Scott Hall Tribute

By Jeff Knapp, Lawrence Lang and Mike Rifkin

Last week the wrestling world lost a tremendous prefromer. Scott Hall passed away at the age of 63. Scott Hall was the first ever four time WWE Intercontinental champion. In WCW Scott Hall was a former seven time tag team champion, television champion and United States champion. Scott Hall was the first WWE wrestler to jump ship to WCW and along with Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash formed the NWO, one of the greatest factions of all time. 

Scott started out in the mid-1980s wrestling in Championship Wrestling from Florida, the CWF which was a NWA territory at the time. He was trained by Dusty Rhodes, Mike Rotunda and Barry Windham. From 1984 to 1985 he traveled around Florida with CWF, the Carolinas in Mid-Atlantic and the Kansas area with Central States Wrestling.

His 1^st break came in 1985 when Scott joined the AWA where he wrestled as “Magnum” Scott Hall due to his likeness to Magnum PI and then later as “Big” Scott Hall. During his time in the AWA he traveled to Japan and wrestled for New Japan Pro Wrestling. 

While in the AWA, Scott was able to form a tag team with Curt Hennig and in 1986 defeated Jimmy Garvin and Steven Regal for the AWA World Tag Team Championship. After the two men broke up, Scott would get his shot at the AWA World title Stan Hansen and Rick Martel, coming up short.

Eventually Scott left the AWA in 1989 and joined the NWA. At this time is was NWA’s World Championship Wrestling. He was one of the younger talents that the NWA were trying to bring into the company, along with Brian Pillman and Sid Vicious. 

In 1990, Hall took a break from the NWA and toured Japan and the Caribbean, where he won his 1^st major singles title by capturing the WWC Caribbean Heavyweight Championship in March of 1991. In April, he lost the title and returned to NWA/WCW and changed his gimmick to the Diamond Studd and was paired with Diamond Dallas Page as his manager, who also gave him the toothpick gimmick. Scott, who formed tag teams with the likes Kevin Nash and Raven, who were wrestling as Vinnie Vegas and Oz and Scotty Flamingo, stayed in NWA/WCW until his departure in April 1992 when he headed to the WWF.

In May of 1992 Scott debuted in the WWF as Razor Ramon, an amazing homage to Al Pacino in the movie Scarface. This is where Scott had some of the greatest matches of his career. He had memorable matches and feuds with Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Diesel, Goldust and Vader. During his time there he will be mostly remembered for his Wrestlemania 10 ladder match against Shawn Michaels for the WWF Intercontinental Championship, which has become the gold standard for one on one ladder matches to this day. 

On May 27, 1996 Scott Hall made his WCW debut interrupting a match and telling the world “You know who I am, but you don’t know why I’m here” This debut would set up the arrival of Kevin Nash a very short time later which could change the course of wrestling history forever. Hall and Nash would form the Outsiders tag team and go on to the 1996 Bash At The Beach PPV, where the course of wrestling history would change forever. Nash and Hall kept claiming there would be a 3^rd man for their 6 man tag against Macho Man, Sting and Lex Luger. That man was Hulk Hogan. That night they formed the NWO, The New World Order and became the most powerful faction in pro wrestling. 

During his run in WCW as part of the NOW (and NOW Wolf pack) he became a 7x WCW World Tag Team Champion (6x with Nash and 1x with Paul Wight aka The Giant aka The Big Show) Their 1^st title win was in defeating Harlem Heat at Halloween Havoc in 1996.

Scott also became a 2x WCW United States Champion and a WCW Television Champion. 

After the sale of WCW to Vince McMahon, Scott was inactive for a while before making a few appearances for ECW in their final year. He teamed with Jerry Lynn and defeated Justin Credible and Rhino and then in Poughkeepsie, NY, in which I was there for this show, he defeated Credible again and then losing to Big Sal E. Graciano.

In 2002, Hall, along with Nash and Hogan returned as the NWO to the WWE. While there he had his biggest match since the late 90s by facing Stone Cold Steve Austin at Wrestlemania 18. In may of 2002 Hall was released.

After taking some time off, Hall then returned to wrestling as a member of the TNA roster between 2002 and January of 2005 and then returning in November 2007 and leaving for good in 2008. 

For some it’s difficult to not talk about Scott Hall and not talk about his out of the ring issues, but that’s not what I wanted to do. I want to remember his contributions to the world of pro wrestling and all the memories this 2x WWE Hall Of Famer would give us. 

Before I close this out, I’d like to give you 5 of Scott’s top matches (in no particular order)

1. Wrestlemania 10 – IC Championship Ladder Match vs Shawn Michaels
2. King Of The Ring 1993 vs Bret Hart
3. SummerSlam 1995 vs Shawn Michaels
4. Survivor Series 1992 w/ Ric Flair vs Randy Savage and Mr. Perfect
5. RAW 1993 vs Rick Martel for the IC Championship

This is something hard to write about because it’s still surreal to know that the “Bad Guy” is gone growing up. I don’t have many memories of watching Hall wrestle but hey that’s what the internet is for and I was able to grow appreciation for hall for his in ring work and what he did for the business of professional wrestling/ sports entertainment. He definitely was the original “Bad Guy” and he was definitely cool at being it.  With being Razor Ramon he should you only need a toothpick to be a bad guy and to this day if you are fan of pro wrestling fan when you see a tooth pick the first thing you think of is Razor Ramon, you grab one and use it but at the end instead of just throwing it away like a normal person you flick it like Razor did because you wanted to be cool just like him. Also who can forget “Hey Yo” , a simple way to grab the audience’s attention. Another thing if you are a wrestling fan you greet your other wrestling fans with that saying. Hall was definitely a contribution to the business and he will be missed dearly by the pro wrestling world and fans. One my favorite moments in hall comes in the form of his sell of the Stone Cold Stunner from Stone Cold Steve Austin and Wrestlemania 18 when he took the finisher and threw himself up in the air like a rocket it definitely was an over sell but when you take the stunner from Austin it’s you taking the move that makes the fisher work. So for Hall to do a bit of an over-sell made it perfect cause it fit the Wrestlemania mood and also when you’re in the NWO anything you do will look great.   And when your NWO you are NWO 4 life

RIP to the “Bad Guy” WE love you and you will always be missed.