Kevin Owens led the way with Scott Hall tributes on Raw

It was something we’d all been dreading all day, and the confirmation of Scott Hall’s death came just as the Mar. 15 Raw was going live. It didn’t leave the company time to do much in the way of tributes. We got the memorial graphic at the start of the show, and they pulled a video package together for later. More will hit our screens in the days to come.

The talent who’d grown up watching Hall as Razor Ramon in the then-WWF, and as an Outsider everywhere else, had tributes of their own ready. Specifically Kevin Owens, who opened the show with Hall’s signature greeting:

Owens acknowledged WWE’s GIF of his open by tweeting this pic of Hall bombing his photo with Triple H after he won his first title on the main roster — the Intercontinental championship Razor Ramon won four times in his Hall of Fame career.

Kevin Owens’ Twitter

He wasn’t done there, though. KO paraphrased Hall’s legendary (first) Hall of Fame induction speech for a pep talk he gave Seth Rollins...

Then he closed the night with a more subtle reference. The fallaway slam isn’t usually in Owens’ repertoire, but it was a staple of Hall’s moveset:

WWE’s YouTube

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Damian Priest and Finn Bálor had the other Bad Guy Easter eggs I caught. Priest doing Hall’s “surfer walk” entrance is the only thing I hadn’t seen either man do before, but it felt like there was a different intent behind Bálor’s “Too Sweet”s on the ramp...

... and while it’s always been in his arsenal because of Hall, Priest put a little extra on this Razor’s Edge:

And this is why while the bad time we’re all experiencing together with Hall’s death won’t last, but the memories of his career as the Bad Guy will. His influence on the pastime we all love was too great for us to ever forget him.