Scott Hall, one of the most influential men in professional wrestling history, passed away on Monday. according to WWE. He was 63 years old.
Hall, a two-time WWE Hall of Famer, broke his hip last month, PW Torch told PW Torch, and suffered major health complications during surgery to repair it over the weekend.
Kevin Nash, Hall’s longtime best friend and former tag team partner, posted on Instagram Sunday that Hall was on life support, which was later taken off Monday. according to close friend Sean Waltman.
“He left,” Waltman wrote Monday night on Twitter.
Hall, nicknamed “The Bad Boy”, achieved his greatest success in wrestling as a founding member of the group that would become the New World Order (nWo). He left the then WWF in 1996, where he was known as “Razor Ramon”, to sign with WCW as a free agent. It was a major contract that started a series of lucrative free agent deals between the WWF and WCW during one of the hottest times in professional wrestling.
The storyline that was depicted when Hall arrived at the company was that he was an invader, possibly working on behalf of the WWF, trying to take over WCW.
Nash, known as “Diesel” in the WWF, would also sign with WCW and join Hall to become the Underdogs. In July 1996, Hulk Hogan, longtime good guy and big name, joined Hall and Nash to form the villainous nWo, launching one of the great groups and storylines in professional wrestling history.
“Scott was one of the greatest performers I have ever seen,” former WCW wrestler and creative director Kevin Sullivan said on his 2020 podcast.
The 6’7″ Maryland native who moved frequently as a child due to his father’s military service, Hall began his wrestling career in Florida Championship Wrestling in 1984. He rode AWA, New Japan. Pro-Wrestling, WWC Puerto Rico and WCW in the late 1980s and early 1990s before joining the WWF in 1992. It was there that he played Razor Ramon, a Miami Cuban character based on the movie Scarface.
In the WWF, Hall competed in a historic ladder match with Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania X and won the WWF Intercontinental Title four times.
In WCW, Hall won the tag team title seven times (six with Nash as the Underdogs), the US Heavyweight Championship twice, and the World Television Championship once. The nWo was a revolutionary concept because it broke the fourth wall in professional wrestling like never before. The WWF sued WCW, alleging that WCW used its intellectual property – that Hall and Nash played the same characters as in the WWF and pretended to still work for the WWF.
Thanks to the hype created by the nWo, WCW beat the WWF in the cable ratings for 83 consecutive weeks, unheard of just a year earlier.
Hall and Nash were cast as weak or bad guys, but fans still accepted them because of their magnetic charisma that popped out of the screen. Hall, chewing on a toothpick, had an iconic look with long, dark, slicked back hair and a single curl on his forehead. He had catchy catchphrases like “hello yo” and “poll says”. His finishing move, a punch where Hall holds his opponent with both arms outstretched, has been dubbed the “Razor Edge”.
“There’s no one cooler than Scott Hall,” former WCW broadcaster and current AEW broadcaster Tony Schiavone told ESPN last summer. “Kevin Nash was cool too, but damn Scott Hall was ahead of his time.”
The influence of Hall and the nWo on pop culture is still felt today. NBA star Kevin Durant wore an nWo jacket before a Brooklyn Nets game last year. In recent years, comedian Aziz Ansari and model Kendall Jenner have been seen wearing nWo shirts. In 2018, Drake was pictured wearing a Razor Ramon shirt. Rapper Westside Gunn and his brother Conway the Machine perform a duet under the pseudonym “Hall n Nash”.
“I didn’t want to be Jordan, I wanted to be Scott.” Westside Gunn tweeted Monday.
After WCW went bankrupt and was bought by the WWF in 2001, Hall returned to WWE along with Nash and Hogan to reform the nWo. In 2002, WWE released Hall due to substance use issues. Hall later sought treatment and has reportedly become sober in recent years.
Hall participated in Total Nonstop Action (TNA) several times in the 2000s. In 2014, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as an individual character from the WWF, Razor Ramon. A second induction followed in 2020. Hall joined the nWo along with Nash, Hogan, and Sean “X-Pac” Waltman.
“We were ‘outsiders’ but we had each other,” Nash wrote on Instagram. “Scott always felt he was unworthy of the afterlife. Well, God, please give my brother some gold-plated toothpicks. My life has been enriched by his outlook on life. man to walk the planet they nailed to the cross.”
Hall ended his 2014 Hall of Fame speech with a phrase that has gone viral on social media over the past few days.
“Hard work pays off,” Hall said. “Dreams Come True. Bad times don’t last long. But the bad guys live.”