Remembering Scott Hall (1958-2022)

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Reunited with Jesus Christ.

Who may or may not have given his blessing to use the crucifix powerbomb as his finish back in the AWA days.

[cwoy2j]

My buddy who's a huge Scott Hall fan found a link where someone transcribed the WWF Magazine Razor origin story I referenced. I misremembered parts of it.

https://droptoehold-blog.tumblr.com/post/49522530268/razor-ramon-taking-his-piece-of-america-by

Entire article spoilered for size

Spoiler

“Razor Ramon: Taking His Piece of America” by Keith Elliot Greenberg - WWF Magazine [October 1992]

“The crowd on the Havana dock surged toward the rickety fishing boat. The vessel rocked back and forth perilously as people rushed onto the deck, clutching bundles of their belongings and squealing children. In the distance, a siren was heard. The army was coming to try to force the refugees to remain on Cuban shores, so it was imperative to leave immediately.

The people continued to pile onto the boat, desperate for a last chance to flee the Communist country before the militarily troops arrived.

Now a jeep started down the street leading to the dock, the headlights beaming onto the swaying craft.

‘Basta!’ the captain called to those still swarming onto the boat – Enough!”

 

“Suddenly, a hulking figure emerged from the shadows, cooly chewing on a toothpick. He marched behind the refugees who were struggling to climb aboard, then yanked them, one by one, out of his way.

'Basta!’ the captain yelled again.

Razor Ramon looked over his shoulder at the army officer who had just gotten out of his jeep, The the cocky athlete turned back around and riveted his eyes on the captain. 'Cuidado, amigo.’ Razor said, apparently unconcerned about the chaos around hm. 'I think you have room for one more on that boat.’

The army officer cocked his rifle. 'Parese!’ he called – Stop!

Razor Ramon momentarily halted, glared at the military man and chuckled to himself. 'Are you gonna try to stop me?’ he challenged.

The army officer fired a warning shot into the air, causing the people around Razor Ramon to disperse. Panicking, the captain started the boat and began drifting out to sea. Refugees clutched onto the sides. Ramon sauntered to the edge of the dock, then leapt onto the vessel. Grasping the edge of the craft, he pushed the two clinging exiles next to him into the water. 'Lo siento,’ he said, 'pero la vida es dura.’ – I’m sorry, but life is hard.

Now the soldiers were pouring onto the dock. More rifles were fired. A shot bounced off the bow of the boat. Ramon pulled himself onto the deck and stuck his chest out as another bullet whizzed by him.

'Goodbye,’ he sneered at the army officer in perfect English. 'One day I will see you in Miami.’

Ramon is retelling the story to a group of children on Calle Ocho – Eighth Street in Miami’s Little Havana. The kids stare at the brawny WWF competitor– his sleeveless T-shirt pulled over a bulging torso, chunky gold chains around his neck– in a mixture of admiration and fear. Several feet away, a group of men in straw hats play dominoes, shaking their heads at Razor’s rhetoric.

'That is the story of how I came to America.’ the wrestler tells the children. 'I didn’t ask anybody for permission to leave Cuba. I gave permission to myself. That should be a lesson to you. Let the other people suffer for their little crumb of the American pie. When Razor Ramon gets hungry, he eats the whole thing.’

An elderly man, who had fought against dictator Fidel Castro in Cuba right after his 1959 revolution, rises from the domino table. 'Don’t listen to him.’ he warns the children. 'He’s filling your heads with lies. I came to this country with nothing and worked my whole life so that my children make something of themselves here. I know all about this American pie – I have a son who is an architect and a daughter who is a lawyer. I sacrificed for my family, and I’m proud of doing it. I didn’t take the easy way like this bago you’re talking to.’

'Bago?’ Ramon asks, recognizing the Spanish word for bum. 'Are you calling me a bago, old man?’ He flicks his toothpick at the man. 'If you didn’t already have one foot in the grave, I’d put your head through that stinking table, chico. But Razor Ramon doesn’t dirty his hands with old scum like you. Razor Ramon is a star, man.’

That characterization is questionable. Certainly Razor has already proved himself to be a competent combatant in the World Wrestling Federation. In Cuba, where people go hungry so money can be spent on building world-class Olympic teams, Ramon is said to have begun wrestling as a small child, battling his way through the ranks of Cuba’s intensive sports programs. During his first dew months in the WWF, he showed his highly developed skills, savaging his adversaries in virtually every contest he entered. But is he a star? In a wrestling organization that includes men like Macho Man Randy Savage, Ultimate Warrior and Bret "Hit Man” Hart, the answer is not yet.

