STW - Nailz [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Nailz

Kevin Wacholz was born on April 17th, 1958 in Bloomington, Minnesota.

He started wrestling in 1982 in the AWA as Kevin Kelly, a babyface midcarder. By 1986, he was a top heel and challenged for the AWA World Heavyweight Championship. He used the name, "Mr. Magnificent" Kevin Kelly. 

When did you first meet Kevin?

In 1987, he was managed by Sherri Martel and regularly issued arm wrestling challenges. This led to a feud with Tommy Rich, who answered one of his challenges on an edition of AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN. Rich appeared to have the contest won, when Martel interfered on Kelly's behalf. In retaliation, Rich tore off her dress. Rich would then dominate a series of matches between the two 

After Martel left the AWA, Kelly took Madusa Miceli as his manager. He often teamed with Nick Kiniski as "The Perfect Tag Team" to contend for the AWA World Tag Team Championship.

Madusa, who would later become Alundra Blayze in the WWF said about him – He was very quiet intense, he reminded me of Jesse Ventura a lot, but not his speaking ability. When he would crack a joke, he had a very tight smile and you knew it was genuine when he did laugh or smile

(I contacted Madusa, and asked her for any comment on him and she gave me permission to include her comments)

He left the AWA before it folded in 1991, and wrestled for independent promotions

At this point, he was kind of the maybe stereotypical blonde haired, big guy that we sometimes would see in the 80s. Did you think that he had any star potential?

Wrestling as Kevin Kelly, he received a tryout match on June 6, 1989 at a WWF Superstars taping in Madison, WI, defeating Tim Horner. The next night he defeated Jim Powers at a Wrestling Challenge taping, but was not signed to a contract that year. 

What led to his tryout, and why wasn't he signed at that time?

From there, Kevin went to Japan for about a week, working for FMW. He worked against, and teamed with Dick Murdoch a few times.

After the AWA folded, he received another tryout match, this time at at a WWF Superstars taping on May 6, 1991, defeating Brian Costello. The following night at a Wrestling Challenge taping he defeated Gary Jackson in a dark match 

After he that was signed and not long after, he became Nailz. Nailz was a former inmate, he would wrestle in the traditional orange jumpsuit that inmates would wear. Talk about how the Nailz character was born, and why was he picked for it?

When he would talk, his voice was digitally altered, his real voice didn't sound anything like how he sounded on WWF TV. Why was that done and how was it done?

We would start seeing promos where he alleged he was abused by former prison guard The Big Boss Man during his incarceration. 

He also claimed to be innocent of his crimes, which we never heard what those crimes were.

What did you guys discuss those crimes being and why was none ever mentioned?

After the Big Boss Man's victory over Dave Roulette on the May 30th episode of Superstars of Wrestling, Nailz came through the crowd and attacked Boss Man, handcuffing him to the top rope before repeatedly hitting, and choking him with his own nightstick 

Was there any long term plans for Nailz, or was he brought in just to feud with Big Boss Man?

How did he get along with everyone when he came in?

Nailz got established by beating several jobbers when he came in, and he then worked with and beat Virgil on several house shows, which led to his first WWF pay per view match at SummerSlam 1992, when he defeated Virgil by TKO

He lost his first match in the WWF to Kerry Von Erich by DQ, on June 22nd

From there, he worked Jim Duggan on a few house shows, before starting to wrestle Big Boss Man pretty much exclusively through July & August, with Boss Man winning pretty much every one of those matches by DQ

Nailz continued in September, even beating him in 3 cage matches.

Nailz was involved in a few interesting 6 match tag matches on the house show loop in October. He teamed with Kamala & Razor Ramon to lose to Ultimate Warrior, Big Boss Man & Undertaker in 4 separate matches

From there, Nailz got 4 World Title shots against Bret Hart on different house shows, but lost all of those matches.

Interesting match, Bob Backlund beat Nailz on October 23rd, 1992 in Pittsburgh

From there, Nailz worked a few matches against Ultimate Warrior on house shows. Warrior won all of those matches

After that, Nailz worked for about a week straight on house shows against Undertaker, losing all of those matches.

We saw a few confrontations between Nailz and Undertaker on TV, seemingly teasing a feud between them, but that ultimately didn't end up happening.

From there, at the Survivor Series 1992, Big Boss Man beat Nailz in a nightstick on a pole match

Big Bossman pinned Nailz with the Bubba-slam in 5:43 in a night stick on a pole match. Bossman came down with the stick and hit Nailz a few times, Nailz got it away, then Bossman made a comeback and scored a clean pin. Considering the respective positions of each on upcoming shows, this result was something of a surprise. * 

You weren't there at the time, but do you think Vince had given up on Nailz by that time, and that's why he didn't win this match?

