Kevin Nash believes a great steel cage match comes down to a simple idea: make the cage matter.

Speaking during the Ask Nash segment of Kliq This, the WWE Hall of Famer explained why he prefers a physical battle built around the steel. For Nash, climbing the ropes to deliver a move raises an obvious question about why a wrestler would not keep climbing and escape.

“You’ve got the same rope, same turnbuckle, but you have now this steel apparatus. And if it was a shoot, that’s exactly what you would do,” he said. “You sure as hell wouldn’t do high spots and go off the top rope. If you can jump off and drop an elbow, you can take another three hops and be over the top.”

Nash pointed to Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody as examples of the approach he enjoys, with the wrestlers making the cage central to the fight.

“There’s only one way to have a cage match. You watch Hansen and Brody, which is a great one, because you just take two big guys and they fight back and forth and they block,” Nash said. “The sooner you can, because you can’t pin anybody, the psychology has to be, I’m going to use this cage as a weapon. I’m going to pulverise them into this cage, because it’s the only intangible that’s not involved in any other match.”

His comments reflect an escape-focused approach to the stipulation, although cage match rules vary and can also allow victories by pinfall or submission.

When asked to choose his favourite cage match from his own career, Nash quickly picked his encounter with Bret Hart, which featured a memorable appearance from The Undertaker.

“My favorite was with Bret, when Taker came through the bottom, which set up ours,” Nash said. “That was some good mid-90s wrestling right there.”

The match took place at In Your House 6 in February 1996, where Hart defended the WWF Championship against Nash’s Diesel character. The Undertaker emerged through the ring and dragged Diesel underneath, allowing Hart to escape and retain his title. The angle helped set up Diesel’s clash with The Undertaker at WrestleMania XII.

Despite his strong views on how the matches should unfold, Nash was positive when asked whether he had ever been involved in a bad one.

“I don’t think you can have a bad one, because everybody goes into the cage,” he said. “Pretty soon it just looks like a bomb went off, and people are just kind of dragging themselves around like a bomb went off in a war movie.”

For Nash, the lasting appeal is the struggle between two opponents and the damage they can do with the steel surrounding them.