Wrestling lost one of its icons of the 90's on Monday with the passing of Scott Hall at 63. Hall suffered three heart attacks over the weekend following hip surgery.
Hall began his career in the AWA, and won the tag team titles with Curt Hennig. After that, Hall made his first foray into WCW after Jim Crockett sold the Georgia promotion to Ted Turner. However, Hall, retaining his original, Magnum, P. I. inspired appearance, was a mid card jobber. A makeover turned him into the Diamond Studd, the forerunner to his Razor Ramon persona in the then-WWF (1992-6). The curly hair had been slicked back, his mustache was gone, his voice was a little rougher, and he added the now familiar toothpick and a new finishing move, the Diamond Death Drop (Razor's Edge).
Despite meeting and teaming with Kevin Nash (as Oz) for the first time, Hall was let go in 1992, and signed with WWF that summer, leading to a series of video vignettes. Ramon was the Studd, now based in Miami, modeled after Al Pacino's Tony Montana ("Scarface") with a Cuban accent. 4 Intercontinental titles and an iconic ladder match at Wrestlemania 10 with Shawn Michaels later, Hall was gone again, this time returning to WCW, but back to his own name. You know the rest of the story. Hall retired in 2010, and made sporadic legends appearances for WWE since then.
WWE played a tribute video that covered 1992-forward, ignoring the Studd period in WCW, but that is where "The Bad Guy" originally came from, as evidenced in this jobber match from World Wide Wrestling.
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