Scott Hall – The last call

In life, you either make the right choices or the wrong ones. There is no “grey area” when it comes to the good and the bad. In sports, the performers/players get addicted to pain killers and drugs due to the demanding work load and the physicality involved. All that escalates when it comes to contact sports; in boxing or MMA, the fighters have relatively short careers due to the beating they take.

In professional wrestling, the impact is amplified, as the performers put their body through constant pain and wear it down. Getting dropped on your head and neck, getting injured often and undergoing the surgeon’s knife often isn’t something that is associated with good health and a long life span. Unfortunately, that is the sacrifice the performers make to entertain the fans and to be in the spotlight.

In the history of professional wrestling, there were many performers who threw it all away after getting addicted to drugs and alcohol. From the sad story of the Von Erichs to Jake “The Snake” Roberts, we’ve seen the effects of substance abuse and how it can destroy someone’s career and ultimately, their life. There is one other story in professional wrestling where a performer, beloved by the entire wrestling fraternity, made the wrong choices, and in the end, it took away one of the edgiest characters from the fans.

Growing up, the fans witnessed the emergence of outrageous characters. From Doink the Clown to Papa Shango, professional wrestling threw every character imaginable at us. There was one performer who managed to get over with the fans like very few could at that time. He was none other than “Razor Ramon” or simply known to us as Scott Hall.

Many people take the names of such performers in bad light, but if you ever were a wrestling fan, you wouldn’t see Scott as anyone else but one of the most charismatic individuals in the industry. I won’t look back at Scott Hall’s accomplishments, as everyone already knows about the phenomenal matches Hall was involved in, and his outstanding run as the WWF Intercontinental champion.

Very few performers are seen as “underutilised” in professional wrestling, and many consider WWF’s hesitance to put the WWF title on Hall a mistake. Scott’s increasing popularity only made it inevitable for the “original bad guy” to win the richest prize in professional wrestling, but his troubles with his substance abuse led to him getting suspended. Hall and Nash then signed up with WWF’s rival, WCW.

Nash and Hall then began what can only be described as one of the greatest angles in professional wrestling, known as “The Outsiders”. Claiming they were sent by Vince McMahon, Nash and Hall wanted to take over WCW, and with Hogan joining them, they created a phenomenon known as the New World Order. All of a sudden, professional wrestling was “cool” and “hip”, and the fans cared more about the bad guys than the good guys. Hall was a part of one of the greatest transformations in the psychology of the business, and this only showed how much the fans loved Hall being the bad guy. With his “oozing machismo”, Scott Hall was once again at the top of the wrestling world.

They say when good things happen, the bad comes along with it. You just have to choose which way you want to go, and Hall made the wrong choice. Scott Hall’s drug problems continued, and it was even incorporated within the storylines in WCW (Which has since been widely criticized). Scott Hall’s career never completely spiked, and this led to him not achieving his full potential in the wrestling business.

Scott later left WCW and even though he returned to the WWE, it didn’t last long, and Hall was released from his contract. Hall then went to TNA, but that didn’t work out either, as Hall no-showed events and got into trouble with the authorities far too many times.

What should have been one of the greatest careers in professional wrestling will sadly be remembered for all the wrong reasons. As a guy who could captivate the fans by just saying “Hey yo!”, Hall should’ve achieved a lot more in the industry. Sadly, his personal demons got the better of him throughout his entire career, and Scott Hall never truly achieved his full potential.

Hall has been in and out of hospitals for the last couple of years, and there was a point when the entire wrestling fraternity prayed for the well being of Scott Hall. Whether you remember him as Razor Ramon or simply as Scott Hall, he has been one of the most genuinely loved individuals in the wrestling business. One can only hope that Hall recovers and chooses to take the right path at least now, so that we don’t have to wake up to yet another beloved legend being taken away from us.