Scott Hall
1958 - 2022
One of the most talented and charismatic people to ever set foot inside of a professional wrestling ring has died. Scott Hall had fallen and broken his hip earlier this year. He underwent surgery which dislodged a blood clot and led to him suffering from three heart attacks on Saturday. He was taken off of life support yesterday and passed away later in the day. Mr. Hall was 63 years old.
I first saw Scott Hall on television in the summer of 1992. Back in those days, when the WWF signed a new wrestler, they would film a series of vignettes to give the audience a bit of backstory on a new character that they haven't seen before. The character that Mr. Hall introduced to fans in his vignettes was a Cuban villain named Razor Ramon.
Although I didn't know it at the time, this character was basically Scott Hall doing an impersonation of Tony Montana if he was a pro wrestler instead of a drug kingpin. I was only 12 years old, and while my dad was pretty liberal about what movies he let me watch, he wasn't about to bring home a copy of Scarface for family movie night.
I've always gravitated toward the bad guys in the 80's like Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, Rick Rude, Curt Hennig, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and "Macho Man" Randy Savage, so I was instantly hooked by this dude who came out to the ring calling himself "the bad guy". Before every match, he took off his gold chains and handed them to the ring attendant with a warning: "if something happens to this, something's going to happen to you". Then, just for good measure, he'd flick his toothpick in the guy's face. This dude was absolute wrestling villain gold from day one!
On May 27, 1996, Scott Hall appeared unannounced on WCW Monday Nitro. He addressed the crowd and the wrestlers in the locker room and planted the seeds for the nWo storyline which changed the professional wrestling business forever. It was the moment that I, along with millions of other pro wrestling fans, switched over from the USA to TNT to give WCW the win in their head-to-head ratings war with the WWF for 83 consecutive weeks.
On April 5th, 2014, Scott Hall was inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame. His induction speech was fitting capstone on an incredible career, which he ended with a line that became an instant classic:
"Hard work pays off
Dreams come true
Bad times don't last
But bad guys do."
Scott Hall's longtime tag team partner and best friend, Kevin Nash, posted this message on Instagram on Monday morning. My heart goes out to him, and to all of the family and friends of this incredible performer. Rest in peace, Mr. Hall, and thank you.
