23.11.2006, 19:27
Keller: That's what Nick Bockwinkel did in the AWA territory, because I grew up in Minneapolis. Whenever the real-fake issue came up, he'd say, "Try me."
Hall: That's the sweet thing about Verne's hold, because he could choke f---ers out.
Keller: As wrestling evolved, it moved away from that, but there was a time...
Hall: Remember when (Hulk) Hogan choked Richard Beltzer out on TV. He's the comedian and he's on one of those cop shows now. Hulk choked him out with a sleeper on TV, cause the guy asked him to do it. He said to put him in that sleeper hold. Hulk, being f---in' gigantic then. His daughter could do him now. I'm not saying that, but Hogan was huge and powerful. Put him in a sleeper, then what he did was make the mistake of dropping him. And I'm not saying Hulk's culpable of any of this, but the f---in' idiot hit his head and it cost Hulk 250 grand. It probably cost Vince that, or maybe they split it. But what the f---, right? Because, you ask me to put you in a hold, and I do, and now I gotta pay you for it? I don't know, man.
Keller: Do you remember you first match in front of a crowd?
Hall: Although we trained in Florida, Dusty (Rhodes) made me and Dan Spivey a tag team and he sent us to Charlotte. He took the book in Charlotte. So really, we just sat on the shelf there and didn't do sh--. I think we were in some tag. We were too big to lose. Spivey is 6-7 and about 330 and I'm 6-6 and about 298 ripped. We're two green to win and too f---in' big to lose, so we don't work much, maybe once every couple of months. At that point, Jim Crockett Promotions owned the Charlotte Orioles. So we were on the grounds crew out there. We used to sit in the dugout with the ballplayers and then when it rained, we had to pull the tarp out by hand. Sh--, it only rained twice all year, so it wasn't all bad. That was about it. We never worked.
Keller: When you were first in front of a crowd, was that dramatically different than what you imagined it would be like to work in front of a crowd? Were you nervous? Did it come naturally for you to interact with the crowd? Or were you too green to even know better?
Hall: I was green like everybody. I was nervous. At that time, when we did work, we won. I had to work with guys who were more seasoned than me, but they had to put me over, so they weren't bending over backwards to put me over. Today, I have a little bit of an attitude. I consider myself, especially in my NWO years, the most high-paid job guy in the business. One time, Chris Jericho tells this story. One time I was working with Chris in the old spectrum before they built the other building. Remember when Chris was "Lionheart" and he'd lean back in the crowd and the people would all gather around him? He's a babyface. I used to tell him, "Chris, be careful, man. Someone might stab you or something." So we're talking before we go out. They were leading up to a match with me and Lex (Luger) at a pay-per-view with Zbyszko as a special ref because I was shooting an angle with Zbyszko. So they just want me to squash Jericho and just keep hitting him with my finish until Zbyszko comes out and stops it. So I talk to Chris and say, "Come here. Look, man. I've been in this building two-hundred times. How many times have you been here?" He went, "Never." I said, "You're supposed to be the babyface, but I think they're going to like me. Let's do this. I'm going to beat you like a job boy and I'm going to pick you up for my finish. We'll figure some cute way out of it, pin me, and then I'll hit you with my finish again and again. Then Zbyszko will come. I said, "Don't tell anybody. I'll take the heat." So what he did was, I beat him like a job boy. I picked him up for my finish and the corner where he could flip his feet off the turnbuckle, boom boom, he flipped me over and pinned me like that." I jumped up after 1-2-3, bang bang bang. I hit him with my finish a couple of times, Zbyszko hits the ring. We still shoot the angle. When I come back, first Arn Anderson, who was an agent, who gave me the finish in the hallway, he just shakes his head and goes, "You never cease to amaze me!" I said, "Arn, was it good or was it not good?" He said, "It was good. It was good TV." Because what the f---, everybody knows I'm going to squash that jobroni, right? And that's where I told Chris, "Chris, the only way these people are going to pop is if you beat me because every time I f---n' bumped him, they didn't make a sound. But when he pinned me, they exploded. So I'm all about getting their rocks off. It's about is it good TV or bad TV? Like we talked about, is it real or is it fake? Who cares? Is it good or is it bad? I guess I'm a dinosaur?
Keller: How did you end up moving from Charlotte to the AWA? Were there stops in between?
Hall: I went from Charlotte to Kansas City.
