WWE legend Scott Hall dies at 63

WWE legend Scott Hall died on Monday. He was 63.

Hall reportedly suffered a broken hip in a fall earlier this month and underwent surgery. Wade Keller of PWTorch reported that an issue involving blood clots resulted in Hall having three heart attacks and being placed on life support in Marietta, Georgia over the weekend.

Earlier Monday, Hall’s longtime friend and tag team partner Kevin Nash revealed in an Instagram post that Hall’s family made the decision to end the life support. Hall was taken off of life support Monday afternoon and survived for several hours according to reports confirmed by another of Hall’s wrestling colleagues Sean Waltman.

Scott Oliver Hall was born on Oct. 20, 1958. He rose to prominence in the 1990s, becoming one of the most recognizable and popular figures in World Wrestling Entertainment (then WWF) and World Championship Wrestling.

Despite breaking into the industry in the mid-1980s, Hall’s first major brush with stardom came when he joined WWE in 1992 as Razor Ramon, a charismatic heel billed from Miami and based in part off of Al Pacino and Steven Bauer’s characters in “Scarface.”

Hall quickly experienced success in WWE and his first run as Intercontinental Champion resulted in one of the greatest contests ever — a ladder match against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania X in 1994. Hall and Michaels’ instant classic was the first WWE match to earn a five-star rating from Dave Meltzer in the influential Wrestling Observer Newsletter publication.

Hall would continue to wrestle for WWE until 1996 before signing a contract with Vince McMahon’s biggest competitor, WCW and creating two of the most-talked about moments in wrestling history.

Hall and Nash, both coveted free agents who signed with WCW, worked an untelevised show at Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1996 along with longtime friends Michaels and Paul "Triple H" Levesque. In an unscripted moment at the end of the night, Hall, Nash, Michaels and Levesque — known in wrestling circles as “The Kliq” — broke kayfabe and hugged in the ring, marking the last time until that point the four men would work together.

A little more than a week later, on May 27, 1996, Hall would jumpstart one of the biggest storylines in wrestling by emerging from the crowd and coming into the ring at a WCW Nitro show. Hall would be joined by Nash on WCW programming in June 1996 forming “The Outsiders” tag team. The Outsiders were joined by Hulk Hogan at Bash at the Beach on July 7, 1996, forming the New World Order — the defining storyline during WCW’s most successful stretch.

Hall wrestled with WCW until 2000, and after brief stints with Extreme Championship Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling before returning to WWE in 2002 as part of a reformed NWO faction. Hall worked again in WWE for a few months, including a match at WrestleMania X8 against Stone Cold Steve Austin, before being released by the company in the wake of the infamous “Plane Ride From Hell.”

Hall worked for various promotions over the next decade plus, most notably Total Nonstop Action — another WWE competitor — before eventually coming back to McMahon’s promotion in a legends capacity and being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as Razor Ramon in 2014. Hall would be inducted again in 2021 as part of the NWO. Hall’s initial induction resulted in one of the great closing lines of a WWE induction speech.

“Hard work pays off. Dreams come true. Bad times don’t last, but bad guys do,” Hall said at the time, referencing his classic character’s persona.

Hall’s struggles with substance abuse were well chronicled throughout his career. An ESPN E:60 documentary in 2011 detailed Hall’s struggles with substance abuse and myriad health issues. “I should have been dead 100 times,” Hall told ESPN at the time.

In 2013, Diamond Dallas Page, who managed Hall in his early WCW days as Diamond Studd, reached out to Hall in an effort to help him change his lifestyle. Page helped raise more than $100,000 for Hall and invited him to live in his house. Part of his journey is seen in the 2015 documentary “The Resurrection of Jake the Snake.”

Hall also had his share of legal issues before and during his wrestling career, the most serious of which came in 1983, when Hall was charged with second-degree murder after a shooting incident outside a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Charges against Hall were dismissed due to a lack of evidence. Hall detailed the shooting in the 2011 ESPN documentary as well.

Despite never winning the WWE Championship or World Heavyweight Championship in WCW, Hall is remembered as being one of the most popular and influential figures in the business during his peak. Hall won 20 championships across half a dozen promotions during his nearly three-decade career.

News of Hall’s death rattled the wrestling community, with tributes pouring in from fans and colleagues alike.