Scott had one of the greatest wrestling minds in the business. He also had no problem putting anyone over or whether he was a champion or not. He had a mind for the business and knew how to change with the times. RIP.
agreed, really interesting perspective on Brett and his WWF taped vignettes. I didn't think about it like that but he convinced me maybe I was not looking at the whole picture here.
He would probably work a deal with a concession stand worker "Hey when I go for this grab, you roll me back and get the 3, I'll deal with the repercussions in the back and tell him it was my fault" "Scott? You know I'm not a wrestler, right?" "Yeah but you'll be a legend in the stands forever! Everyone's gonna want your nuts"
Very underrated. It's such a shame we don't have him for today's creative writing team. Cause they suck, so does the acting in today's wrestling.. It's just terrible.
@@Punchable-Face i couldnt agree more. I very seldom watch wrestling now but I did in the 80s up to around 2007 or so and yes we need creative people to come up with good storylines. Scott Hall was a genius. I think maybe Arn Anderson or Scott Steiner could come up with some good stuff if given the chance.
Your comment reminded me of when I met Scott Hall at Hogan’s Beach Shop. I told him he was one of my all-time favorite wrestlers and Scott said “Well, you’re obviously an intelligent guy with great taste in wrestlers” 😂 RIP Scott Hall
This really tells you a lot about Scott. You could tell he was a little offput by Bret calling the shots in their matches and saying if he'd had more time he wouldn't have allowed it to happen, and the interviewer throws in a "Do you think he's overrated like Flair says?" and Scott immediately cuts that off. Why? Because Scott can disagree with something and still not be a hater. Too many other wrestlers just can't get over themselves and become full on haters for the dumbest of reasons.
Plus: At that time (January 1993) it was the right move by Hart. Hall was relatively fresh in the WWF and Hart was the champion. And Hart knew how to put over other wrestlers and make them look good. Actually these guys should've had an angle in later years when they were fully "seasoned".
Most of the kliq very much respected Bret, and liked working with him. Nash had nothing but great things to say about working with him as well. Really it was only Shawn that had the problems with him. But the rest of the kliq all as workers saw him for exactly what Bret was. A very easy guy to have great matches with. They never had to sweat a thing with him. They'd be making money, and be getting taken care of with the highest level of skill.
@@KolossusBAnd tbf, even Shawn said that Bret was a brilliant worker (and vice versa), even when the relationship was crumbling. It's a damn shame they weren't able to get past their issues.
Plus, most wrestlers were just meatheads, former FB or other sports and weren’t the sharpest minds. Scott Hall was a wrestling genius who got caught up with the dark side of wrestling.
nuance is just a bad word these days. If you simply disagree or don't like something people just take it as you are shitting on that thing they like. Bro I can not like something, it's still objectively good. That's all it is, it's an opinion. But people are just modernly in the camp of: "It's either THIS or THAT nothing in between." Which is a remedial mind-set.
Maaaan this guy was SO SHARP...brilliant mind for the business. When he said "some guys matches were entertaining enough the announcers could talk about other stuff" Booker T immediately came to mind. That is awesome that Scott would talk to guys like this behind the scenes. Booker and Bret had that in common even though Booker was also good on the mic in addition to his ring skill. Then of course Benoit, Guerrero and Jericho all fit that bill as well. Scott should have been a booker or head creative for some promotion....r.i.p.
The biggest missed opportunity in WCW was not letting him just wrestle. You had guys like Jericho, Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Mysterio, etc. We were lucky to have him get a match with Benoit and Booker T. All those guys were some of the best in-ring wrestlers in the business at the time.
i just watched Perry Saturn make his debut in WCW on Peacock. incredible wrestler. he destroyed Disco Inferno with an array of holds. And everything he did was so smooth.
Yeah they are wrong about it being his fault not getting over basically only good match he had was against benoit (best match I ever saw in wcw in fact.) He should have been booked in fueds with all the top guys and it never happened then wcw went down the toilet.
He came in at a bad time. The fans wanted Hogan vs Sting first and that feud should’ve lasted 6 months since it was the culmination of the nWo vs WCW and Sting turning his back on WCW over War Games 96
Scott seemed like such a cool dude. I love how he is so positive in this interview, and seems so genuine too. And even when he had the opportunity to bury someone (Russo), he refused to comment and even went above and beyond and complimented what he did like about the guy. I know Scott gets a bad rap sometimes, but he is straight up class in this video.
According to just about every single person who wrestled him disagrees with you on his skills Seeing as Bret is the only one sspoken about from the Hart family by default he's the best Hart Owen sucked and was never more than a jobber Bulldog was ok Jim was decent as well
I love Scott, but some of these comments are quite silly. Bret was a phenomenal heel in 97 coming into WCW & his mic work had advanced quite a bit by that point. Bret was white hot at the time WCW got their hands on him, & they brought him in as a fucking referee. Also with the way WCW & the NWO angle was being run at that time, maybe they should have changed the stupid constant runs ins & comedy & lack of wrestling & concentrated on the wrestling aspect.
I think people overlook the way Bret sold the product on the mic. His serious demeanor alone made you think he wasn't messing around so when he dropped a few cuss words in his pipe bombs it made the heat seem legitimate. I appreciated the fact that he didn't play a hokey pokey character and stayed true to his persona during an era when everyone else was looking for cheap sophomoric pops and comedic routines.