Keller: With Spivey a American Starship?
Hall: Yeah, but Spivey hated it, so he went back to Charlotte. Then I met Jack Lanza in St. Louis. Lanza took a look at me and I was wrestling in St. Louis. St. Louis used to be a hot wrestling town and they'd bring talent in from all over. The jobroni guys would drive in from Kansas City, so I was an opening match jobroni guy. I'm in the locker room. Jack Lanza comes up to me and goes, "You ready to make a move, kid?" I looked at him and said, "No, Jack, I ain't ready." He goes, "Everybody sucks when they start." I said, "You know what, if you feel that way, I'm ready." So next thing you know. What happened was, at the same time, I don't know if you know the story about Verne (Gagne) getting the fish hook in his eye. Verne was fish-hooking with his son (Greg Gagne) and Curt Hennig up in Alaska. He caught a fish and took a fish hook right in his eyeball. He was hospitalized, blah blah blah. Jack couldn't get confirmation that I was hired, but they still booked me in some towns. That's when they took me to Winnipeg. You ever hear of the wrestling car game. You're driving down the road. I say Sean Waltman. It' "W" to you. We always played it. Larry Zbyszko was always my killer. There wasn't many Z's. There was Zeus kind of. So they take me to Winnipeg. Jack takes me to Winnipeg. I've only wrestled in front of three or four hundred people. I go to Winnipeg arena and there's 15,000 people there. I always put Zbyszko over because that night, I look across at who I'm working with, and I go, f---, Larry Zbyszko.
Zbyszko goes broadway with me in Winnipeg. I don't know a thing, but I have the look. And Zbyszko's got good heat. This is a long time ago. Zbyszko's red hot. But I'm nobody, but I got the look. So I'm working with Zbyszko. Found out we're going broadway. He steers me through the whole match. The announcer's counting down. Ten, nine... Zbyszko's got me in the corner. He goes, "Grab my by the hair. Not too hard! Look at the people. Not too long! Okay, punch me. Not too hard! Put me in the corner, what's that finish you do?" Lanza gave me the bulldog. So I was using the bulldog. Boom. The one lesson I've never forgotten and always learned from Larry was so crucial and so man people don't know is, he tells me, "Cover me." And the referee is counting. You know how they do a well-done broadway, which is so rare these days, is the referee is counting, "One-two..." and then ding-ding-ding- ding. Zbyszko's laying there flat out. He says to me, "Jump up like you won." Because you know how in most countouts, the guy looks at the official and looks around like, what the f---, what the f---. Zbyszko told me to jump up like I won. I've never seen another broadway go that way. Because he took such good care of me (then), when I had stroke in Atlanta, I paid him back. That's the way it goes, right?
Keller: But when you got to the AWA, you were not pushed as a green guy who is a few years away from being a star. They had lost Hulk Hogan a relatively short time earlier. You were pushed right off the bat. You were compared to Magnum P.I. You were compared to Hulk Hogan.
Hall: Okay, let me interject here. You know who was burying me on that f---in' TV, and I can't figure out why they brought that f---in' ******* in, fly that ***** from Hawaii to Vegas. I did not pretend to be Magnum. You know who called me Magnum, was Lord James Blears because he lived in Hawaii because he wanted to name drop. He said, "He looks like Magnum P.I." He put so much heat on me because Magnum T.A. was red-hot in Charlotte, so all this ***** did was make me look like I was trying to get rub off of Magnum, who personally, if I was to meet him in an alleyway, I'd beat his - before he got in the accident - I'd beat his f---in' ass. But I couldn't believe it. You have to remember, you're out in that wrestling ring, you got no idea what these pricks are saying. It's not like Vince. Verne was such a f---in' dimwit. He wasn't monitoring what was said. I mean, ohhh. That Lord James Blears did nothing but bury me. You know why? Because he didn't like me. He was some old school wrestling guy. He didn't like me. He was just like Bruno Sammartino. He didn't like the young guys making money.
Wade Keller: You indicated you don't like Magnum T.A. Did you have any run-ins with him personally?
Scott Hall: No. He was a big star when I first got to Charlotte. But I got nothing bad to say about him. I hope he's doing good. We had a few run-ins, but I ain't gonna bad-mouth him.
Keller: The Magnum P.I. comparisons aside, you were billed as the next big thing in the AWA in the 1985-'86 era. You were given a lot of pressure early on to produce as a top guy.