Nailz last WWF match came on December 13th, 1992 when he lost to Big Boss Man in a Lumberjack match

Next came the incident that probably a lot of you are listening to hear about, Nailz vs Vince McMahon

It happened on December 14th, 1992.

Meltzer reported - Probably the most talked about item of the past week revolves around the firing of Nailz (Kevin Wacholz) from the WWF on 12/14. It has been confirmed by many that there was a physical altercation between Wacholz, 34, and McMahon, 47. Wacholz had not talked about the incident publicly as of press time, apparently on advice from his lawyer, although he filed a police report immediately after the incident. The only official Titan word that I know of from last week was that a memo was released late 12/14 that Wacholz was terminated immediately for unprofessional conduct. 

Apparently Wacholz, who lives in Minneapolis and had a reputation as a street fighter and had won a tough-man contest in the Twin Cities before becoming a pro wrestler in 1984, was meeting with McMahon in a locker room at about 4:30 p.m. before the television tapings that evening in Green Bay. A few Titan officials who were near the room started hearing loud shouts coming from the room. 

According to one source, some thought it was just another wrestler shouting really loudly while doing a promo, but there was a very audible "I want my f---ing money." Apparently the argument was involving Wacholz' payoff from the Summer Slam PPV show, which he had apparently just received and thought was too low. After the argument grew more heated, those listening heard what sounded like a punch or a thud, and some WWF officials opened the door to find Wacholz on top of McMahon, and he had his hands around McMahon's throat, with the latter helpless. The two were then pulled apart by four agents.

When did you first hear about this & what did you hear?

Meltzer went on to report - 

"The discussion was about money," WWF spokesman Steve Planamenta said. "I guess he wasn't happy with his pay. What happened after that is he jumped on Vince. Police came and then we have a police report that alleges Vince did things that were a fabrication."

A police report was filed two days later by Officer Scott Semb of the Brown County Sheriff's Department listing Wacholz as the victim and McMahon as the suspect in an alleged sexual assault. In the report, Wacholz claimed he pushed McMahon away, knocking him to the floor. At that time agents and wrestlers came in and separated the two. The police report said that at the time the locker room door was partially open and the victim (Wacholz) believes the three "witnesses" may have seen or heard something. Wacholz claimed it was the second time McMahon assaulted him, the first being last month in Madison Square Garden.

WWF official Earl Hebner said he was five or six feet away, looking through the door, which was open, when the incident took place. Hebner said that McMahon and Wacholz had been arguing for 45 minutes to an hour about Wacholz' Summer Slam payoff. Wacholz apparently just received the payoff and was complaining it was too small and according to Earl Hebner, demanded more money. 

"He (Wacholz) launched across the room, grabbed him by the throat and threw him down," said Earl Hebner. At that point, Sgt. Slaughter, Gorilla Monsoon, Dave Hebner and Arnold Skaaland came in and pulled Wacholz off McMahon. "Kevin ran to the phone and called 911 and told the police to come down because he'd been sexually assaulted," Earl Hebner recalled. "Not a chance. There's no way. He couldn't have pulled out a gun as fast as Nailz was on him."

The police arrived 15 to 20 minutes later. Listed in the police report were three witnesses, Robert R. Remus (Sgt. Slaughter), 44, of Weston, CT, Arnold Skaaland, 67, of Elmsford, NY and Owen J. Hart, 27 of Calgary. The case was turned over on 12/15 to the Brown Country District Attorneys office. McMahon, listed as the suspect in the case, had not been charged as of Monday. 

Dan Klares Associates, a public relations firm that handles Titan Sports, made a statement on 12/21 to the New York Post that the wrestler (Wacholz) was trying to extort $150,000 from McMahon.

For whatever this is worth, the general consensus within the wrestling business is that Wacholz' story isn't believed. However, in many quarters and among many wrestlers, both in the WWF and out, Wacholz has turned into something of a hero, in bar talk, "for having the guts to pop McMahon." While the bitterness among so many toward McMahon in this business is not a surprise, I was surprised at the reaction of so many toward the incident. If what Wacholz claimed in the police report is true, so be it. If it isn't, I'm sorry, but McMahon doesn't deserve to be put in this position, no matter what he may have done or who he may have upset in the past, for something he didn't do. Titan Sports is turning more into a jungle of litigation than it is a wrestling company.

Bret Hart, who was there that night wrote in his book about the incident - 

Vince had his problems to deal with in Green Bay. For the past six months, he had been building Kevin Wacholz as a psycho-killer ex-con named Nailz. Kevin cornered Vince in his office and screamed at him for fifteen minutes about all the lies he’d been told. His yelling got so loud I had goose bumps up my back as I listened from down the hall. 

