Missing my friend Scott Hall - Part 1... Bill Apter reporting

Scott Hall was a real character who lived in the fast lane and loved being the "bad guy." I never saw him that way. He was always upbeat, and I thoroughly enjoyed being around him. He was a wrestler, but more importantly, he was my friend.

It was 1984. I was in the TV studio of Jim Crockett Promotions in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dusty Rhodes was present for the TV tapings and summoned me to an area behind the cameras. He introduced me to two newcomers to the territory, Dan Spivey and Scott Hall.

"Willie, I am putting these two together as a new tag team, I call them the American Starship. I need you to put them in your 'rasslin' magazines and help them get recognized all over the country. You have never seen a team like this Willie. Mark my words!" Dusty told me.

That first meeting was followed up with Scott asking me to buy him dinner at a local restaurant. I did!

"Hey, you're the man from New York City with the magazines. Let's grab some grub and a few drinks and you can pay the tab!" Scott Hall said.

At dinner, we talked about Scott's passion for wrestling and how he hoped to wrestle at Madison Square Garden in the heart of New York City one day.

This prompted me to do my first brief interview with him that resulted in one of my many magazine wrestling columns. I told him that to make it to the Garden, "you can't just be a wrestler; you have to add something special to your bag of wrestling goods." Little did I know what would happen many years later.

Scott moved to Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association in 1985 and hooked up with Curt Hennig as a tag team. The latter was one of my closest friends in the business and also lived in that same fast lane Scott Hall would soon follow.

They were an incredible team, holding the AWA tag team belts and partying into the early mornings after most shows. They felt like rock stars, and they were. I got to witness many wild times with them at bars and restaurants. It was innocent fun -- like two college buddies.

Scott wrestled in WCW, Japan, Europe, and Puerto Rico in the next few years. He did keep in touch with me, and I had the opportunity to interview him several times during those tours. However, his crowning glory came when he signed with WWE in 1992 and the "Bad Guy" Razor Ramon was born.

I'll have more on the subject later this week, including some personal stories with Scott Hall.