They had a golden opportunity to have Sting go over Hogan clean(and according to hogan and bischoff sting wasn't at the top of his game with personal issues)....with the idea that Bret would be in the mix to challenge for the title. Have hogan use his rematch clause and have bret interfere on behalf of sting, and nash interfere for hogan. No contest. Then do a fatal 4 way with sting as champ, bret, hogan and nash. Use that match to see nash betray hogan for Bret letting Bret win the belt. Bret is the new leader of the NWO, and kick out all of the watered down guys. Bring it down to Bret, Nash, Hall, and Randy Savage. That would make it strong again and put a fresh paint. Have Hogan do a long walk back to the yellow and red. So many great ways to tell this story with Bret. How did they get it wrong? Just baffles me.
What a series of eloquent, thoughtful responses. Really highlights what an emotional, intelligent, business-savvy individual he is. I was impressed with him by this clip.
Hall got one thing correct here: the nWo was a circus that turned the WCW into a clown show with lots of useless trash talking and barely any proper wrestling, and Bret did not fit in there because he was a proper Wrestler who took his craft seriously and had a sense of pride regarding his work.
Yep. Unfortunately, Hall's addictions and Nash's injuries paired with Nash's creative control led to lackluster performances after the first 2 years of nWo.
Explaining why announcers talk about other matches and all these guys being technically sound and asthetically pleasing is actually very interesting. I miss this man
Bret Coming into WCW after Survivor Series was HOT. All you had to do was put him on tv and the rest would take care of itself. But they kept that dude home most of the time.
This is the only thing I disagrees with Scott about in the interview. His impact was huge and could have stayed that way if Bret only had the mic once a month for no more than 5 minutes.
That's an amazing point about how they can talk about other matches and story lines while a match is going on because they are so good in the ring it's just great to just watch the match and listen to the commentary and they don't need to do the play-by-play for the match. That's an excellent point Scott made
Bret in late 97 was NOT "bad on the stick". At that point he was better than pretty much anyone in the NWO who had gotten lazy and fallen into inside jokes as promos, to crack each other up.
What were the rest of the wrestlers doing? "Let me tell ya something,.....one more thing I'll tell ya, ..... and he thinks he's so badass but when you wrestle me..." ya soooo much better. 🙄
Bret was mishandled. Bischoff admitted so. Bret and VKM even both said before he left 'they're not gonna know what to do with me' and he was right. Bret is still a giant of the industry and the fact he apparently told AEW he'd agent matches and stuff for them and they REFUSED is one of the biggest mistakes in aews short, and tragic history. Bret offers you a hand, you take it. Especially when it comes to putting matches together. Hall offers you a hand on promo work, you again take him up on that. You let people help you make money. Miss Hall, sad how his last days were, but, legends never really due. May he RIP.
You may not like bischoff but I think people would have talked to him behind the scenes and said you got to get your act together in 1999 or else we are out of business
Bischoff had his flaws, but the gulf in quality and PPV buys from about August 1999 to early 2000 was huge. Bischoff wasn't going to win the war at that point, but WCW could have at least avoided losing about $60 million in 2000 and maybe survived as an independent entity like TNA (or instead of Smackdown!). Road Wild 1999: 0.54 buy rate Souled Out 2000: 0.26 buy rate, WCW's worst ever for a normal PPV at that point, even below BattleBowl 1993.
Love hearing Scott talk, such a sound mind and love for the business. Kind of don't agree with the announcers talking about other things during matches though. Used to bug me back then. They're there to talk about the action, use the interlude for talking and hyping up other things.
WOW, that was very nice to say, always like Scott Hall…… He said the wrestling was pretty…. WOW… the moves were crisp and the announcers didn’t have to say anything.. WOW..
Scott Hall had a solid wrestling mind and is a great shoot interview, but Bret Hart was sorely underrated on the microphone. Bret Hart's "Who are you to doubt El Dandy" interview with Mean Gene was top shelf. WCW definitely dropped the ball with Bret.......... and countless others.
Bret is my all time favorite, going back to 1991. That being said, I don’t think anyone could have ever been the third man but Hogan. Where he was at in his career, the audience was ready to hate him and this was the moment they needed.
Bret was a guy who’s focus was 100% on the art of the craft. like scott said his mic skills were pretty trash. That said, he put Austin over so imo, us attitude era fans, were all in his debt. Now Austin was semi technical but was spitting straight BARS on the mic and sold more tickets, shirts, games, ect. than anybody bcuz of that
Nope, Bret would've bankrupted the WWF had he stayed and demanded to remain on top. Bret was a nice B+ player but not superstar talent like Hulk, Rock, Austin or even Cena
This is true. You don’t need to be “technically” the “best” wrestler, but, if you have gold mic skills and can make the people laugh, you are as good as golden, and will likely remain on the roster just cause you are a fan favorite.
This is the first time Ive heard WCW and when Bret joined the company. From the first week he was there, I was upset at how he was handled. I remember hearing about Bret joining and thought he was a huge upgrade to WCW. We had all the NWO noise going on, they were great but Hulk was far past his prime (my opinion, don’t get upset!). I was fan enough I bought an NWO t-shirt. The story was a great idea but it had way to much air time and robbed fans with not enough wrestling time. Bret signing should have him vs Goldberg day one. Bret could make anyone look like a superstar. Fans never saw any of that happen. Was Russo the booker? My memory is bad after several strokes and I no longer remember when Dusty stopped being the head booker. Hellfire! Dusty was old but a Bret vs Dusty match would be the biggest match in WCW and could sell out a Starcade or other PPV event.
Interesting to see this again, cause Scott went back and forth on his opinion of Bret throughout the years. There are instances of him saying he wasn’t that impressed by Bret and that he felt Bret was overrated, but at other times he comes off as very reverential of what Bret accomplished. It’s always come off to me as him being loyal to friends of his who Bret has had legitimate heat with, and depending on what had happened in the world of wrestling drama at any given time, Scott would kinda tailor his opinion to that moment. Such an interesting and complicated dude, was Scott.
