JBL says there wouldn’t have been an Attitude Era if Scott Hall and Kevin Nash stayed in WWE
While speaking on the Something to Wrestle podcast, JBL (John Layfield) was asked, “How different would wrestling be if Scott Hall and Kevin Nash had stayed in Connecticut [WWE]?” Here was JBL’s response…
“It’d have been terrible. I think terrible because you would not have had the Attitude Era. I don’t see any way you’d have had it.
You’d have had Rocky Maivia come along. He’d been Rocky Maivia. I don’t know if he’d ever been The Rock. You’d have had Stone Cold come along, but he wouldn’t have been Stone Cold. Well, Stone Cold Steve was already there. He’d have been The Ringmaster. You wouldn’t have had that there. There’s no way. I mean, that was created. Scott and Kevin created all of this.
Now, with kudos to Eric Bischoff for bringing them in [to WCW] and helping with it, but those three created this. If Scott and Kevin don’t jump, Bischoff has nothing to create with.
And that’s what changed everything. I mean, we had all these guys. Hunter [Triple H] was an aristocrat. Steve was The Ringmaster. DX was a Rockabilly and a road agent. Kane was a dentist. I mean, we had all these guys, but in horrible characters.
You had Scott and Kevin, and they’re Razor and Diesel, whatever that is. So, I don’t think you’d have had any of this. I don’t think it ever had the meeting where Vince says, ‘I don’t know what to do,’ and Chris Chambers draws on a napkin the scratch logo that they would use.
And you start seeing the Attitude Era come around. But it all started with Scott and Kevin. Without Scott and Kevin jumping, I don’t know what we’d have had, but we wouldn’t have had the Attitude Era.”