The Complete History Of The New World Order | Wrestling Timelines
May 27, 1996 - Scott Hall Debuts In WCW
Scott Hall arrives in WCW, lured down south under the promise of more guaranteed money for fewer dates.
The framing of his debut is sensational. It is antithetical to his introduction to the WWF, in which he was introduced via a series of polished, well-produced vignettes.
Hall isn’t repackaged. He isn’t given a copyright workaround gimmick, as was the case with the former Earthquake, John Tenta, who had jumped to WCW in 1994 as ‘Avalanche’. Legal action eventually forced WCW to abandon that idea.
Scott Hall is Scott Hall - or, more accurately, he is still Razor Ramon.
“You know who I am - but you don’t know why I’m here,” he says, interrupting a thrown-out match between the Mauler and Steve Doll. While he obviously is not named Razor Ramon by the commentary team, the heavy implication is that Razor, who speaks in the exact same Scarface-inspired accent, has invaded the territory.
“Razor” speaks as if he’s still employed by the other team. He uses the terms coined by a defensive, shaken WWF when the company had attempted to bury WCW as a retirement league throughout the pathetic ‘Billionaire Ted’ skits. Hall asks where Billionaire Ted (Ted Turner) and the ‘Nacho Man’ (Randy Savage) are.
WCW had initiated the Monday Night War by opting to go head-to-head with Raw. A brilliantly sinister Hall references this in his closing line. “Hey, you wanna go to war? You want a war? You’re gonna get one.”
This is shocking, groundbreaking, electrifying. Razor is not named, and wears street clothes, in WCW’s bid to protect itself.
The WWF legal team was still not satisfied…