WWE: Why Triple H's Old Friendships Could Ruin WWE Monday Night RAW

As the 52-year-old Kevin Nash limped out to the ring on last week's Monday Night Raw—to a rather tepid reaction from the fans in attendance—one drawback of Triple H's on-screen and off-screen rise to power became abundantly clear.

Indeed, Nash's return to WWE in 2011 in a henchman-like role to Hunter and Stephanie (complete with a laughably bad dye job, which was ordered by WWE management in an attempt to make the older Nash appear much younger) can probably be attributed mainly to HHH's influence. Triple H has always stuck up for, and tried to help, his good friend of nearly 20 years.

Hey, these Kliq members always look out for each other (just be grateful that even HHH wouldn’t try to bring Hall or Waltman back at this point.) 

In this respect, HHH may be letting his personal feelings blind him to the reality of the situation: Nash is a tired, largely apathetic performer who can't offer WWE much outside of the initial nostalgic thrill.

And as TNA—and their obsession with signing and filling up their shows with famous relics of wrestling’s past who subsequently flop massively—has shown, there's only so much good that can do for a wrestling company.

In fact, I'd say Kevin may have already outstayed his welcome in WWE after his decent, and very, very limited in role in the "Royal Rumble" match back in January.

Nash's first promo back wasn't very good, either. Despite an impressive introduction from Justin Roberts, who noted all of Nash's accomplishments, including being a four-time WCW champion and former WWF champion, the fans were, as noted, rather indifferent to him.

He certainly wasn't treated to anything close to the same star reaction he received at his surprise entrance in the "Royal Rumble" match.

Indeed, the fans in the arena were so underwhelmed by Kevin that they instead amused themselves by chanting “What?” every time he finished speaking. Even the normally cool and calm Nash got noticeably flustered and put off by it.

Aside from flat fan reaction, Nash delivered what was simply an achingly dull and monotone promo as he explained his actions at the end of the "SummerSlam" PPV (when, as most people know, he appeared out of nowhere and took out new champion CM Punk, allowing the opportunistic Alberto Del Rio the perfect shot to cash in his "Money in the Bank" title shot and win Punk's belt).

While the angle itself is mildly intriguing (did Triple H really put Nash up to it? Or did Hunter's wife, Stephanie, as has been subtly hinted, sneakily send the text from her husband's phone instead?), Nash, for his part, did very little to stir up interest in it.

Indeed, the droning Kevin was dying out there until CM Punk's music hit and the ex-champ got into a heated verbal argument with the man who screwed him over the night before. With righteous anger and some very witty one-liners, Punk livened up the failing skit considerably and impressively managed to turn the whole segment into the highlight of an otherwise mundane Raw.

Punk was not shy about dredging up Kevin Nash's patchy and political past in wrestling (including bringing up Nash's notorious comments in the mid-1990s about legendary WWE main eventer Eddie Guerrero being a "Vanilla Midget") and called him out on being washed up and out of touch with the current wrestling climate (“It's not 1994 any more, it's 2011!”).

Nash couldn't really muster a decent defense of himself against these charges and didn't appear to have any good comebacks, aside from a rather tired and clichéd-sounding line about Punk being "indyriffic," which honestly sounded more like something out of Michael Cole's repertoire.

How great was Punk's performance? Frankly, Nash, long considered a very good promo guy in wrestling, got powerfully and embarrassingly upstaged by the younger man. He seemed utterly out of his depth going one-on-one with Punk, like he was exactly the washed-up has-been Punk claimed he was.

Going by the miserable look on Nash's face at the end, I'm guessing he realized it too.

Of course, while Punk may have management save the promo, he's had his work cut out for him when it comes to the actual one-on-one grudge match with Nash, which, yes, is currently being planned by WWE management for either the next PPV or an upcoming episode of Raw (I reckon, if the two have to have a match, it would be better to just do it on Raw in a couple of weeks and get it out of the way as quickly and painlessly as possible).

Hey, Punk may be an extremely talented wrestler, but I have big doubts about whether he could carry the largely immobile Nash to anything remotely watchable.

By all accounts, Kevin is a complete physical wreck these days and, since his relatively minor role in the "Royal Rumble" match, hasn't offered a decent wrestling performance in a long, long time.

There's also the fact that Nash has a well-documented aversion to jobbing (there were so many incidents during his TNA run over his unwillingness to lose or put anyone over the right way that it become a running joke and fans wondered what excuse he would come up with every PPV to avoid laying down) and, when it inevitably comes time to put Punk over, it's highly questionable whether the difficult, egotistical Nash will be willing to play ball.

Is Kevin Nash, by himself, enough to ruin Raw?

Probably not.

But it's highly doubtful his presence will help WWE's flagship show.

Maybe HHH should have thought twice before deeming his old pal fit for a regular on-screen role.