I'm a life long fan of Brett I watched him dynamite Davey Boy nighthart all every Saturday and every second Tuesday night live I could do Brett's whole finishing routine to my buddies on the playground
I disagree with Scott on one thing. Bret was absolutely mishandled when he came in to WCW. Scott said that Bret would have made a bigger impact had he come in a year earlier, Bret was white hot after the Screw job.
I respect Bret Hart and all that he has done in the industry. I did always feel his arsenal of maneuvers was on the soft side. His timing was perfect . It is Admirable to never hurt a soul. Just not any devastating maneuvers
So I kind of agree with Scott but for different reasons. WCW overtook WWF on Bret's watch. So now that Bret is in WCW, what are you going to do? Book him to beat all the top guys he couldn't outdraw when he was in the other company?
Book him with the top talent in matches that mattered, period. Win or lose, Bret could get a 5 star classic out of all the top guys and elevate everyone. Doesn’t necessarily have to book him to win them all
I wish kind of that Bret would have let Razor have some say . But not many knew the genius of Scott Hall back then . Bret protected the business is all and himself .
Bret was checked out. He was hurt my the screw job, everyone has said he didn’t want to actually leave. Vince told him to get the payday, so he did. Then with Owen passing not long after, you can’t blame the guy. Everyone close to him passed away. His brother, his brother in law, a good friend…. Hard to be really motivated to keep going, when he’s already accomplished everything.
Mic skills was not Brets best attribute. However, if you gave him something to talk about, he could go with the best of them. He had to have something real to deal with.
The problem with WCW and Bret was that WCW was showcasing good technical wrestling on the midcard and lower, but that was Bret's strength. Also, at the time, it was WCW vs. NWO. Bret wasn't WCW and he didn't vibe with NWO. They could have tried to use Bret to IMPROVE the overall quality of upper card matches, but it was Hogan's kingdom, and that wasnt gonna work.
I always liked Scott Hall. Goldberg never got on the mic for a long time and got over huge, because he was featured with purpose. I was a huge Bret Hart fan. He was hardly ever on TV and when he was, he was rarely featured in any major matches or angles. That’s on management.
Pretty cool to see scott actually say something nice about hitman. I don't know I found some of bretts wcw promo work entertaining and who are you to doubt el dandy.
Hall truly understood the business as he rightly pointed out, Bret knew how to tell an in ring wrestling story which many of them lacked then, and now all wwe is doing is the same but doesn't seem as captivating as Bret used to do ..because they lie down as the match goes past 5 minutes for about 10 minutes to show their pain and exhaustion lol...whereas in the past they used to lock in a submission
Very interesting point by Scott: when the wrestler is interesting enough in the ring, the commentator has time to talk about other wrestlers, matches, angles, etc. I remember once switching to a channel, where there was an Indy Wrestling show, which I can't remember the name. The commentator was soooo boring, he only spoke about the moves the wrestlers are doing right now in the ring, as we're all blind!
After reading through the comments for a little bit I think a lot of you guys are right even though you're disagreeing. Two things are true here: 1- Brett wasn't great on the mic. He wasn't terrible, but he wasn't great. 2- Scott is looking back on that time when Bret came in with rose colored glasses re: the NWO's talent. By that point the NWO's goofy antics and soap opera nonsense had grown stale and boring but they were still obnoxiously controlling everything. Hard to see how a guy who isn't naturally gifted on the mic like Bret could find a way to blend into the silly chaos of the NWO at that time. It was doomed to fail.
The WWF was a better company than WCW and knew how to market their wrestlers better and make stars. I preferred Bret, Nash and Hall’s WWF work to anything they did in WCW
The whole “some guys are so good commentator can talk about something else” is just Scott Halls way of justifying WCW constantly talking about nWo It isn’t some astute analysis on why companies need good wrestlers. If anything, exciting matches gives the play by play guys things to talk about and they’re into it themselves. Boring matches are the ones where you need other material to talk about.
I think while Hall said it was Live, it also shows what was wrong with WCW. They expected everybody to be able to do everything instead of catering to their strengths. If you know Bret isnt good on the mic,.. .why put him in the position of being a talker? If you know hes good being taped where you can feed him lines.. why not tape his work and put it in the live broadcast? Like why make it difficult... its freaking Bret Hart.. you cater to his strengths not his weaknesses.
Bret was great on the mic. You're there to sell a match. You don't have to be a comedian or a poet. Those things are fine, but you don't have to have that. And lol, it's not even a question IF WCW mishandled Bret. He was THE hottest name in the business when he came in. The problem was the top 10 guys in WCW all had Bischoff (idiot) contracts, so they had creative control over how they were booked. There was nothing for Bret to do, but wrestle midcarders.
As fantastic of a worker Bret was in the ring, it never translated to drawing big money on top until he worked with Steve which is why guys like Scott, Kevin, Shawn & even Taker (to an extent) all grew tired of him and started to resent his push as they were all earning less. The real problem though was that in a post-Hogan, post steroid trial WWF (between 93-96), NOBODY was going to draw anything regardless of who was put in that position. It didn’t matter.
Being taped and being live is a huge difference. I can now see where Bret was a bit stale on the mic in wcw. Wow. Wcw at some point should’ve started taping and editing more for people like Bret. Bret was a favorite of mine as a kid
Having lived through that era, I never thought much of Bret because he was bad on mic You can't be a great champion if you can't sell your matches, and make people who aren't fans of yours, like me, watchn you work. That's what a champion does. They give you a reason to tune in. I always saw him as a mid-carder, who was being forced onto the audience, as a champ. Never bought in
There was nothing Bret could have done to fit in with the nWo era. Trying to have him assimilate into guys playing air guitar and doing Arn Anderson parodies was putting a square peg in a round hole. He was there to wrestle. Bret Hart monkeying around like a frat house boy is not Bret Hart. So he did the only thing he could do, which was get younger guys over like Benoit, Malenko, and Booker, or wrestle guys he liked such as Piper and Sting.
