Kevin Nash Speaks - Leaving TNA, Retirement?, Atmosphere

Scott Fishman and Nathan Starling spoke with Kevin Nash Wednesday night on Ringside Radio (ringsideradio.com) in one of his first interviews since his contract with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling expired. Here are the highlights...

On his TNA contract expiring, reason he is no longer with the company and where he goes from here: "I was never given a contract to sign. We never had the discussion. I think that they were involved in a couple of other things. I mean TNA is a small company and I think some other things came up and I just slipped between the cracks. Even before that I signed my contract 21 days after my deal was up. I guess maybe they thought I would just wait patiently. ….Somebody has owned me since I was 30 years old. I just wanted to see what it was like to wake up in the morning and not have to answer to somebody. It is pretty sweet."

On if Shawn Michaels retiring has any influence on a decision: "When it comes down to it if I worked a minimal schedule I would work five days a month with TNA and those five days are basically 70 miles from my house so it's not like I'm on the road. If something happens at home I could be home in an hour. It's a completely different scenario and a completely different situation. It wasn't like I was going to Australia or anything like that. It's good to be home right now."

On if he considers himself retired: "Am I retired? Name one wrestler that is retired…..So I don't think any of us ever retire. I just think you just take time off. I've seen Hulk do it for years. Take time off and low and behold a four or five guys get hurt some place and your value goes up 20 percent."

On the atmosphere his last night in TNA: "Storyline wise it was great. I mean Sting and I were leaving. Emotional wise it was pretty easy to play the part that night. I got buddies there. One thing in this business is you never say goodbye. Somewhere down the line you see each other again. Life goes on."

On Immortal: "I was there the night they put it together. If they go with heat and real heat and let these guys run the company for quite some time. The thing about the NWO is we probably got heat on the company for six months. Now the biggest problem in the business right now is Fortune got heat off the old ECW guys. They got a good set of heat on those guys on TV when they beat them up and split everybody open. The next week those guys came back and made a comeback on them. So any heat they got the week before was nullified. Joe Hamilton told me a long time ago when I was breaking in was, ‘The thing about heat is it's like a hot air balloon. The longer you let that flame go underneath that hot air balloon the higher it rises. Every time a babyface touches that hot air balloon, as far as touching the heat or touching the heel, you draw back down. If you go week in and week out of going back and forth, the balloon never leaves the ground. The thing about heat is you know it works when the babyfaces in the company walk into the booking room and start complaining. When the guys that aren't the marks start complaining you know that the marks are already sick of it. That leads the buyrates and that leads to people start pulling for the babyfaces to pull it together. If you appease the people and the babyfaces, you will never get heat. Heats is always drawing money."