With the recent passing of Scott Hall, many fans have reflected on the contributions made by “The Bad Guy”. Hall is commonly seen as a backstage politician of note, which makes sense considering his role in The Kliq and refusal to allow anyone to kick out of his Razor’s Edge (with the exception of Crush) yet he often let those below him on the ladder get a win over him when he really did not need to. These are those workers Hall put over out of generosity, raising the stock of these wrestlers with one simple act of kindness.
#10. Tom Zenk | November 19th, 1991
Debuting live on Pay-Per-View at the inaugural SuperBrawl in mid-1991, Hall was brought in as a member of Diamond Dallas Page’s Diamond Mine faction under the name The Diamond Studd.
Hall was pushed strongly in the gimmick including building block PPV wins including a debut squashing of former NWA World Heavyweight champion Tommy Rich. Hall had even beaten Tom Zenk at The Great American Bash event, a big win to display Hall’s dominance, in which he beat the ex-Can-Am Connection member with a bridging back suplex.
Hall’s push slowly subsided by late 1991, whilst Zenk had lost significant matches to Lex Luger, Steve Austin, and Rick Rude (The Halloween Phantom) – the latter’s arrival perhaps a reason for Hall’s diminished role, as his gimmick drew parallels to “Ravishing” Rick’s.
At Clash Of The Champions XVII in November 1991, “The Z-Man” earned back some of his lost credibility as the recent holder of the Six-Man Tag Team championships beat The Diamond Studd in just over a minute.
The match was very one-sided as Hall dominated, with the majority of it taking place in a small split-screen as Sting had a leg injury treated backstage. Zenk pinned Hall with a crucifix; the result was treated as somewhat of an upset although it was by no way the main focus of the segment. Hall hit a chokeslam and the Diamond Deathdrop (Razor’s Edge) after the match.
On the 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff said such a result may have been dictated by the fact that Studd would soon be off. He says: “My guess is that Scott Hall was probably already on his way out of the door [or] thinking about it at this point. It wasn’t too long afterwards that he did leave.”
Leave a Reply