The Shoot #25
August 4, 2009
By: Joshua Piedra of WrestleView.com
-The First Shot-
Greetings and Salutations fellow Shooters and welcome to the 25th Anniversary of The Shoot. You can start laughing at the joke now or choose to scratch your head and move on with the column. Back by popular demand, and since this is the silver edition of the column, today’s column is another wrestler spotlight column. The previous two (Samoa Joe and Mitsuharu Misawa) proved to be pretty popular and this time I?ve chosen another one of my favorite wrestlers to document. You?ll see who it is later. Got a little bit of info for you about an upcoming join wrestleview ?faculty? column as well, but as always, let’s start out with some Quick Shots.
-Quick Shots-
The Angle-Jarrett-Angle sandwhich gets another bite taken out of it. Apparently, Karen Angle and Jeff Jarrett were seeing each other before Kurt and Karen’s divorce and now, while she frequently visits Jeff in good ol? Hendersonville, TN, she’s not officially living with him. This sounds like a made for Springer situation and I just shake my head each time I see another update with it? but I did find some twisted humor in all of this from the latest news report. How fitting is it to hear the latest news on a secret love scenario in wrestling when the source is Bubba the Love Sponge. I guess it’s better than listening to another Hulk Hogan interview.
Speaking of Love/Hate relationships, there seems to be one brewing between ?Nature Boy? Ric Flair and Bret ?The Hitman? Hart. According to Flair, Hart is a pissant in wrestling that never made it out of the mid-card until his 40s. Hart responded with the fact that he won the WWF/E world championship at the ripe young age of 35. I say that ROH re-books Flair for one more appearance and make Hart vs Flair in the main event in a ?Let’s Hug It Out? match. I hear ROH fans like that hand shaking, man-hugging after a match? so let’s give them all the bromance they can handle!
Sting is thinking about hanging it up in October of this year. I can?t say that I blame him? the man isn?t getting any younger and it’s probably best to hang it up while he still has a good vertical base to him. If this is true, then Sting will go down as the only former WCW World Champion to never sign with nor compete in the WWE. In my own little dream world, I would hope Sting would sign a 1 year contract with the WWE and each and every PPV, it’s a new drew match. Sting vs HHH, Sting vs Shawn Michaels, Sting vs The Undertaker, Sting vs John Cena, Sting vs Randy Orton, CM Punk, and the list could go on and on for some of the big marquee match-ups? but we are not here to determine any one’s fate but our own.
-The Big Shot: Wrestler Spotlight #3: Scott Hall-
The popular segment has returned and this time, I have chosen another favorite wrestler of mine. As you can tell by the title, that man is Scott Hall. Hall was always an interesting and entertaining character to me over the years, and is one of very few talented wrestlers to never hold a big company’s world championship title. He had come close on a few occasions in the AWA, WCW, and the WWE, but was never able to bring home the gold.
One little known fact about Scott Hall is his beginning is pro-wrestling. A lot of people believe that, in 1984, he started out in Florida Championship Wrestling and most people would be half correct. The correct way to say this would be he started his US Wrestling Career in FCW. Scott Hall actually started wrestling in high school, back when he attended high school in Munich, Germany.
In FCW, Scott Hall’s first feud was against ?The American Dream? Dusty Rhodes. This helped carry Scott Hall through his first year on the US wrestling scene. During this time, Scott Hall worked, mainly, for Jim Crocket Promotions, which if you all recall, was a partner of the National Wrestling Alliance. In 1985, he teamed with Dan Spivey (back then known as Starship Eagle) and called himself Starship Coyote. Together they were known as American Starship. While their most notable match had them placed against the NWA Tag Champions, The Andersons, the tag team didn?t really see any gold at all.
Later in 1985, Scott Hall joined up with Verne Gagne’s AWA. His character was based off of Hollywood actor Tom Selleck and he became known as ?Magnum? Scott Hall. The Magnum nickname was short-lived and he went with the new name ?Big? Scott Hall. As ?Big? Scott Hall, he was teamed with a young Curt Hennig. It was here that Scott Hall saw his first piece of tag gold as Hennig and Hall defeated Jimmy Garvin and Steve Regal (Mr. Electricity.. not Lord Steven Regal!) to become the AWA World Tag Team Champions. They won the titles in January of 1986, but lost them five months later to ?Playboy? Buddy Rose and ?Pretty Boy? Doug Somers. While they had their five month reign, Pro Wrestling Illustrated called them ?The Perfect Combination?
After the tag team gold loss and after the loss of Hulk Hogan to the WWF, Verne Gagne chose Scott Hall to be Hogan’s replacement. He even went as far as to tell Scott Hall to grow a handlebar mustache, in which, he did. Don?t believe me? Watch a few AWA shows on ESPN Classics and you?ll see it for yourself! Verne then pushed Hall into the AWA World Title picture, but Hall never was able to get the pin. In fact, singles titles and Scott Hall didn?t go well together in the AWA. Hall then left for the NWA in 1989.
Jim Ross brought Scott Hall into the NWA’s WCW territory. WCW wanted Scott Hall to be included in a group of new, young people that they were aiming to develop, but things didn?t go so well for Scott Hall’s first run with WCW as he only had one PPV match, which was at The Great American Bash where he lost a King of the Hill Battle Royal. He then went on to become a jobber until he took a hiatus in 1991 where he spent some time in Puerto Rico where Scott saw his first singles championship when he defeated Miguel Perez Jr for the World Wrestling Council Caribbean Heavyweight Championship.
