Kevin Nash explains why the “Fingerpoke of Doom” was booked in WCW
While speaking at a live Q&A during River City Wrestling Con, Kevin Nash addressed the “Fingerpoke of Doom” spot from WCW. Nash, who was WCW world champion after ending the undefeated streak of Bill Goldberg, laid down for “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan on the January 4th 1999 edition of WCW Monday Nitro.
Here is what Nash stated about the idea…
“I think it was one of those situations where you get a bunch of guys in a room and they come up with an idea that’s kind of really bad.
And because what they want to do is they want to have a six to eight minute match, and THEN I’ll take the fall. Because everybody knows in real life that if you were going to let somebody slide over you, you’d let them punch you in the face for a good eight minutes before you do that.
So I said, ‘if we’re going to do this, why would I let him punch me? Why would I go out there and just let him punch me in the face?’ I said, ‘you’ll get a better response if he touches me and I go down.’
And to this day, they say the Fingerpoke of Doom—if you watch the crowd—it’s the only reason it’s such a brutal thing in wrestling. There wasn’t a soul in that building that called it.
We got them all. We got every one of them. And that was their problem.
And then my favorite thing is that I booked it. I booked me beating Goldberg, and then six days later, I booked me to do the Fingerpoke of Doom.
Instead of being the champion that beat Goldberg, which was a babyface and got to sell merchandise for nine months- which one would you guys rather do? Sell merchandise as the hottest guy in the territory, or turn around the next week and give it to somebody else that has creative control, and he’s the only one that does.”