“Hey yo.”
That first line just sat by itself on the page with nothing else accompanying it for some time, because frankly, what can you even say about Scott Hall? Those words are as loaded as they are iconic in a realm where how we connect to people is the driver behind so much of the success an individual wrestler experiences. We dictate how over someone becomes, and where Hall is concerned we claimed him very quickly as our (bad) “guy.”
He oozed charisma, and when he walked through the smoke, walked down the aisle and up the steps, no sooner did he step through the ropes did he break out into his trademark pose with a toothpick in his mouth and often one behind his ear to replace it after he inevitably threw the first one at someone else. We ate it up, and that he was inarguably one of the most skilled wrestlers when you look at every conceivable metric, that he could work with anyone to complement any style was the cherry on the sundae.
“Hey yo.”
It’s amazing how two words can be so loaded, and we hung on every word that followed even though he was supposed to be the “Bad Guy.” Someone pushed as an arrogant savant and high-end lifestyle guru, only to become a beloved babyface-turned-Outsider. How much of that was himself and his own instincts is hard to say from the outside, but from what we saw in the ring, or whom he decided to put over, Hall had great instincts for simple-yet-effective storytelling.
For example, once news broke Monday that Hall was going to be pulled from life support, I popped his WWE documentary into my player and rewatched his first match with then-WWF champion Bret Hart. Before the match, as the Hitman customarily would do, he gave his trademarked hot pink shades to a young fan. Much of that is why he was so beloved at the time almost beyond reproach. But with Hall still being the heel (still being the better part of a year away from shifting from the “heel” “Bad Guy” to the “cool” “Bad Guy”), from inside the ring he walked toward the ropes closest to the same fan, grabbed the toothpick from his mouth and flicked it toward the young fan. In one brief moment, through one actively intelligent heel move, Hart was cemented as the face in the match, and Hall was the entrenched heel. Normally he’d do it to disrespect his opponent, but now he was targeting a fan and turned the arena against him for Bret’s sake in one swift swoop.
That moment is a snapshot for me, as are the moments like when he walked under the ladder at WrestleMania 10 and later draped himself with both Intercontinental titles after beating HBK in the same match; the look on his face when 1-2-3 Kid beat him very early in Sean Waltman’s career, or when he first arrived on Monday Nitro and in effect kickstarted the Monday Night Wars with a very simple declaration that (in not so many words) the nWo was coming and everything was about to change. That’s the magic of Hall — you gravitated toward him because he was utterly magnetic in presence and you were sucked into his orbit even when you were supposed to hate him. In many ways he’s the forerunner for today’s crop of “cool heels” that are clear villains that the crowd loves nonetheless.
That’s also why we mourn him now, because as a group we understand how special he was if you were lucky enough to grow up watching him in his prime. Even more than that, we can see how much he was loved by his friends and family, the ones who call him “brother” regardless of whether or not they shared blood. Waltman gave a great tribute to his friend, simply by saying he was often the smartest guy in the room in terms of wrestling acumen, but moreover he was maybe even smarter than the entire Kliq combined. He also doesn’t get enough credit for his role in Sting’s transformation into the Crow persona.
I’d believe it too because more than anything, what we think we know about how wrestling should functionally work is a shred of reality and far removed from the actuality. We think it’s a crime he was never world champion (and it is to me, but what do I know?), but maybe the timing was never right. Maybe he knew all along it was never the right play, and it would make sense when you think about it. The impression I always gravitated around as I got older and tried to understand his body of work more was he always seemed to want to do right by the business, even when his personal demons controlled his life. He cared about wrestling, loved it, and loved the people he chose to be around and support. It didn’t matter who it was, whether it’s his Kliq as time went on, a young Waltman needing a win to catapult himself forward, or insisting on giving a young Hiroshi Tanahashi a major win mere years into his wrestling career nearly 20 years ago. Mere 10 years beyond that, he helped a young Luke Hawx by simply treating him well when he didn’t need to, paying for his meals, simply because giving back to the young generation is something he believed strongly that veterans should do.
His impact on people’s lives and careers is evident, and the respect he gained whether it’s unending love from his friends, words of care and respect from a young wrestler, or a now-45-year-old Tanahashi paying his respects to the man who put him over when he didn’t need to by replicating his entrance and strut on the way down the aisle last night during NJPW’s New Japan Cup.
“Hey yo,” were the first words Kevin Owens said during his show-opening promo to kick off Raw Monday, because his impact transcends generations, because his work means something to the people who work in the business as much as it does to fans. It’s why when Hall was at his lowest points, people stood by him and helped give him a second chance so he could keep giving back to wrestling, to reconnect with people he was estranged from and to further reshape what his legacy was defined as.
The remarkable thing about Hall is what he did with his time toward the end of his life, which even then shouldn’t surprise anyone — he kept giving back to wrestling by helping the next generation figure out who they are both as wrestlers and as people. Whether it’s still on the road at wrestling shows, at conventions, or even just by stopping into WWE’s PC and teaching the young talent the psychological aspects of the business and allowing his brain to be picked. That’s part of his story, and that so many people stepped up to help him find his way back along the way is a testament to the human being he was inside the ring and out. He was flawed most definitely, but that’s what makes his road back inspiring because it shows you can excel at something, be excellent at it, and despite falling into the pitfalls of your past not be a prisoner to your shortcomings for the entirety of your life.
He worked hard to get there, and the results show the earnestness of his will to push forward and take his life back under control even if it was never an easy path along the way. Through that desire, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame not once but twice in a span of 6 years to punctuate all the titles and accolades heaped on him throughout his career. The road forward is scarcely ever easy, but what matters most is what we do with our time along the way, potholes and all. How we act, how we treat each other and how we persevere beyond reason and carry ourselves matters. We control that, and if you treat people right they will be there to return the kindness like Waltman, Nash, Credible, HBK, HHH, and DDP all did for him.
If you treat people with respect, as he treated so many young wrestlers over the years even until recently, that sentiment gets paid forward to the people closely following behind us. That, combined with the footage we all know and love are what makes him immortal even if “we” don’t mention him by name decades down the road. His impact simply becomes convention “4 Life,” as it should be.
“Hard work pays off. Dreams come true. Bad times don’t last, but bad guys do.”