Hall then returned to WCW in late 1991 where he was paired with Diamond Dallas Page. It was here where Scott Hall took on the ?Diamond Studd? persona. This continued into late 1991 where Hall began to lose steam. He then, in 1992, formed a nice little stable with Vinnie Vegas (better known as Kevin Nash) and Scotty Flamingo (better known as Raven). While it looked good on paper, it fell through and this lead to Scott Hall leaving WCW and moving to the WWF
After being a Starship Coyote, a Magnum, just plain old Big, and a Diamond Studd, Scott Hall pitched an idea to Vince McMaon to be a cuban living in Miami. Vince didn?t realize that Hall was pitching his character to be based off of Al Pacino’s character Scarface, but nevertheless, Vince ran with it and ?The Bad Guy? Razor Ramon was born. Hall debuted in August of 1992, squashing Paul Van Dow with a splash mountain bomb, which would become known as the Razor’s Edge. Hall’s WWF career started off after he interfered in a world title match between Randy Savage and Ric Flair. This lead to a Savage/Ramon feud which was slated to end with a tag team match between the Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage vs Razor Ramon and Ric Flair, but Warrior was ?future endeavored? by the WWF prior to this match and they got Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig to fill the role of Warrior.
Scott Hall would then go on to win the vacant WWF Intercontinental Championship in 1993 by beating ?The Model? Rick Martel. Shawn Michaels was the previous Intercontinental Champion, but had the title stripped due to being suspended by the WWF. When Michaels returned, he claimed that he was never beaten for the intercontinental championship and had his own version of the belt. This would start a rivalry that would culminate at Wrestlemania X in one of the most historic matches in professional wrestling history.
The ladder match between Michaels and Hall was so spectacular that Dave Meltzer gave the WWF its first five-star match rating. This match is currently ranked #5 in the best wrestlemania matches of all-time!
Later on, Scott Hall would help give birth to one of the most popular light-heavyweights in WWF history. When Hall lost a match against The Lightning Kid, it set up a feud which saw The Lightning Kid change his name to the 1-2-3 Kid. He would later become known as Syxx in WCW and later X-Pac when he went back to the WWF. After this feud, at Madison Square Garden, Scott Hall, Triple H, X-Pac, and Kevin Nash broke kayfabe as they all celebrated in the ring together as a way of saying goodbye. After that, Hall and Nash departed for WCW.
May 27, 1996 ? Scott Hall would show up in street clothes on Monday Nitro claiming to be an outsider. A few weeks later, Kevin Nash showed up as another outsider. Hall and Nash were teamed up as?. You guessed it? The Outsiders. They were scheduled to have a six man tag match at Bash at the Beach against Randy Savage, Lex Luger, and Sting with Hall and Nash having a mystery partner in their corner. The mystery partner turned out to be Hulk Hogan and in one of the most shocking moments in pro-wrestling history, Hogan turned heel for the first time in his career and formed the nWo with Hall and Nash.
Nash and Hall would go on to become four time WCW World Tag Team Champions.. the first three of their title victories coming in 1996 against Harlem Heat and 1998 when they beat the Steiner Brothers twice that year. Their last tag reign was in 1999 when they beat Bret Hart and Goldberg. Hall had one more tag title reign when he won them with The Giant (WWE’s The Big Show) by defeating Kevin Nash and Sting. This lead to the highly anticipated Kevin Nash vs Scott Hall match at Halloween Havoc 1998 where Nash delivered two jackknife powerbombs to Scott Hall and then left the ring, losing via countout.
Despite this, oddly enough, in December of 1998, Scott Hall helped Kevin Nash defeat Goldberg for the WCW World Championship when Scott Hall, while dressed as a member of security, ran down to the ring and used a taser on Goldberg. In early 1999, the nWo reformed and Nash and Hall were back together again. Hall then went on to win the WCW United States Championship, but gave up the title due to a foot injury. He then came back and won the United States title once again and then the WCW Television title, becoming a double champion. Scott Hall then mocked Alundra Blayze by throwing the WCW Television Title into a trash can.
After his WCW stint, Scott Hall wrestled for the then-Paul Heyman owned, ECW. His stay was very short as he moved on to Japan and then later back to the WWE where he took part in the new nWo with Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan. Hall then went to TNA Wrestling in 2002 for another brief stint and then returned to the World Wrestling Council as Razor Ramon. He then bounced back to TNA for another brief stint in 2007 and now currently wrestles for the Juggalo Championship Wrestling promotion, run by music artists ICP. Scott Hall’s latest headlines was making a fool of himself and being asked to leave from a Ring Roasts show where fellow professional wrestlers roasted The Iron Shiek.
So there you have it. A lot of this came from memory, but for what I couldn?t remember, I must thank Wikipedia and one of wrestleview’s affiliates, the Online World of Wrestling (www.onlineworldofwrestling.com)
-The Final Shot-
Before I go, I must pass along the word for a joint column coming up. Myself, Crelly, and David Stephens got together one night and Mr V played moderator for a mock draft. Unlike the WWE Draft, we drafted wrestlers between the WWE, TNA, and ROH. The results were pretty interesting, especially for one Kevin Nash. That column is getting the final touches placed upon it so look for it in the near future? I guarantee you that it will be an interesting read and depending on its popularity, we may just go ahead and hold another draft column in the future!
That will do it for me this week? until then, feel free to hit me up using any of the following:
E-Mail: syscrash2002@hotmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/itoshinojjp
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joshuapiedra
Until next week…
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