Kevin Nash has never watched a single episode of Dark Side of the Ring, and he does not intend to start.
The subject came up on Kliq This after the series ran an episode on Ray Traylor, who wrestled as Big Boss Man and Big Bubba Rogers. It aired on Vice TV on July 28, the fifth episode of the seventh season, built around interviews with his widow, Angela; his daughter, Lacy; Jim Cornette; Al Snow; Gerald Brisco; Terri Runnels; and others.
Nash did not see it and will not see it.
“I don’t watch Dark Side of the Ring. I’ve never watched an episode of it, nor will I. I’ve got enough post-traumatic stress in my life for the amount of people that I truly spent time with and cared about.”
He gave his own memory of the man instead.
“Ray was a good dude, man. Ray Traylor was a good man, and just salt of the earth.”
He also gave the account of Traylor’s death that he says he was told at the time.
“I remember hearing that he was just, he came home, he was tired. He sat in his recliner, and he didn’t wake up. And I don’t know what they told on Dark Side, but that’s what I heard.”
Traylor died on September 22, 2004, at the age of 41, of a heart attack, at his home in Georgia. He had been with his wife since high school and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2016 by Angela and their daughters.
His other memory of him runs through the Steiners.
“He lived real close to Robbie Steiner, and we were really tight. We still are. We had breakfast together. I had breakfast with Robbie and Scotty Friday morning in Minnesota before we started WrestleCon.”
“Ray lived in the same, if not on the same block, I know, in the same complex of homes that Robbie did, before Robbie moved out to the lake. Him and Scotty built homes on Lake Oconee.”
“Those are like my brothers. And Ray was a great guy.”
Traylor wrestled from 1985 to 2003 and worked for most of the major promotions of his era. He broke in with Jim Crockett Promotions and was on the road with Dusty Rhodes within two weeks of starting, which is why Cornette has described him as a prodigy. He worked as Big Bubba Rogers as Cornette’s bodyguard, went to WWE and became Big Boss Man, and had runs in WCW and back in WWE through the Attitude Era.
Other wrestlers from that generation have said similar things about the series. Dark Side of the Ring has run since 2019, and most of its episodes cover deaths, addiction, and criminal cases involving people who were working at the time.
The Traylor episode noted that it spent more time on him as a husband and father than on the circumstances of his death. His daughter described him as a big sweetheart and a great dad, and his widow talked about a man she had been with since their junior prom.
It also covered his addiction to painkillers, which several of those interviewed connected to the schedule he was working to support his family, and the more difficult angles he was involved in during the Attitude Era. He held the WWE Hardcore Championship four times and the Tag Team Championship once, and was a King of the Ring runner-up in 1996.
Nash was at WrestleCon in Minneapolis over SummerSlam weekend, alongside Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, and others. He remains a two-time WWE Hall of Famer, inducted as an individual in 2015 and as part of the nWo in 2020.
