Scott Norton

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Scott Norton


Statistics
Ring name(s)	Scott Norton
Billed height	6 ft 3 in (191 cm)
Billed weight	360 lb (163 kg)
Born	June 15, 1958 Minneapolis, Minnesota
Resides	Roswell, Georgia
Trained by	Verne Gagne
Debut	1989

Scott Michael Norton (born June 15, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American professional wrestler who is best known for working for New Japan Pro Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling.

1 Career
2 Wrestling facts
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 References
5 External links

Scott Norton started out as a professional arm wrestler. He won over 30 championships during his days as an arm wrestler including a world championship . His status in the arm wrestling world earned him a role in Sylvester Stallone's arm wrestling movie, Over the Top. While touring the arm wrestling circuit in Japan Norton was approached by New Japan Pro Wrestling about becoming a professional wrestler but he turned it down initially ^[1].

After finally deciding to go the pro-wrestling route Norton was trained to wrestle by former Olympic wrestler Brad Rheingans. Verne Gagne decided to debut Norton before he was totally finished with his training, putting him on TV as a regular performer for the American Wrestling Association in 1989. He sometimes teamed with John Nord as the "Yukon Lumberjacks". Norton soon earned the nickname “Flash” for the way he would quickly dispatch some of the low card wrestlers. By the end of 1989 Norton left the AWA and went to the Pacific Northwest territory to further his career. In PNW he started out as a Face lumberjack known as “Flapjack” Scott Norton, he would team up with John Nord once more to reprise their Lumberjacks gimmick from the AWA. Norton would turn Heel in 1990 as a singles competitor. He would go on to win the Pacific Northwest Title from Brian Adams on May 12, 1990 but be stripped of the title two weeks later after attacking several wrestlers (that’s the storyline reason, Norton had other contractual obligations)

In 1990 Scott Norton finally signed with the company that first approached him about becoming a pro-wrestler, New Japan Pro Wrestling. Norton’s size and speed helped him establish himself as one of the premiere Gaijins in NJPW. Norton would alternate between tagging and working mid card singles matches, not really settling on any permanent tag-team partners early on. Norton appeared at both the join NJPW/WCW Starrcade in Egg Dome shows giving him exposure to WCW executives.

The working agreement between NJPW and WCW mean that the Steiner Brothers] would tour Japan on a regular basis, often fighting against Scott Norton alongside a variety of partners. On November 5, 1991 Norton would actually act as a substitute for the injured Scott Steiner in an IWGP World Tag-Team title match. Norton and Rick Steiner were unsuccessful on the night and lost the tag-team titles to Hiroshi Hase and Keiji Mutoh. About a year after losing a the title he never technically held Norton won the tag-team titles properly when he and Tony Halme beat the Steiner Brothers for the gold. The power house team only held on to the titles for a little over three weeks before losing them to the Hell Raisers (Hawk Warrior & Power Warrior)

After splitting up with Halme Norton started to team with “Hercules” Hernandez on a regular basis. Hercules was a fellow power house wrestler and the two formed The Jurassic Powers, a team that would win the IWGP World Tag Team Championship from back from the Hell Raisers. The Powers held the titles for about 4 months before losing them back to the Hell Raisers at NJPW’s January 4 Dome Show (NJPW’s biggest annual event). While holding the titles the Jurassic Powers successfully defended against teams such as Takayuki Iizuka & Akira Nogami, Masa Saito & Manabu Nakanishi and the Barbarian & Haku. The team also had a series of matches with The Steiner Brothers and made it to the finals of the 1993 Super Grade Tag League where they lost to Keiji Mutoh & Hiroshi Hase.

After breaking up with “Hercules” Hernandez Norton would flounder a bit, failing to achieve much notoriety in the singles ranks nor in the tag-team division where he’d team with a variety of partners such as Mike Enos, Ron Simmons, Masa Chono and Hawk.

Norton returned to the U.S. and signed with WCW in 1995. The promoters first tried to get Norton over as a heel with the fans by feuding with Sting but the feud never captivated the fans and was scrapped without much fanfare.

During a WCW Saturday taping Norton squared off against the mammoth Ice Train. The bout ended in a double count out when both men clotheslined the other knocking each out. After the match the two shook hands and Norton explained to Tony Schiavone that he felt that they would make a formidable tag team because of their similar powerful approach to the business. The team would quickly be named Fire and Ice. The finisher was seen as Norton power bombed his opponent followed by Train's leaping "Train Wreck" splash. The face team easily overpowered a series of low ranking tag-teams as they tried establish themselves as a legitimate team. At Slamboree 1996: Lethal Lottery Norton and Ice Train were “Randomly Drawn” to be on the same team and easily defeated the makeshift team of ”Big” Bubba Rogers and Stevie Ray. The team advanced to the “Lord of The Ring” Battle royal but neither of them won it.

At the 1996 Great American Bash Fire and Ice came head to head with Norton’s long time rivals the Steiner Brothers. The two teams was engaged in a mini-feud of sorts, two teams of powerhouses trying to show who was best. On that night the Steiner Brothers won but Fire & Ice were not deterred. After a pre-PPV loss to The Rock 'n' Roll Express at Bash at the Beach 1996 dissention started to appear between the two, a dissention that turned into battle as Norton attacked Ice Train after another team loss. Norton would go on to defeat the Ice Train at Hog Wild in a submission match but would then fall to Ice Train in their return match only a month later.

After Fire & Ice ended Norton split his time between WCW and NJPW, achieving more success in NJPW than WCW most notably in the tag-team division. Scott Norton and Shinya Hashimoto teamed up and won the Super Grade Tag League VI in 1996 after beating Keiji Mutoh and Rick Steiner in the finals.

In late 1996, Norton joined the nWo giving his WCW career some direction after the break up of Fire and Ice. Norton would go on to team with with Buff Bagwell creating a team called Vicious & Delicious. The feuded with the Steiner brothers but never could win the tag team titles, always destined to be the #2 tag-team in the nWo behind The Outsiders. During his nWo days, Norton travelled back and forth to NJPW to be a part of nWo Japan, where he would become New Japan's gaijin ace becoming one of the few wrestlers to be a regular member of both factions.

On September 23, 1998 Scott Norton won the vacant IWGP World Heavyweight Championship defeating Yuji Nagata. Norton’s title win was never mentioned on American broadcasts and Norton’s standing in the WCW version of the nWo never changed from this fact. Norton would defend the title for 3 months before losing the title on Keiji Mutoh. Scott Norton was only the second American to hold the IWGP title at this point (the other being ”Big” Van Vader.

In the nWo Norton would begin to play a smaller and smaller role, being seen as a member of the nWo B-Team and a low card wrestler while in NJPW he was seen as the complete opposite a main eventer and constant threat to the world champions. In 1999 Norton would leave WCW completely, focusing all his efforts on NJPW where he was part of Masahiro Chono's "Team 2000"

On March 17, 2001, Norton defeated Kensuke Sasaki in Nagoya, Japan to capture the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. His second reign was even shorter than his first as he lost it to Kazuyuki Fujita on his first defense. After his loss Norton started to team with Rick Steiner whenever Steiner would tour Japan but otherwise be planted solidly in the mid-card as a test any hopeful world title challenger would have to pass. Norton would temporarily retire in 2004 but he was back in NJPW not long after, once again teaming with Rick Steiner. In 2006 decided that following that year's New Japan Cup he would become a freelancer leaving NJPW after 16 years with the company.

In late 2006 he started his own independent promotion called Wild West Championship Wrestling, based in the southwest of United States ^[2] where he acts as a booker as well as an in ring talent.