Suddenly there was a loud crash—Nailz had knocked Vince over in his chair, choking him violently, until Lanza, Slaughter and a swarm of agents teamed up to pull him off. Nailz walked out and immediately called the police and accused Vince of making a sexual advance to him. Vince was charged with sexual assault (the charges were dropped shortly thereafter). 

Some of the boys actually admired Nailz for snatching Vince and then covering his tracks well enough not to get charged himself. The last thing Vince wanted was yet another scandal.

Meltzer reported in late-February - Based on an item in the New York Daily News, it appears that Titan Sports is going to sue Kevin Wacholz (Nailz) for slander and while Titan wouldn't confirm this, others have reported to me that a suit has been filed, and the story indicated it wouldn't be the only one. The lawsuit involves the incidents on 12/14 in Green Bay, WI which resulted in Wacholz' firing. Wacholz was reportedly involved in a heated discussion about money and grabbed McMahon and threw him down physically when it was broken up.

Wacholz then called the police and reported McMahon attempted a sexual assault on him. The Green Bay District Attorneys office refused to prosecute the claim due to a lack of evidence. Wacholz' claim was generally not believed within wrestling and Titan provided an eye-witness, referee Earl Hebner, who claimed to have seen the entire incident and said that Wacholz claim was false. 

He reported a few weeks later - McMahon is suing Kevin Wacholz (Nailz). According to the complaint filed in Brown County Circuit Court in Wisconsin, McMahon claimed Wacholz perpetrated a violent attack and assault upon him with great force and violence. As a consequence of the attack, the suit claims, McMahon suffered pain and bodily injury as well as embarrassment and humiliation. 

McMahon also claimed the defendant filed a false police report claiming he had been sexually assaulted and the police report compounded the anguish and humiliation because the police reported was published in various media outlets. 

Meltzer reported in April - WWF has contacted several of the leading indie promoters and told them not to use the name Nailz when using Kevin Wacholz. I'm told they don't seem to care about usage of any ex-WWF ring names of other former employees 

After that, Nailz started to work indy shows as “The Convict”

From there, in May at the WCW Slamboree pay per view, Nailz made a surprise appearance, as The Prisoner, and he wrestled Sting

Sting pinned The Prisoner in 5:16 after a clothesline off the top rope. Fans chanted "bulls--t" when they saw Nailz come out instead of Norton. A waste of Sting. -* 

Norton had walked out over a money dispute 

Meltzer reported at the end of May 1993 - Titan attempted to get default judgements in both its case against Mushnick and also its case against Kevin "Nailz" Wacholz, in both cases claiming the defendants failed to respond to the suit within the prescribed period of time. In both cases Titan's request was turned down. In the case of Wacholz, the judge ruled that the process server didn't take adequate measures to reach Wacholz. 

The summons for the lawsuit was served to Wacholz' sister rather than Kevin himself. According to the newspaper article than ran about the court hearing, Wacholz has filed a countersuit against McMahon and Titan Sports based on his claims made regarding the incident in Green Bay last December. 

In the August 1993 WWF Magazine, there was a very surprising piece done.

A statement read: "The World Wrestling Federation Magazine has always been published with entertaining and informative articles for you, our fans. However, in the upcoming issues, TitanSports Inc., and the World Wrestling Federation will address some malicious issues that have confronted and unjustly challenged our company over the past two years. There have been libelous remarks and vicious newspaper and magazine articles written. 

The tabloid media has had a field day with us, and we have been subjected to tactics bordering on McCarthyism. We have spent a great deal of time, effort, energy and money combating the lies and innuendo, countering with our own lawsuits, and we are continuing to investigate the reasons for this witch hunt. Now it's time for us to tell our story about Tom Cole, Rita Chatterton, Murray Hodgson, Superstar Billy Graham, Dave Schultz and others who have aided and abetted in spreading gossip and lies. Starting next month, we will do just that." 

On the Kevin Wacholz (Nailz) situation, where Wacholz attacked and was choking Vince McMahon after an argument, and where Wacholz then called the police and claimed he was retaliated from an alleged sexual assault, which has since resulted in a lawsuit and a countersuit: "We sued him and depositions will be going forward during the month of July. I have no idea why he acted that way. He acted like someone who had just gone off the deep end. I'm not quite sure what the motivation was, or what happened, but I can tell you there were several witnesses who saw and heard the attack and know the lack of truthfulness that Kevin reported, and that testimony will be made very clear." 

We'll get back to that later 

That takes us to Vince's steroid trial. At the end of July, Nailz was called in to testify.

Wacholz said that he was with Rick Rood on June 6, 1989, in Madison, WI at a WWF television taping when Rood's conversation with McMahon took place. He said that Rood and he were together. His version of the conversation was that McMahon introduced himself and asked Rood if he was working out regularly and if his workouts were going good. He asked Rood if he was going to put some size on. Rood said he was working out as hard as he could. He told Rood that in the position he was in, he needed to be bigger. 