Bret was over it’s just they didn’t book him right, let’s be honest, Hogan was calling the shots and he made sure no one would outshine him, before Bret left for wcw, his heel turn, reuniting the heart foundation he was great on the mic, Scott hall could have buried hart here but didn’t, he spoke the truth, flair called hart overrated because of an old rivalry they have since squashed. Rip Scott hall, I grew up on these guys, greatest time to be a fan, kayfabe is dead now
It is interesting to hear that Scott didn’t feel Bret was great on the mic. He came off great in WWF, but that could be because the company had a better environment to help those guys. For example, pre-recording as much as they could.
Love Scott Hall, but Razor started in the WWF in August 1992, they started an angle pretty much after he won the title in October 1992. So to say he never said hi after a year that he was their seems a little exaggerated.
RIP to the late-great Scott Hall
Stream the Full Shoot Interview (2007)
➡titlematchnetwork.com/wrestling-shoot-interviews-results/
Scott had one of the greatest wrestling minds in the business. He also had no problem putting anyone over or whether he was a champion or not. He had a mind for the business and knew how to change with the times. RIP.
He was the man
agreed, really interesting perspective on Brett and his WWF taped vignettes. I didn't think about it like that but he convinced me maybe I was not looking at the whole picture here.
He would probably work a deal with a concession stand worker
"Hey when I go for this grab, you roll me back and get the 3, I'll deal with the repercussions in the back and tell him it was my fault"
"Scott? You know I'm not a wrestler, right?"
"Yeah but you'll be a legend in the stands forever! Everyone's gonna want your nuts"
Very underrated. It's such a shame we don't have him for today's creative writing team. Cause they suck, so does the acting in today's wrestling.. It's just terrible.
@@Punchable-Face i couldnt agree more. I very seldom watch wrestling now but I did in the 80s up to around 2007 or so and yes we need creative people to come up with good storylines. Scott Hall was a genius. I think maybe Arn Anderson or Scott Steiner could come up with some good stuff if given the chance.
Scott is very interesting to listen to and clearly very intelligent. RIP Scott Hall
Your comment reminded me of when I met Scott Hall at Hogan’s Beach Shop. I told him he was one of my all-time favorite wrestlers and Scott said “Well, you’re obviously an intelligent guy with great taste in wrestlers” 😂
RIP Scott Hall
He's very intelligent and always comes across as a good guy, even if he had his demons.
3:40: Bret Hart was a good United States Champion t.y. 2 Sting so when he's right then he's right!
Still very sad we lost him. My favorite bad guy. 🙏🙏
@davidmatthews1710 ; It's always 🙁 to lose a brilliant mind that leaves the world > than it was.
This really tells you a lot about Scott. You could tell he was a little offput by Bret calling the shots in their matches and saying if he'd had more time he wouldn't have allowed it to happen, and the interviewer throws in a "Do you think he's overrated like Flair says?" and Scott immediately cuts that off. Why? Because Scott can disagree with something and still not be a hater. Too many other wrestlers just can't get over themselves and become full on haters for the dumbest of reasons.
Plus: At that time (January 1993) it was the right move by Hart. Hall was relatively fresh in the WWF and Hart was the champion. And Hart knew how to put over other wrestlers and make them look good. Actually these guys should've had an angle in later years when they were fully "seasoned".
Most of the kliq very much respected Bret, and liked working with him. Nash had nothing but great things to say about working with him as well. Really it was only Shawn that had the problems with him. But the rest of the kliq all as workers saw him for exactly what Bret was. A very easy guy to have great matches with. They never had to sweat a thing with him. They'd be making money, and be getting taken care of with the highest level of skill.
@@KolossusBAnd tbf, even Shawn said that Bret was a brilliant worker (and vice versa), even when the relationship was crumbling. It's a damn shame they weren't able to get past their issues.
Plus, most wrestlers were just meatheads, former FB or other sports and weren’t the sharpest minds. Scott Hall was a wrestling genius who got caught up with the dark side of wrestling.
nuance is just a bad word these days. If you simply disagree or don't like something people just take it as you are shitting on that thing they like. Bro I can not like something, it's still objectively good. That's all it is, it's an opinion. But people are just modernly in the camp of: "It's either THIS or THAT nothing in between." Which is a remedial mind-set.
Bret vs 1-2-3 Kid is still one of my favorite matches of all time
It's Kid's favorite too.
Kid's first match with razor and that match with Bret was probably the angles from that year
Thats a fantastic match...
Owen vs 123 kid at KOTR 94 was awesome as well
Tore the house down on a regular RAW
Maaaan this guy was SO SHARP...brilliant mind for the business. When he said "some guys matches were entertaining enough the announcers could talk about other stuff" Booker T immediately came to mind. That is awesome that Scott would talk to guys like this behind the scenes. Booker and Bret had that in common even though Booker was also good on the mic in addition to his ring skill. Then of course Benoit, Guerrero and Jericho all fit that bill as well. Scott should have been a booker or head creative for some promotion....r.i.p.
Hall wouldve been a better booker than Nash IMO
I’ve never heard someone describe wrestling as he did.
