As a fan of tag team wrestling, there are some tag teams that create something that cannot be replicated. When you take two top tier singles competitors and put them together, it has the chance to not work, but in the case of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, also known as Razor Ramon and Diesel, it was a no brainer. Close friends in the WWF while side by side with Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and X-Pac (of course known then as the 1-2-3 Kid) in the Kliq, when Nash and Hall left the company, no one knew what to expect when they arrived in the WWF's biggest competition, WCW. As fate would have it, WCW would package these two together in what was seen as a takeover of the WCW by former WWF guys. They were called "The Outsiders", hinting at their past in WWF, and when they got ready to face three of the top WCW stars at Bash At the Beach in 1996, they created the biggest faction ever alongside another former WWF star in Hulk Hogan with the NWO.
The NWO took over the WCW landscape for 2 years and a big part of the success came because of Nash and Hall. Soon after the creation of the NWO, the Outsiders went on a mission to secure the WCW tag team belts to assert dominance as Hogan chased the WCW World Title. Their first WCW Tag Titles win came against the legendary Harlem Heat at Halloween Havoc in 1996, and from there, Hall and Nash would be involved in the title picture for a long time to come. The NWO dominance got annoying honestly, as the Steiner Brothers would defeat the Outsiders cleanly for the tag titles and then the decision would get reversed to protect them and make them champions again. The same would happen when Lex Luger and The Giant defeated them for the belts, and Eric Bischoff reversed that decision. Hall and Nash weren't unbeatable or unstoppable, they just had too much power and clout for other teams to really compete.
Hall and Nash would continue to feud with The Steiner Brothers for months and months and trade the tag titles until Scott Steiner turned on his brother and joined the NWO. Unfortunately for the Outsiders, they would experience the ultimate end when Scott Hall started to have issues of his own personally and it began affecting him on TV. It was weird to see such real life issues played out on TV, and when Slamboree 1998 approached, we knew the inevitable was coming. It was obvious. All the tension was leading into a match for the titles against Sting and The Giant, an unlikely team. When this occurred, we witnessed the breakup of the Outsiders, when Scott Hall turned on Kevin Nash and cost him the tag titles and they began a small feud.
Scott Hall's issues made it tough for their feud to really go on the right way, and eventually WCW put these two back together in 1999 for one last run and one final NWO movement. However, after winning the tag titles one last time in December 1999, Scott's issues had become too prevalent to really deal with. Eventually, Scott would drift away from WCW and the team would fizzle out for the most part. There was a brief reunion in WWF as a part of the NWO again, but it didn't last and didn't seem to make much sense honestly. Hall and Nash teamed a few times, but there was nothing exciting about this run of the Outsiders. After Scott was released from the WWF, we saw Nash and Hall resurface in TNA, but there was no consistency. Nash and Hall were on the same side, then they weren't, then the feud gets slowed down because Scott isn't there to be a part of it. It was a frustrating moment I'm sure for the TNA brass.
The final chapter of the Outsiders legacy was written in TNA in 2010, as a final tag titles run was given to Hall and Nash as they would feud briefly with the Dudley Boyz and try to hold onto the belts. They were quickly stripped of the belts because Scott hadn't gotten his demons under control. Say what you will about WCW, but the Outsiders were one of the most fun tag teams at the time overall. They weren't wrestling juggernauts and they weren't the best technical wrestlers, but the combination of Hall and Nash made WCW the must see show on Monday (and Thursday) nights. They are one of the best tag teams of the 90's era, even if they didn't have many classics or solid tag title reigns. Their impact solidified them.
-True
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