Rood said he was working out as hard as he could but the travel and work was hard. According to Wacholz, McMahon said, "I suggest you go on the gas." Rood said he wasn't interested in going on steroids at that point. When asked why, Wacholz said he couldn't recall. When O'Shea brought up wanting to have kids, he said, "Oh, Rude said he was trying to have a child and didn't want to take steroids."

Wacholz then said in January 1992 in Florida, he went to a television taping to meet with McMahon to discuss the Nailz gimmick. He said he and McMahon were the only ones in the conversation, that Patterson and J.J. Dillon were outside the door. He said McMahon told him he was going to promote him as a convict and that no one could promote a convict like the WWF. Then Wacholz said McMahon asked him if he worked out and if he was on the gas. 

When Wacholz said he wasn't, McMahon chuckled and allegedly said you should be. You need to be as big as you can be. Wacholz said that he was 300 pounds and wouldn't go on steroids to get a job. He allegedly responded by saying sometime life isn't fair. The ball is in your court. Do what you have to do. (Remember this was January 1992 when all the steroid heat was at its peak and testing had just begun, so the idea McMahon would have at that point directly told anyone to use steroids is exceedingly hard to believe.)

McDevitt brought up that Wacholz was suing McMahon. He then said that he wasn't even in the WWF in 1989 because he had no WWF contract until March 1992, but Wacholz said he worked the tapings in 1989 on a verbal agreement. McDevitt brought up Wacholz did a deposition as part of the back-and-forth lawsuits involving McMahon and himself and when he talked about the conversation at that point about promoting the convict character, in the deposition he never talked about steroids. 

The deposition said that conversation was about what the character's outfit would look like and McMahon told him he could be a main event character if he did a good job and talked with him about how wrestlers are portrayed as showmen, not as wrestlers. 

McDevitt brought up not once in his Grand Jury testimony did he bring up that story and said that the Nailz outfit didn't even show his musculature, although Wacholz said it did. Wacholz said he never used steroids in the WWF.

Brevetti then asked him if he had any animosity toward McMahon, and he said, "No" (later in the case, Brevetti joked the reason he gave that answer was because he didn't know what the word animosity meant). When asked if he hated McMahon, he said, "Yeah."

The Torch reported in May of 1995 - that WWF and the attorney for Kevin Wacholz (Nailz) reached an out-of-court settlement on the lawsuit and countersuit. It all started in December 1992 when Wacholz jumped on Vince McMahon and started choking him when Wacholz complained about his payoff for the SummerSlam (reportedly an $8,000 payoff for a horrible match with Virgil) at Wembley Stadium. Wacholz then called 911 and claimed McMahon had sexually assaulted him and what he did was in response to it, a story that basically nobody there believed. 

McMahon sued Wacholz for filing the police report against him alleging McMahon as a sexual criminal. Wacholz filed a counterclaim claiming he was sexually assaulted. Titan had attempted to keep Wacholz from working as Nailz after he was fired since they came up with the gimmick. He pretty much did so anyway except in WCW where he worked one shot as The Prisoner. Wacholz then made headlines testifying in the McMahon trial that he was there when McMahon told Rick Rood to get on steroids and that McMahon told him he needed to get on steroids. 

The former could at least be a possibility since Rood testified to something similar but claimed to have assumed McMahon meant steroids without saying steroids. The latter, McMahon telling Wacholz, given the time frame of the conversation, seems pretty unbelievable. In January, both sides' attorneys reached settlements on the respective suits in that both would drop their cases with no money changing hands but that Wacholz would be allowed to work as Nailz from that point forward. Wacholz refused to sign the settlement, not wanting to drop his case against McMahon but Titan's attorneys have asked the court to enforce is saying since his lawyers, acting as his counsel, agreed, that should be it. 

What's your memories of that?

Over the next few years, Nailz would work random independent shows and wrestle some in Japan.

Interesting note, he wrestled as Kevin Kelly in a dark match on Nitro on October 6th, 1997 in Minneapolis, defeating Yugi Nagata

Then on April 17th, 1998 he wrestled on a WCW house show as Nailz and defeated Barry Darsow, the former Demolition Smash & Repo Man

That would be his last match until August 25th, 2001 when he wrestled as Nailz and lost to Matt Burns by DQ.

That would be his last singles match. He wouldn't wrestle again until August 31st, 2019 when he wrestled as Kevin Kelly in a battle royal in England. He didn't win

It's probably safe to say that we'll never see Nailz in the WWE Hall of Fame

What do you think is Kevin Wacholz's legacy in professional wrestling?