RIP Scott Hall…
thats so true, rip scott hall sir
Only just found out he died :(
Guess the lifestyle finally got to him :(
@@badda_boom8017sort of but not really, he slipped at home and broke his hip which required surgery, then he got a blood clot following said surgery
The biggest missed opportunity in WCW was not letting him just wrestle. You had guys like Jericho, Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Mysterio, etc. We were lucky to have him get a match with Benoit and Booker T. All those guys were some of the best in-ring wrestlers in the business at the time.
i just watched Perry Saturn make his debut in WCW on Peacock. incredible wrestler. he destroyed Disco Inferno with an array of holds. And everything he did was so smooth.
bret had a match with scott hall that was awesome
@@ducklife420and Goldberg ruined his career
Yeah they are wrong about it being his fault not getting over basically only good match he had was against benoit (best match I ever saw in wcw in fact.) He should have been booked in fueds with all the top guys and it never happened then wcw went down the toilet.
They didn't let the big boys play.
I liked Bret. He's literally the wrestler that made me a WWF fan growing up in the 80s. Straight to the point and awesome wrestler imo!
his tag team with Jim the Anvil was one of the greatest of all time
Scott Hall truly understood the business
Bret didn't need a microphone. WCW should have had Bret Hart vs Hogan. That's what the fans wanted.
He came in at a bad time. The fans wanted Hogan vs Sting first and that feud should’ve lasted 6 months since it was the culmination of the nWo vs WCW and Sting turning his back on WCW over War Games 96
Bret was fine on the mic! He was booked against mid-carders instead of getting main event heat! WCW was afraid to push Bret.
@@texasjack6289 He always sounded whiny and bitter. Way better wrestler than talker.
I was a huge fan then and I didn’t want that.
They rushed him heel, sided him with Hogan, and let him beat Sting in a terrible match. So many better options.
I love hearing honest reactions
Scott seemed like such a cool dude. I love how he is so positive in this interview, and seems so genuine too. And even when he had the opportunity to bury someone (Russo), he refused to comment and even went above and beyond and complimented what he did like about the guy. I know Scott gets a bad rap sometimes, but he is straight up class in this video.
I think Bret was great on the mic specially in the USA vs Canada angle
Bret was a bit dry on the mic but could out wrestle 99.9% of talent all day every day
A "bit" dry?
He was a 75 year old vagina on the mic.
Bret isn't that great. He wasn't even the best Hart
According to just about every single person who wrestled him disagrees with you on his skills
Seeing as Bret is the only one sspoken about from the Hart family by default he's the best Hart
Owen sucked and was never more than a jobber Bulldog was ok Jim was decent as well
Wow, lots of Hart hate here 😒
@@Billable_Ours
ChatGPT 1.0 type comment lol
Hart is one of the best wrestlers of all time!
I love Scott, but some of these comments are quite silly. Bret was a phenomenal heel in 97 coming into WCW & his mic work had advanced quite a bit by that point. Bret was white hot at the time WCW got their hands on him, & they brought him in as a fucking referee. Also with the way WCW & the NWO angle was being run at that time, maybe they should have changed the stupid constant runs ins & comedy & lack of wrestling & concentrated on the wrestling aspect.
Well said!
Agreed 110%. 💯
I think people overlook the way Bret sold the product on the mic. His serious demeanor alone made you think he wasn't messing around so when he dropped a few cuss words in his pipe bombs it made the heat seem legitimate. I appreciated the fact that he didn't play a hokey pokey character and stayed true to his persona during an era when everyone else was looking for cheap sophomoric pops and comedic routines.
They had a golden opportunity to have Sting go over Hogan clean(and according to hogan and bischoff sting wasn't at the top of his game with personal issues)....with the idea that Bret would be in the mix to challenge for the title. Have hogan use his rematch clause and have bret interfere on behalf of sting, and nash interfere for hogan. No contest. Then do a fatal 4 way with sting as champ, bret, hogan and nash. Use that match to see nash betray hogan for Bret letting Bret win the belt. Bret is the new leader of the NWO, and kick out all of the watered down guys. Bring it down to Bret, Nash, Hall, and Randy Savage. That would make it strong again and put a fresh paint. Have Hogan do a long walk back to the yellow and red. So many great ways to tell this story with Bret. How did they get it wrong? Just baffles me.
Anti bret was the best
What a series of eloquent, thoughtful responses. Really highlights what an emotional, intelligent, business-savvy individual he is. I was impressed with him by this clip.
Hall got one thing correct here: the nWo was a circus that turned the WCW into a clown show with lots of useless trash talking and barely any proper wrestling, and Bret did not fit in there because he was a proper Wrestler who took his craft seriously and had a sense of pride regarding his work.
Yep. Unfortunately, Hall's addictions and Nash's injuries paired with Nash's creative control led to lackluster performances after the first 2 years of nWo.
@@bendersgame5464 You really left the most important person out of this. HHH (and I don't mean Triple H :D).
Explaining why announcers talk about other matches and all these guys being technically sound and asthetically pleasing is actually very interesting. I miss this man
Bret Coming into WCW after Survivor Series was HOT. All you had to do was put him on tv and the rest would take care of itself. But they kept that dude home most of the time.
This is the only thing I disagrees with Scott about in the interview. His impact was huge and could have stayed that way if Bret only had the mic once a month for no more than 5 minutes.
I never thought of Bret matches like that it makes sense. Scott broke it down perfectly.
That's an amazing point about how they can talk about other matches and story lines while a match is going on because they are so good in the ring it's just great to just watch the match and listen to the commentary and they don't need to do the play-by-play for the match. That's an excellent point Scott made
Bret in late 97 was NOT "bad on the stick". At that point he was better than pretty much anyone in the NWO who had gotten lazy and fallen into inside jokes as promos, to crack each other up.
