10 Things Wrestling Fans Should Know About 2 Cold Scorpio

An underrated but massively influential high-flyer, 2 Cold Scorpio — or Too Cold Scorpio — impressed legions of fans with his aerial skills for nearly 40 years. Over the course of his lengthy career, Scorpio has performed in pretty much every major promotion imaginable including WWE, WCW, various big-name Japanese promotions, and ECW, where he did some of his best work.

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Because he never had a really great run in places like WWE, it’s possible that many fans don’t know much about this crucial legend. Let’s take a look at the career of 2 Cold Scorpio, from his origins to what he’s been up to lately.

10 Trained In The NJPW Dojo

Hailing from Colorado, 2 Cold Scorpio started his career in the mid-1980s, but ended up joining up with New Japan Pro-Wrestling at the behest of his friend Big Van Vader. There, Scorpio trained in the NJPW Dojo, making his debut for the King of Sport in 1991. During his four years with the company, Scorpio wrestled under the name Flying Scorpio and was a natural fit for the junior heavyweight division, where he took part in several iterations of the Top of the Super Junior tournament.

9 WCW Tag Team Champion

The year 1992 saw 2 Cold Scorpio make his major American wrestling debut when he showed up at WCW’s Clash of the Champions 21 as a surprise partner to Ron Simmons. Scorpio spent about a year and a half in WCW, where his biggest success came in the fall of 1993 when he and Marcus Alexander Bagwell — better known as Buff Bagwell — defeated The Nasty Boys to capture the World Tag Team Championship, Scorpio’s first major championship. Together, Scorpio and Bagwell held the belts for 20 days before dropping them back to The Nasties.

8 Took Part In Collision In Korea

In 1995, 2 Cold Scorpio ventured to North Korea as part of Collision in Korea, a WCW/NJPW co-promoted show organized by New Japan founder Antonio Inoki to benefit his burgeoning career in politics. The show is a unique novelty, but has a degree of infamy due to what happened while these American wrestlers were visiting the strict North Korean regime.

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Behind the scenes, there was a ton of tension between 2 Cold Scorpio and Road Warrior Hawk, leading to several altercations. Things got so bad that at one point Scorpio planned to actually stab Hawk.

7 Four-Time ECW World Television Champion

After leaving WCW in 1994, 2 Cold Scorpio made his way to ECW — then known as Eastern Championship Wrestling. During his time in ECW, Scorpio scored the most accolades he’d achieve in any promotion in his career, capturing the World Television Championship four times as well as one reign with the tag belts alongside The Sandman. On top of that, he actually made it to the finals of the NWA World Title tournament where Shane Douglas won, threw the title belt on the ground, and announced the rise of Extreme Championship Wrestling.

6 Became Flash Funk In WWE

After 11 years of competition, 2 Cold Scorpio made his debut in WWE in 1996, albeit not under the name fans had come to know him. Instead, Scorp was repackaged as Flash Funk, a dancing precursor to the Attitude Era’s Godfather, except his valets were backup dancers rather than sex workers. However, the Flash Funk gimmick failed to gain traction and he soon began to wrestle under the ring name Scorpio, whose importance can best be exemplified in him being part of the Brawl For All tournament.

5 Member Of The J.O.B. Squad

While Scorpio slid down the card, he found himself in good company alongside Bob Holly and Al Snow, who formed a lovable loser faction called the J.O.B. Squad in order to improve their standing in WWE. Later joined by Gillberg and The Blue Meanie, the J.O.B. Squad would gain Scorpio a little more attention from fans, but that success wouldn’t last long. Thanks to some personal issues, Scorpio ended up being the first departure from the J.O.B. Squad when he was released from WWE.

4 Run In Japan

After his release from WWE, 2 Cold Scorpio returned to ECW for a handful of matches before venturing back to Japan to compete for All Japan Pro Wrestling. While in AJPW, he wrestled many tag team matches alongside partners like Mike Awesome, Mike Barton (a.k.a. Bart Gunn), and the aforementioned Vader, while taking on up-and-comers like a young Naomichi Marufji.

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Scorpio’s stint with AJPW ended in 2000 when he joined much of its roster in an exodus to a new promotion, Pro Wrestling NOAH. As a singles performer, Scorpio scored the GHC Hardcore Openweight Championshi, which he held for 316 days.

3 Two-Time GHC Tag Team Champion

2 Cold Scorpio’s most success in Pro Wrestling NOAH, however, would come in the tag team division, where he and his old buddy Vader put away Jun Akiyama and Akitoshi Saito in October 2001 to become the very first GHC Tag Team Champions. Their reign together lasted 42, but Scorpio ended up holding the title again alongside Doug Williams in 2005. This second reign went 146 days and ended at the hands of Minoru Suzuki and Naomichi Marufuji.

2 Had A Forgotten Second Run With WWE

2 Cold Scorpio spent about seven years wrestling in Japan, a run that ended in 2006 when Scorpio departed NOAH to return to the United States. Back in his home country, Scorpio re-signed with WWE and wrestled matches in developmental territories Deep South Wrestling and Ohio Valley Wrestling as well as at WWE house shows. Curiously, Scorpio never actually wrestled a match on WWE’s main roster, and ended up getting released from the company yet again in May of 2007.

1 Still Wrestles Today

Given that he debuted in the mid-1980s, fans might assume that 2 Cold Scorpio had retired over a decade ago. However, Scorpio still continues to wrestle. After leaving WWE, Scorpio made some appearances for Impact Wrestling — including at their ECW nostalgia show Hardcore Justice — as well as various indies like Ring of Honor. More recently, fans can see him not-infrequently in Game Changer Wrestling, where he’s taken on such current stars like Minoru Suzuki, Jonathan Gresham, and “Speedball” Mike Bailey.