Hall: Yeah, but can I tell you something? That ship was sinking. I remember being around the Freebirds. I learned a lot from the Freebirds and that's where I created the Wolfpac. Because I was such a big fan of the Freebirds, I wanted me, Kev (Nash), and Kid (Sean Waltman) to be the Wolfpac because you know they were the same, but they were different. They were brothers. Michael (Hayes) wore the robe; Terry Gordy wore the vest; Buddy Jack (Roberts) wore the baseball sh--, but it was all the same colors, just like me and Kev and Kid. You always had Wolfpac rules. You never knew which two of the three were going to wrestle, and guess what mother f---er? All three of them aren't wrestling. I always thought that was somethin' f---in' special. It had never been done since them. I don't know, I just thought that was the sh--.
Keller: That was the era of bookend tag teams and you guys kind of broke that pattern.
Hall: Exactly. Who you wanna see? Two matching guys? "We're the Road Warriors! Bleaaah!" I just think that's stale. That's why I think me and Kev are the best tag team in the world.
Keller: You and Kev or you and Kid?
Hall: Me and Kev, certainly, and Kid's gonna be there.
Keller: You teamed first with Curt Hennig in the AWA and had a pretty good chemistry. As green as you were at that point, it helped to have someone like Curt there to learn a lot from.
Hall: Curt helped me tremendously. I can't thank him enough.
Keller: Did teaming with him come first or the friendship?
Razor Ramon (photo by Jerry Wilson, PWTorch)
Hall: I have to say this about Curt. When I moved to Kansas City, I was pretty much in my prime physically. I was f--in' jacked, bro. As far as Curt knew, I moved there and we were both babyfaces. I was there to take his job, right? You know what, he went out of his way to show me around town. Every road trip we ever made, Curt drove. He used to come to my apartment and pick me up because I didn't know how to drive in the snow. I'm a Florida boy. But, I mean, he would drive to every town and all the way he was always talkin' to me, teaching me business, teachin' me this, teachin' me that, you know? Another thing, too, is you know what Curt did because he knew it was right because he was second generation? Curt always sold and gave me the hot-tag. He felt that's what the people wanted to see. He always steered me in the right direction. I learned a few habits from him, but I ain't gonna dwell on those. But he was an angel as far as I can say professional wrestling wise.
Hall: That's the sweet thing about Verne's hold, because he could choke f---ers out.
Keller: As wrestling evolved, it moved away from that, but there was a time...
Hall: Remember when (Hulk) Hogan choked Richard Beltzer out on TV. He's the comedian and he's on one of those cop shows now. Hulk choked him out with a sleeper on TV, cause the guy asked him to do it. He said to put him in that sleeper hold. Hulk, being f---in' gigantic then. His daughter could do him now. I'm not saying that, but Hogan was huge and powerful. Put him in a sleeper, then what he did was make the mistake of dropping him. And I'm not saying Hulk's culpable of any of this, but the f---in' idiot hit his head and it cost Hulk 250 grand. It probably cost Vince that, or maybe they split it. But what the f---, right? Because, you ask me to put you in a hold, and I do, and now I gotta pay you for it? I don't know, man.
Keller: Do you remember you first match in front of a crowd?
Hall: Although we trained in Florida, Dusty (Rhodes) made me and Dan Spivey a tag team and he sent us to Charlotte. He took the book in Charlotte. So really, we just sat on the shelf there and didn't do sh--. I think we were in some tag. We were too big to lose. Spivey is 6-7 and about 330 and I'm 6-6 and about 298 ripped. We're two green to win and too f---in' big to lose, so we don't work much, maybe once every couple of months. At that point, Jim Crockett Promotions owned the Charlotte Orioles. So we were on the grounds crew out there. We used to sit in the dugout with the ballplayers and then when it rained, we had to pull the tarp out by hand. Sh--, it only rained twice all year, so it wasn't all bad. That was about it. We never worked.
Keller: When you were first in front of a crowd, was that dramatically different than what you imagined it would be like to work in front of a crowd? Were you nervous? Did it come naturally for you to interact with the crowd? Or were you too green to even know better?
