10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE In 1996
2. A Funny Legal Letter
Scott Hall, as you'll know, turned up in WCW to initiate the New World Order angle.
On an otherwise dire Nitro, on May 27, 1996, he interrupted a match and infamously said "You know who I am, but you don't know why I'm here". While never named as such - even a slight variation, like Razor Robbie or something, would draw the ire of the WWF's lawyers - he delivered this line in his Razor Ramon voice. That voice was a problematic Cuban-American accent, since Hall was not of Cuban descent.
It was heavily implied that he was an unwanted guest operating on behalf of the WWF, which was a great but untenable idea. This was a WCW storyline not remotely endorsed by the WWF, and that aspect of the act, in addition to Hall basically doing their intellectual property, was abandoned when Hall was threatened with legal action. Were he not to drop the voice, the WWF would withhold both merchandise royalties and the pay-per-view payoffs that were due to him.
What's hilarious about this is that it was the IP of Universal Pictures, in a very roundabout way: Razor Ramon was heavily, heavily inspired by Tony Montana, the lead character in Brian De Palma's 1983 movie 'Scarface'. Vince McMahon simply hadn't seen it.
Scott Hall quickly spoke in a voice almost indistinguishable from his own, but the sheer ignorance and hypocrisy of the legal threat was funny.