Before I start: This had been bothering me for a while, one of those "pet peeves" that wouldn't go away, so I finally took the time to write all this down. FRAT incoming, you have been warned.

So, one of the most-famous botches in pro wrestling history is when Sid Vicious is in WCW feuding with Kevin Nash and says the line "I'm twice the man that you are, and I have half the brains that you do." I see it pop up every now and again in lists like "The Worst Botches" or "The Worst Promo's". It is near-universally derided as one of the dumbest things a pro wrestler, ANY pro wrestler, has ever said.



I have always, ALWAYS thought that, given the correct setup and time to explain, that line is golden.

I'm playing armchair booker now, so here's my idea.

Think of it this way: Sid Vicious and Kevin Nash are both very big, very powerful men that rose to the heights of the pro wrestling business. Sid Vicious was able to do it because he was tough, Kevin Nash was able to do it because he was smart.

It's the classic feud of the tough, everyman face vs. the smart, cheating heel. Don't hide the fact that Sid Vicious is dumb, embrace it. But do it like the song that says "If you're gonna be dumb, you've gotta be tough."

People have told him he's too dumb all his life, but now he's beginning to realize a few things: he's too dumb to quit. Too dumb to know when he's been beaten and needs to submit. Kevin Nash is smart enough to run away from his problems so he can live and fight another day, Sid Vicious stands up to his problems because that's the only way he knows how to.

Play on the fact that sometimes, what a smart man considers dumb, the normal person considers brave. And that Sid Vicious accepts that he does these things because he's dumb, because people have always told him he's dumb, and not because deep down he's tough and brave. Play it like Sid doesn't believe in himself but is trying his best anyway, so the fans start believing in Sid and wanting him to succeed.

Play on the fact that since forever Sid Vicious was a psycho heel: say that since the beginning Sid has been looked up at (his height) while being looked down on (his lack of intelligence). Say that the fans never loved him and the wrestlers didn't respect him, he was just another "big dumb guy" in a world full of them.

So he decided that if he couldn't be loved, and he couldn't be respected, he could at least be feared. Then you've also got the redemption angle thrown in, where he realized that he took the easy way out, he didn't put in the hard work of earning the fan's love and earning the wrestler's respect. But now he knows better. He learned that lesson the hard way, but it's a lesson Kevin Nash knew from the beginning. He just chose to ignore it.

While Sid learned things the hard way, Kevin Nash was using his looks and his brains to make himself into a mega-star. Make it semi-shoot and say that he's only half as good of a wrestler as he is a politician, but in today's industry that's no longer a bad thing and in fact is the best thing going. He got to the top of the industry faster than almost anybody else in history, but he did it the wrong way: through lies, deceit, cheating, and knowing whose ass to kiss and whose back to stab at exactly the right time.

With his brains, Nash could've made a difference in the industry. A real difference, and maybe could've helped implement some real change. Not only has he not done that, he's made the biggest problems in wrestling, the politicking and the "us vs. them" group mentality, even worse.

If he was a better man he'd have used his star status to make a positive change in the industry that made him a millionaire, instead he just continued to take advantage and cut corners and screw the industry so he could buy himself another car, or another house, or maybe a new yacht.

And here's the hook of the feud: Sid Vicious realizes that he is too dumb to make the positive changes Nash could have made if Nash cared about anyone other than himself, but he ALSO realizes that if no one stops Nash, Nash will just keep lowering the bar in order to make himself more millions.

Borrowing a line from Game of Thrones, think of it like Sid Vicious has realized that Nash is willing to burn the pro wrestling industry to the ground so long as it means he can be King of the ashes. And Sid knows that if someone as dumb as HIM can realize that, the industry is in real danger.

So Sid is out to save the pro wrestling industry, not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the only thing he knows. Wrestling has been the only thing that was ever good to him and now it's being torn apart by the corruption, and the politics, and the scheming. And nothing will stop him from stopping Nash.

Because even a dumb man knows how bad things will get if Nash continues unopposed. And all the smart men are too busy abandoning a sinking ship so they can live another day. But Sid is too "dumb" to know any better and plans to go down with the ship, trying to bring it back up, so that even if he fails at least he can say that he didn't die without a fight.

He cannot give back to the industry in the way he knows Kevin Nash could have. He is sad because even a "dumb" man knows what kind of man Kevin Nash could have been if he had decided to be a positive force for change. But if he can't convince Kevin Nash to become the man he should have been, he can damn sure protect the industry from the man Kevin Nash has become.

Thus, I give you: "I am twice the man you are, and I have half the brains that you do."