Hall: I was green like everybody. I was nervous. At that time, when we did work, we won. I had to work with guys who were more seasoned than me, but they had to put me over, so they weren't bending over backwards to put me over. Today, I have a little bit of an attitude. I consider myself, especially in my NWO years, the most high-paid job guy in the business. One time, Chris Jericho tells this story. One time I was working with Chris in the old spectrum before they built the other building. Remember when Chris was "Lionheart" and he'd lean back in the crowd and the people would all gather around him? He's a babyface. I used to tell him, "Chris, be careful, man. Someone might stab you or something." So we're talking before we go out. They were leading up to a match with me and Lex (Luger) at a pay-per-view with Zbyszko as a special ref because I was shooting an angle with Zbyszko. So they just want me to squash Jericho and just keep hitting him with my finish until Zbyszko comes out and stops it. So I talk to Chris and say, "Come here. Look, man. I've been in this building two-hundred times. How many times have you been here?" He went, "Never." I said, "You're supposed to be the babyface, but I think they're going to like me. Let's do this. I'm going to beat you like a job boy and I'm going to pick you up for my finish. We'll figure some cute way out of it, pin me, and then I'll hit you with my finish again and again. Then Zbyszko will come. I said, "Don't tell anybody. I'll take the heat." So what he did was, I beat him like a job boy. I picked him up for my finish and the corner where he could flip his feet off the turnbuckle, boom boom, he flipped me over and pinned me like that." I jumped up after 1-2-3, bang bang bang. I hit him with my finish a couple of times, Zbyszko hits the ring. We still shoot the angle. When I come back, first Arn Anderson, who was an agent, who gave me the finish in the hallway, he just shakes his head and goes, "You never cease to amaze me!" I said, "Arn, was it good or was it not good?" He said, "It was good. It was good TV." Because what the f---, everybody knows I'm going to squash that jobroni, right? And that's where I told Chris, "Chris, the only way these people are going to pop is if you beat me because every time I f---n' bumped him, they didn't make a sound. But when he pinned me, they exploded. So I'm all about getting their rocks off. It's about is it good TV or bad TV? Like we talked about, is it real or is it fake? Who cares? Is it good or is it bad? I guess I'm a dinosaur?
Keller: How did you end up moving from Charlotte to the AWA? Were there stops in between?
Hall: I went from Charlotte to Kansas City.
Keller: With Spivey a American Starship?
Hall: Yeah, but Spivey hated it, so he went back to Charlotte. Then I met Jack Lanza in St. Louis. Lanza took a look at me and I was wrestling in St. Louis. St. Louis used to be a hot wrestling town and they'd bring talent in from all over. The jobroni guys would drive in from Kansas City, so I was an opening match jobroni guy. I'm in the locker room. Jack Lanza comes up to me and goes, "You ready to make a move, kid?" I looked at him and said, "No, Jack, I ain't ready." He goes, "Everybody sucks when they start." I said, "You know what, if you feel that way, I'm ready." So next thing you know. What happened was, at the same time, I don't know if you know the story about Verne (Gagne) getting the fish hook in his eye. Verne was fish-hooking with his son (Greg Gagne) and Curt Hennig up in Alaska. He caught a fish and took a fish hook right in his eyeball. He was hospitalized, blah blah blah. Jack couldn't get confirmation that I was hired, but they still booked me in some towns. That's when they took me to Winnipeg. You ever hear of the wrestling car game. You're driving down the road. I say Sean Waltman. It' "W" to you. We always played it. Larry Zbyszko was always my killer. There wasn't many Z's. There was Zeus kind of. So they take me to Winnipeg. Jack takes me to Winnipeg. I've only wrestled in front of three or four hundred people. I go to Winnipeg arena and there's 15,000 people there. I always put Zbyszko over because that night, I look across at who I'm working with, and I go, f---, Larry Zbyszko.
Zbyszko goes broadway with me in Winnipeg. I don't know a thing, but I have the look. And Zbyszko's got good heat. This is a long time ago. Zbyszko's red hot. But I'm nobody, but I got the look. So I'm working with Zbyszko. Found out we're going broadway. He steers me through the whole match. The announcer's counting down. Ten, nine... Zbyszko's got me in the corner. He goes, "Grab my by the hair. Not too hard! Look at the people. Not too long! Okay, punch me. Not too hard! Put me in the corner, what's that finish you do?" Lanza gave me the bulldog. So I was using the bulldog. Boom. The one lesson I've never forgotten and always learned from Larry was so crucial and so man people don't know is, he tells me, "Cover me." And the referee is counting. You know how they do a well-done broadway, which is so rare these days, is the referee is counting, "One-two..." and then ding-ding-ding- ding. Zbyszko's laying there flat out. He says to me, "Jump up like you won." Because you know how in most countouts, the guy looks at the official and looks around like, what the f---, what the f---. Zbyszko told me to jump up like I won. I've never seen another broadway go that way. Because he took such good care of me (then), when I had stroke in Atlanta, I paid him back. That's the way it goes, right?
