smart enough to save my money, I drive a '93 Bronco I paid for with my '93 Summerslam check. I don't spend money, so I'm ok.

DR: Would you ever start your own fed?

KN: I'm one of the boys, I know what *******s they are.

DR: But knowing that, wouldn't you treat the boys right?

KN: Everybody's a mark, so guys would ask why they wouldn't get pushed, and you tell guys why and it's because they suck. Then they hate you. They'd ask 'how was my match?' 'It was brutal.' They'd get mad at me for saying it, so then they wouldn't ask me.

( March 2001)