In the late evening of March 14, 2022, the wrestling world lost one of its best and baddest men, as the legendary Scott Hall, a.k.a. "Razor Ramon," sadly passed away at the age of 63.
The veteran performer is a two-time WWE Hall of Famer, inducted on both his own merits and those of the immortal, influential and infamous wrestling faction known as the New World Order (nWo). He was a four-time WWE Intercontinental Champion and pioneered the popular "Ladder Match" gimmick alongside fellow multi-time Hall of Famer "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania X in 1994.
Hall's passing comes at the end of a long struggle for survival. After having suffered multiple heart attacks over the weekend due to complications from a blood clot during recent hip surgery in Marietta, Georgia, the Hall of Famer was placed on life support, and then shortly afterwards was taken off of it at the behest of his immediate family. While Hall battled valiantly for several hours, he finally passed on around 8:00 PM, EST on March 14. He leaves behind a legacy of being one of the most influential wrestlers of the pre-Attitude Era (1992-1996) as not only one of WWE's top heels "The Bad Guy" Razor Ramon (a pastiche of Tony Montana of Scarface) and a member of the infamous backstage group "The Kliq," but a crucial signing by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in the period's later years that would herald the arrival of the legendary "nWo" faction with Hall, Kevin Nash and "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, and trigger WWE's Attitude Era, bringing about a complete cultural shift in the genre of professional wrestling, with companies targeting younger live and TV audiences by producing more edgy and risqué content. The "nWo" would find its way to WWE television following the collapse of WCW in 2001, but Hall would be released shortly afterwards in 2002 due to drunken misconduct.
Hall's issues with drug use and particularly alcohol would harangue him for the remainder of his wrestling career up until his retirement in 2010. Afterwards, his former WCW compatriot "Diamond" Dallas Page would reach out to Hall in order to get him on his famous "DDP Yoga" program and help him to rehab, though it would take several years before Hall could truly commit to a sober, healthy lifestyle. He would ultimately rebound, coming back to WWE to accept a solo HOF induction as "Razor Ramon" in 2014, followed by a group induction alongside Hogan and Nash as the nWo in 2020.
The wrestling world will truly never be the same without Hall, as his "Bad Guy" style, charisma and confidence is felt even to this day, inspiring multiple generations of "cool, cocky" heels to take on the world with swagger and a gleam in their eye. He is a true legend in the business, and one of the greatest to have never held a World Championship.
"Hard work pays off, dreams come true. Bad times don't last, but bad guys do." Truer words could never be spoken.