Keller: But when you got to the AWA, you were not pushed as a green guy who is a few years away from being a star. They had lost Hulk Hogan a relatively short time earlier. You were pushed right off the bat. You were compared to Magnum P.I. You were compared to Hulk Hogan.
Hall: Okay, let me interject here. You know who was burying me on that f---in' TV, and I can't figure out why they brought that f---in' ******* in, fly that ***** from Hawaii to Vegas. I did not pretend to be Magnum. You know who called me Magnum, was Lord James Blears because he lived in Hawaii because he wanted to name drop. He said, "He looks like Magnum P.I." He put so much heat on me because Magnum T.A. was red-hot in Charlotte, so all this ***** did was make me look like I was trying to get rub off of Magnum, who personally, if I was to meet him in an alleyway, I'd beat his - before he got in the accident - I'd beat his f---in' ass. But I couldn't believe it. You have to remember, you're out in that wrestling ring, you got no idea what these pricks are saying. It's not like Vince. Verne was such a f---in' dimwit. He wasn't monitoring what was said. I mean, ohhh. That Lord James Blears did nothing but bury me. You know why? Because he didn't like me. He was some old school wrestling guy. He didn't like me. He was just like Bruno Sammartino. He didn't like the young guys making money.
Wade Keller: You indicated you don't like Magnum T.A. Did you have any run-ins with him personally?
Scott Hall: No. He was a big star when I first got to Charlotte. But I got nothing bad to say about him. I hope he's doing good. We had a few run-ins, but I ain't gonna bad-mouth him.
Keller: The Magnum P.I. comparisons aside, you were billed as the next big thing in the AWA in the 1985-'86 era. You were given a lot of pressure early on to produce as a top guy.
Hall: Yeah, but can I tell you something? That ship was sinking. I remember being around the Freebirds. I learned a lot from the Freebirds and that's where I created the Wolfpac. Because I was such a big fan of the Freebirds, I wanted me, Kev (Nash), and Kid (Sean Waltman) to be the Wolfpac because you know they were the same, but they were different. They were brothers. Michael (Hayes) wore the robe; Terry Gordy wore the vest; Buddy Jack (Roberts) wore the baseball sh--, but it was all the same colors, just like me and Kev and Kid. You always had Wolfpac rules. You never knew which two of the three were going to wrestle, and guess what mother f---er? All three of them aren't wrestling. I always thought that was somethin' f---in' special. It had never been done since them. I don't know, I just thought that was the sh--.
Keller: That was the era of bookend tag teams and you guys kind of broke that pattern.
Hall: Exactly. Who you wanna see? Two matching guys? "We're the Road Warriors! Bleaaah!" I just think that's stale. That's why I think me and Kev are the best tag team in the world.
Keller: You and Kev or you and Kid?
Hall: Me and Kev, certainly, and Kid's gonna be there.
Keller: You teamed first with Curt Hennig in the AWA and had a pretty good chemistry. As green as you were at that point, it helped to have someone like Curt there to learn a lot from.
Hall: Curt helped me tremendously. I can't thank him enough.
Keller: Did teaming with him come first or the friendship?
Razor Ramon (photo by Jerry Wilson, PWTorch)
Hall: I have to say this about Curt. When I moved to Kansas City, I was pretty much in my prime physically. I was f--in' jacked, bro. As far as Curt knew, I moved there and we were both babyfaces. I was there to take his job, right? You know what, he went out of his way to show me around town. Every road trip we ever made, Curt drove. He used to come to my apartment and pick me up because I didn't know how to drive in the snow. I'm a Florida boy. But, I mean, he would drive to every town and all the way he was always talkin' to me, teaching me business, teachin' me this, teachin' me that, you know? Another thing, too, is you know what Curt did because he knew it was right because he was second generation? Curt always sold and gave me the hot-tag. He felt that's what the people wanted to see. He always steered me in the right direction. I learned a few habits from him, but I ain't gonna dwell on those. But he was an angel as far as I can say professional wrestling wise.