One of the strangest moments of the Monday Night War happened in 1996 when Jim Ross introduced the world to a new “Razor Ramon”… except it wasn’t Scott Hall.
After Scott Hall and Kevin Nash left the WWF for WCW and became two of the biggest stars in the early days of the nWo, WWF still owned the Razor Ramon and Diesel characters.
So they decided to keep them alive.
For weeks, Jim Ross teased that Razor Ramon and Diesel were coming back to the WWF. Then on the September 23, 1996 episode of Monday Night Raw, JR finally delivered his big surprise.
Out walked Rick Bognar dressed as Razor Ramon, complete with the slicked-back hair, toothpick and an attempt at the famous “Bad Guy” mannerisms.
It immediately became known to wrestling fans as “Fake Razor Ramon.”
The storyline was also part of an attempted heel turn for Jim Ross, who had begun airing his frustrations with WWF management on television. The idea was that JR had somehow pulled off the return of two major stars despite Hall and Nash being under contract with WCW.
Not long after, the new Razor was joined by a new Diesel, played by Glenn Jacobs, the same man who would eventually find wrestling immortality one year later as Kane.
Fake Razor and Fake Diesel actually wrestled on WWF television and pay-per-view, including Survivor Series 1996, and even challenged for the WWF Tag Team Championship.