'I need something to put around my waist,’ he says, hooking his thumbs into the lops of his beltline. 'Something big and gold, man. I know I don’t have it yet. But that’s because the champions wrestle like chicas. They are afraid of Razor Ramon. And they should be. They just have titles. Razor Ramon has machismo.’

 

The way he tells it, his machismo was cultivated in the sweltering wrestling camps in the Cuban countryside. As a teenager, Ramon and another youth would be placed in a steel shack on a 90-degree day and told to lock up until one scored a decisive pin-fall. 'Sometimes it took hours, even all day, to get a pinfall.’ he claims. 'But usually for me it took seconds. You see, Razor Ramon fears nobody. A boy would be struggling with me, and I’d look right into his eyes and say, 'Amigo, you have no chance. I own you.’ And it wouldn’t matter how strong he was or how much wrestling skill he had. When it was over, it was always Razor Ramon who was the winner.’

He picks up a copy of WWF Magazine and flips through it. 'This is what they call superstars?’ he laughs. 'Not one of these guys has machismo. They don’t even know what it means. None of them went through what I did in Cuba. They had it easy. And I had it hard for too long. But those days are over now, man. Razor Ramon is taking whatever he wants, breaking heads and living on top of the world, chico.’

According to one account, Ramon made the wrong kind of friends in Cuba. When he wasn’t wrestling, he allegedly was doing favors for them. At some point, he fell out of the good graces of the authorities who had initially encouraged his brutal wrestling style. He won’t elaborate on the details of that time. He’ll only say that he knew 'a lot of bad people, and none of them had nothing on Razor Ramon.’

He notices a pretty girl walking down the block and raises an eyebrow at her, smiling. Then his face goes through a frightening transformation. The grin fades, the cheekbones protrude and his eyes turn cold. 'I don’t want to talk about Cuba right now,’ he snaps. 'That’s yesterday. This is today.’ He spreads his arms apart. 'And Razor Ramon is the king of Calle Ocho.’

But Calle Ocho is a small kingsom, and Ramon has his eyes on bigger things. 'First the WWF.’ he says, 'then America.’ The side of his mouth curls up. 'And after that, the world and everything in it, man.’“

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by cwoy2j

[leonard]

On 3/22/2022 at 5:08 AM, TheVileOne said:

Both Giant and Hall "turned" in that match. Sting and Giant were Team WCW taking on Team Wolfpac. nWo had just split into two factions at that point. Sting wanted payback on Nash for costing him the title at Spring Stampede against Savage. Nash was teaming with Hall. So basically, Hall colluded with Giant to turn on Nash, and they both sided with Hogan/nWo Black & White, so Nash was betrayed. Sting, who was Team WCW looked on in disbelief/disgust that Hall could turn on his best friend like that. 

Giant turned the week before on Nitro, due to his hatred of Nash (it didn't make very good sense why he couldn't fight Nash from the WCW side)

[evidence]

11 hours ago, leonard said:

Giant turned the week before on Nitro, due to his hatred of Nash (it didn't make very good sense why he couldn't fight Nash from the WCW side)

It's like Christian deciding to join The Alliance during the Invasion angle 

[Ziggy]

People laugh about the amount of times Big Show turned in his career. I think most people just think of his WWE run and maybe his first year in WCW. Just reflecting on his WCW run as a whole alone, I forget how many times he turned. Even being "The World's Latgest athlete " One of the most physically impressive guys at that size ,always turning on people and aligning with the top faction or siding with the evil heel authority figure really made him seem like so much less of a threat than he should have been. He was in the NWO more than once in WCW which is crazy considering he started out in the Dungen of Doom when that was the top faction first

[BloodyChamp]

1 hour ago, Ziggy said:

People laugh about the amount of times Big Show turned in his career. I think most people just think of his WWE run and maybe his first year in WCW. Just reflecting on his WCW run as a whole alone, I forget how many times he turned. Even being "The World's Latgest athlete " One of the most physically impressive guys at that size ,always turning on people and aligning with the top faction or siding with the evil heel authority figure really made him seem like so much less of a threat than he should have been. He was in the NWO more than once in WCW which is crazy considering he started out in the Dungen of Doom when that was the top faction first

And I think he jobbed to Goldberg more than anybody as all that was going on. That’s a hell of WCW thing. Being the biggest mfer out there whose also the biggest jobber. 

EDIT: I actually remember something in particular that was so dang bad. The Giant came out on Nitro some time close to Starrcade 98 and said he still wanted wanted Nash. Since he wanted Nash, that meant he had to beat Goldberg to get Nash (at Starrcade). Then he said if Goldberg had the balls to wrestle him he would that night. And they silenced out balls. 