All bret did was complain on the mic lol anyone can sound good complaining 🤣
What were the rest of the wrestlers doing? "Let me tell ya something,.....one more thing I'll tell ya, ..... and he thinks he's so badass but when you wrestle me..." ya soooo much better. 🙄
@@Geelow_Swinginthat's all any wrestler does dum dum
@@jackwhitbread4583 nah not really 🤡
@@jackwhitbread4583I was just gonna say that they all complain on the mic no matter what lmao
Bret was mishandled. Bischoff admitted so. Bret and VKM even both said before he left 'they're not gonna know what to do with me' and he was right. Bret is still a giant of the industry and the fact he apparently told AEW he'd agent matches and stuff for them and they REFUSED is one of the biggest mistakes in aews short, and tragic history. Bret offers you a hand, you take it. Especially when it comes to putting matches together. Hall offers you a hand on promo work, you again take him up on that. You let people help you make money. Miss Hall, sad how his last days were, but, legends never really due. May he RIP.
I don't think Bischoff ever admitted that.
@@vmab1985 he's admitted it on multiple occasions on shows like dark side of the ring.
Of course Hall didn’t want Bischoff replaced; Bischoff let Hogan, Nash and Hall run that company … and, eventually, into the ground.
You may not like bischoff but I think people would have talked to him behind the scenes and said you got to get your act together in 1999 or else we are out of business
The executives ran it to the ground
Not wrestlers
Bischoff had his flaws, but the gulf in quality and PPV buys from about August 1999 to early 2000 was huge. Bischoff wasn't going to win the war at that point, but WCW could have at least avoided losing about $60 million in 2000 and maybe survived as an independent entity like TNA (or instead of Smackdown!).
Road Wild 1999: 0.54 buy rate
Souled Out 2000: 0.26 buy rate, WCW's worst ever for a normal PPV at that point, even below BattleBowl 1993.
Interesting perspective.
It was so great seeing Scott being healthy in both mind and body during these years. So much wealth of wrestling knowledge. RIP
Brett is overated?? God, Flair has some stupid opinions
Flair isn't wrong. What made Bret great?
@@Jcrash71I’m HBK thru and thru but to deny Bret’s greatness is absurd.
Flair was the most overrated man in industry
Bret lacked Flair's charisma, but he was arguably the better "wrestler" and he was often less of a "routine man" than Flair was.
@@johndoe603 Woooo. Chop. Strut. Beg. Flop. Flip over turnbuckle. Wash, rinse, repeat.
"We barely wrestled" - yeah one of the reasons wcw closed its doors within 3 yeats or so....
Hall called it a well oiled machine lmfao
DEFINITELY, my favorite is Brett ❤
I appreciate the answer Scott
The Bad Guy who were a great bloke. Hall just has the perfect edge to his yarn. Outsider 4 life Chico!
Love hearing Scott talk, such a sound mind and love for the business. Kind of don't agree with the announcers talking about other things during matches though. Used to bug me back then. They're there to talk about the action, use the interlude for talking and hyping up other things.
Dude, Scott Hall fucking gets it! "They're wrestling is pretty." I know what he means. This guy should have been a booker as others are saying.
WOW, that was very nice to say, always like Scott Hall…… He said the wrestling was pretty…. WOW… the moves were crisp and the announcers didn’t have to say anything.. WOW..
This video actually tells more about what a nice smart and reflected guy scott hall was and less scotts opinion on Bret hart. RIP
Scott Hall had a solid wrestling mind and is a great shoot interview, but Bret Hart was sorely underrated on the microphone. Bret Hart's "Who are you to doubt El Dandy" interview with Mean Gene was top shelf. WCW definitely dropped the ball with Bret.......... and countless others.
I haven't heard him speak not in character before. Seems like a cool and intelligent guy.
#RIPScottHall
I miss Hall and hearing his insights
Maaan if Bret took that deal earlier and HE was the third outsider instead of hogan. What a wild alternate universe
It wouldn't work if was anybody else beside hogan
could've been the 4th guy instead of Giant
Him being the third guy would have been good, but Hogan being the third guy was GREAT!
Bret is my all time favorite, going back to 1991.
That being said, I don’t think anyone could have ever been the third man but Hogan. Where he was at in his career, the audience was ready to hate him and this was the moment they needed.
I think Hogan as the 4th man might have been even more shocking in this scenario than him being the third man was.
Scott Hall had such an intuitive mind for the game within the game.
Bret was a guy who’s focus was 100% on the art of the craft. like scott said his mic skills were pretty trash. That said, he put Austin over so imo, us attitude era fans, were all in his debt. Now Austin was semi technical but was spitting straight BARS on the mic and sold more tickets, shirts, games, ect. than anybody bcuz of that
Bret was champ at the wrong time in the early 90s ,when ppl wasn't feeling wwe but ppl love anti bret
Nope, Bret would've bankrupted the WWF had he stayed and demanded to remain on top.
Bret was a nice B+ player but not superstar talent like Hulk, Rock, Austin or even Cena
This is true. You don’t need to be “technically” the “best” wrestler, but, if you have gold mic skills and can make the people laugh, you are as good as golden, and will likely remain on the roster just cause you are a fan favorite.
@@NoneofYabiz-rx3ziFar superior wrestler than those three don’t forget to add.
This is the first time Ive heard WCW and when Bret joined the company. From the first week he was there, I was upset at how he was handled. I remember hearing about Bret joining and thought he was a huge upgrade to WCW. We had all the NWO noise going on, they were great but Hulk was far past his prime (my opinion, don’t get upset!). I was fan enough I bought an NWO t-shirt. The story was a great idea but it had way to much air time and robbed fans with not enough wrestling time. Bret signing should have him vs Goldberg day one. Bret could make anyone look like a superstar. Fans never saw any of that happen. Was Russo the booker? My memory is bad after several strokes and I no longer remember when Dusty stopped being the head booker. Hellfire! Dusty was old but a Bret vs Dusty match would be the biggest match in WCW and could sell out a Starcade or other PPV event.
Bro I bet you wrote the coolest thing ever but it's like to long to read homie😢
😂😂😂 no you didnt
The only T-shirt I ever bought for wrestling was a Wolf Pack? Shirt. I was given a Hogan shirt by a friend it was too big for him.
@@michaelmcclenon6663 It takes maybe thirty seconds to read what he wrote.
Brett's wrestling is top 3 of all time
He was not wrong about Brett just not fitting with WCW direction at the time. Always felt like his move there was forced and he didnt really belong.
In order to fit in back then you had to kiss Hogan's butt
Brett Hart vs. Dynamite Kid or Hart Foundation vs The British Bulldogs were the best mix of technical work and violence. Underrated classic matches!
Scott gave real facts on talent skills and great sense that you can’t coach everyone to be great.
When you nice with it… you don’t need to high fly and do spots all day. You can tell the story in the ring
Ok miz lol
That Royal Rumble match was great, it was a clean finish, after some back and forth action. There was a lot of close falls.
Bret is the Goat in the Ring. Watching Wrestling since the 80s and Never Shaw someone better
Good interview.
Interesting to see this again, cause Scott went back and forth on his opinion of Bret throughout the years. There are instances of him saying he wasn’t that impressed by Bret and that he felt Bret was overrated, but at other times he comes off as very reverential of what Bret accomplished. It’s always come off to me as him being loyal to friends of his who Bret has had legitimate heat with, and depending on what had happened in the world of wrestling drama at any given time, Scott would kinda tailor his opinion to that moment.
Such an interesting and complicated dude, was Scott.
Bret is my favorite wrestler but Razor is in my top 5 for sure. Iconic character with an iconic finisher.
@3:30 He's right. Bret just didn't fit in. WCW.
RIP Scott Hall
I'm a life long fan of Brett I watched him dynamite Davey Boy nighthart all every Saturday and every second Tuesday night live I could do Brett's whole finishing routine to my buddies on the playground
I disagree with Scott on one thing. Bret was absolutely mishandled when he came in to WCW. Scott said that Bret would have made a bigger impact had he come in a year earlier, Bret was white hot after the Screw job.
I respect Bret Hart and all that he has done in the industry. I did always feel his arsenal of maneuvers was on the soft side. His timing was perfect
. It is Admirable to never hurt a soul. Just not any devastating maneuvers
What? All of his stuff was snug. His punches looked savage. His backbreaker and Russian leg sweep were legit.
All of his stuff looked like it hurt.
@@choke9270and nobody made the sharpshooter look as painful as Bret did despite not ever injuring anyone
Superplex and Piledriver were what he pulled out for devastation, but in general his game plan was roll them up for the win, or make them tap
So I kind of agree with Scott but for different reasons. WCW overtook WWF on Bret's watch. So now that Bret is in WCW, what are you going to do? Book him to beat all the top guys he couldn't outdraw when he was in the other company?
Book him with the top talent in matches that mattered, period. Win or lose, Bret could get a 5 star classic out of all the top guys and elevate everyone. Doesn’t necessarily have to book him to win them all
Wow these are good details.. i dig it
I wish kind of that Bret would have let Razor have some say . But not many knew the genius of Scott Hall back then . Bret protected the business is all and himself .
Bret was checked out. He was hurt my the screw job, everyone has said he didn’t want to actually leave. Vince told him to get the payday, so he did. Then with Owen passing not long after, you can’t blame the guy. Everyone close to him passed away. His brother, his brother in law, a good friend…. Hard to be really motivated to keep going, when he’s already accomplished everything.
Mic skills was not Brets best attribute. However, if you gave him something to talk about, he could go with the best of them. He had to have something real to deal with.
But his 🎤 skills was good when he turn into anti bret
He was 100% method
The problem with WCW and Bret was that WCW was showcasing good technical wrestling on the midcard and lower, but that was Bret's strength. Also, at the time, it was WCW vs. NWO. Bret wasn't WCW and he didn't vibe with NWO. They could have tried to use Bret to IMPROVE the overall quality of upper card matches, but it was Hogan's kingdom, and that wasnt gonna work.
Nope, that wouldn't work for Hogan, brother.
He's right about the mic. Rowdy told Bret you gotta know how to make the fans want to see you more. Wrestling just half of it
I always liked Scott Hall. Goldberg never got on the mic for a long time and got over huge, because he was featured with purpose. I was a huge Bret Hart fan. He was hardly ever on TV and when he was, he was rarely featured in any major matches or angles. That’s on management.
He's exactly right about WCW and Brett. RIP
WCW was anything but a well oiled machine🤣
@@VodkaSoda Was in 1997 when they were still kicking WWF's butt. Try paying attention
@@markula_4040i always preferred WCW over WWF, but I couldn't stand Hogan, and Vince revolved around Hogan
Pretty cool to see scott actually say something nice about hitman. I don't know I found some of bretts wcw promo work entertaining and who are you to doubt el dandy.
Rip Scott hall
OG SCOTT HALL#1 (RIP) AKA
THE BAD GUY RAZOR RAMON#1
Ooozzing Machismo
Hall truly understood the business as he rightly pointed out, Bret knew how to tell an in ring wrestling story which many of them lacked then, and now all wwe is doing is the same but doesn't seem as captivating as Bret used to do ..because they lie down as the match goes past 5 minutes for about 10 minutes to show their pain and exhaustion lol...whereas in the past they used to lock in a submission
Very interesting point by Scott: when the wrestler is interesting enough in the ring, the commentator has time to talk about other wrestlers, matches, angles, etc. I remember once switching to a channel, where there was an Indy Wrestling show, which I can't remember the name. The commentator was soooo boring, he only spoke about the moves the wrestlers are doing right now in the ring, as we're all blind!