That was a 7’4” tall man made out of steel and he’s standing there explaining something like Jack Webb would. The one non automated part was how he was dancing around just challenging Nash since you can walk out on a live wrestling show and challenge whoever you want. 

Edited March 25, 2022 by BloodyChamp

[Log]

I always think of Big Show as one of the biggest "what ifs" in wrestling history.  What if he had been protected like Andre?  Don't get me wrong, the guy has done well for himself.  I just think him becoming "just another guy" is one of the bigger missteps in wrestling history.

[twiztor]

15 hours ago, Ziggy said:

People laugh about the amount of times Big Show turned in his career. I think most people just think of his WWE run and maybe his first year in WCW. Just reflecting on his WCW run as a whole alone, I forget how many times he turned. Even being "The World's Latgest athlete " One of the most physically impressive guys at that size ,always turning on people and aligning with the top faction or siding with the evil heel authority figure really made him seem like so much less of a threat than he should have been. He was in the NWO more than once in WCW which is crazy considering he started out in the Dungen of Doom when that was the top faction first

it was never presented as this, but i suppose you could rationalize a good number of turns if you changed how you looked at the Giant:
Giant is a top level athlete. He gets this big money deal from the Dungeon of Doom, so joins them and gets some success (including the World Championship). He gets sick of their shit/they make him a lowball offer, so he goes solo. Then a big money offer comes in from the nWo, so he joins them. Then gets tired of playing second fiddle, so breaks off. Then gets a big offer. rinse and repeat.

9 minutes ago, Log said:

I always think of Big Show as one of the biggest "what ifs" in wrestling history.  What if he had been protected like Andre?  Don't get me wrong, the guy has done well for himself.  I just think him becoming "just another guy" is one of the bigger missteps in wrestling history.

no question. large enough to be an attraction. strong enough to do power spots against even large men. mobile enough to actually wrestle. smart enough to have good-great matches. funny enough to make comedy segments work. 

Is he the A#1 best at any of those things? probably not, but in his prime, he could be credible at the top with any opponent at any time in any situation. 

[cwoy2j]

4 hours ago, twiztor said:

it was never presented as this, but i suppose you could rationalize a good number of turns if you changed how you looked at the Giant:
Giant is a top level athlete. He gets this big money deal from the Dungeon of Doom, so joins them and gets some success (including the World Championship). He gets sick of their shit/they make him a lowball offer, so he goes solo. Then a big money offer comes in from the nWo, so he joins them. Then gets tired of playing second fiddle, so breaks off. Then gets a big offer. rinse and repeat.

no question. large enough to be an attraction. strong enough to do power spots against even large men. mobile enough to actually wrestle. smart enough to have good-great matches. funny enough to make comedy segments work. 

Is he the A#1 best at any of those things? probably not, but in his prime, he could be credible at the top with any opponent at any time in any situation. 

I do remember that they said that Hogan promised him parts in movies and that's how he got into the movie Santa With Muscles. His first nWo turn was actually pretty logical.

[zendragon]

Kinda hard to protect someone like Andre post territories though 

[BloodyChamp]

I still say him destroying Hogan in 5 minutes after falling off the Joe Louis Arena would have worked from every angle. Short term it would have made the fans who were tired of Hogan mark out like they never had, and it would have legit scared everybody else. Long term he could have beat everybody without whoever he beat losing any heat. Then whoever beat him would have been the best babyface champion since Hulk Hogan in the WWF. 

[cwoy2j]

On 3/25/2022 at 5:23 PM, zendragon said:

Kinda hard to protect someone like Andre post territories though 

You don't have to book him completely like Andre, it's more just don't book him to look like a big doofus. Having to lay around in the ring for like 20 minutes after a belt shot while Hogan, Hall and Nash fuck around in the ring is an example of this. They could've done the whole "turn on Beefcake" thing the next night on Nitro. Just have the nWo spraypaint the belt right after the pin and then get out of there.

[zendragon]

[SirSmUgly]

Watched a Diamond Studd match while going back through random WCWSNs from 1992, and he had more of the stuff that defines his Razor Ramon run than I remember. Of course, he has the crucifix bomb as a finish and signals for it with his arms out before hitting it, but he also threw a toothpick into the camera on his way out, had his "it's over" taunt, and exaggeratedly wiped his hands after getting the pinfall. 

He was like 80% of the way to Razor instead of the 50% of the way that I remember him as in this run.

[zendragon]

I think that actually came up in the WCW v. WWF lawsuit. how much of the toothpick/mannerisms he had done before getting to the WWF