I wonder what his opinion of Russo was after working for him in TNA?
No comment...... Hes a nice guy, Chico
lol
Scott was my all time fav, he was really great in ring and mic.
"no comment"
*Proceeds to comment 😂😂
He thought about it and decided to say something nice. I thought about that too. Lol.
“No comment” lol.
No comment implies he only had bad things to say. He knew it was better to say something nice.
You’ll never hear anyone say anything bad about him as an in ring competitor, probably the in ring GOAT!
After reading through the comments for a little bit I think a lot of you guys are right even though you're disagreeing. Two things are true here:
1- Brett wasn't great on the mic. He wasn't terrible, but he wasn't great.
2- Scott is looking back on that time when Bret came in with rose colored glasses re: the NWO's talent. By that point the NWO's goofy antics and soap opera nonsense had grown stale and boring but they were still obnoxiously controlling everything. Hard to see how a guy who isn't naturally gifted on the mic like Bret could find a way to blend into the silly chaos of the NWO at that time. It was doomed to fail.
Flair is definitely hating. Bret is by far one of the best wrestlers of all time
Everything about Bret was great
The WWF was a better company than WCW and knew how to market their wrestlers better and make stars.
I preferred Bret, Nash and Hall’s WWF work to anything they did in WCW
You must've been a child then because WWF was for children with Diesel and Hitman. Probably loved the Warriors ring work didnt you?
The whole “some guys are so good commentator can talk about something else” is just Scott Halls way of justifying WCW constantly talking about nWo
It isn’t some astute analysis on why companies need good wrestlers. If anything, exciting matches gives the play by play guys things to talk about and they’re into it themselves.
Boring matches are the ones where you need other material to talk about.
I think while Hall said it was Live, it also shows what was wrong with WCW. They expected everybody to be able to do everything instead of catering to their strengths. If you know Bret isnt good on the mic,.. .why put him in the position of being a talker? If you know hes good being taped where you can feed him lines.. why not tape his work and put it in the live broadcast? Like why make it difficult... its freaking Bret Hart.. you cater to his strengths not his weaknesses.
Bret was great on the mic. You're there to sell a match. You don't have to be a comedian or a poet. Those things are fine, but you don't have to have that.
And lol, it's not even a question IF WCW mishandled Bret. He was THE hottest name in the business when he came in. The problem was the top 10 guys in WCW all had Bischoff (idiot) contracts, so they had creative control over how they were booked. There was nothing for Bret to do, but wrestle midcarders.
Brett had the charisma of a dead dog. You probably thought Warrior had great mic work as well.
As fantastic of a worker Bret was in the ring, it never translated to drawing big money on top until he worked with Steve which is why guys like Scott, Kevin, Shawn & even Taker (to an extent) all grew tired of him and started to resent his push as they were all earning less. The real problem though was that in a post-Hogan, post steroid trial WWF (between 93-96), NOBODY was going to draw anything regardless of who was put in that position. It didn’t matter.
Its a shame that Scott is gone .
Heel Bret is so good. When he had the Canadian stable, he was 1000000
Scott always had a next=level understanding of the business.
He got it, far more than Bret ever did.
Scott was a genuinely good guy
Being taped and being live is a huge difference. I can now see where Bret was a bit stale on the mic in wcw. Wow. Wcw at some point should’ve started taping and editing more for people like Bret. Bret was a favorite of mine as a kid
Bret had actually improved alot on the mic by the time he came to WCW. Despite being massively misused, Bret had some of his best promos in WCW.
Having lived through that era, I never thought much of Bret because he was bad on mic
You can't be a great champion if you can't sell your matches, and make people who aren't fans of yours, like me, watchn you work. That's what a champion does. They give you a reason to tune in.
I always saw him as a mid-carder, who was being forced onto the audience, as a champ. Never bought in
Bret was Amazing. I do have to say that the razors edge was my favorite finish.
There was nothing Bret could have done to fit in with the nWo era. Trying to have him assimilate into guys playing air guitar and doing Arn Anderson parodies was putting a square peg in a round hole.
He was there to wrestle. Bret Hart monkeying around like a frat house boy is not Bret Hart. So he did the only thing he could do, which was get younger guys over like Benoit, Malenko, and Booker, or wrestle guys he liked such as Piper and Sting.
Bret was over it’s just they didn’t book him right, let’s be honest, Hogan was calling the shots and he made sure no one would outshine him, before Bret left for wcw, his heel turn, reuniting the heart foundation he was great on the mic, Scott hall could have buried hart here but didn’t, he spoke the truth, flair called hart overrated because of an old rivalry they have since squashed.
Rip Scott hall, I grew up on these guys, greatest time to be a fan, kayfabe is dead now
I remember the Hall & Nash invasion and yes, it seemed like forever before they actually wrestled ( and it was PPV) it was mostly comedy.
It is interesting to hear that Scott didn’t feel Bret was great on the mic.
He came off great in WWF, but that could be because the company had a better environment to help those guys. For example, pre-recording as much as they could.
Brilliant analysis by Scott , Bret was the best technical wrestler but his mic skills were not like others
Scott was a walking master class in wrestling business…😊
Love Scott Hall, but Razor started in the WWF in August 1992, they started an angle pretty much after he won the title in October 1992. So to say he never said hi after a year that he was their seems a little exaggerated.
Booker T, Benoit, Jericho, Eddie were similarly great in the vein of Bret Hart in Hall's mind. That's a solid take away