Too Cold Scorpio was one of the most innovative and influential high-flyers in the history of pro wrestling. At a time when VHS tapes were still the standard media format, Scorpio was one of the most graceful aerial workers in the world, despite the fact that his technique wasn’t quite as smooth as the generations that followed him, simply because he was still a heavyweight that soared through the air.
Too Cold Scorpio was smooth and graceful in the ring. The real-life Charles Scaggs had a rockier road outside of it.
In mid-2024, Scaggs was arrested after he stabbed a man several times at a large convenient store where he worked security in Jackson County, Missouri. Reportedly, the confrontation started when the customer at the store attempted to light a cigarette inside the building before Scaggs asked him to put it out. Scaggs claimed that the man tackled him, and during the scuffle, Scaggs stabbed the man several times with a knife that he had in his pocket, citing self defense. As there often are within the American court system, there were delays, but a trial date was eventually set for this past August. On the day that the legal proceedings were set to start, Scaggs changed his original plea of not guilty, and decided to plead guilty to second degree assault and armed criminal action. A sentencing date was scheduled and Scaggs was supposed to remain free until that hearing this month, but his bail was revoked in mid-September when he admitted to having a gun, which was a violation of his bail so he was set to jail.
Last week, he was sentenced to six years in prison for the felony assault. However, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Scaggs will be entered into a 120-day program that could see the sentence converted to supervision. Scaggs will have to complete the program and the court will then have to agree that the completion showed that probation for the remainder of the sentence would be suitable. This is where the context of the entire situation makes a major difference. Obviously, a knife isn’t a part of a security guard uniform, and based on reports, the confrontation was taken outside before the actual fight took place so there wasn’t an attempt at de escalation. I’m not saying the other guy handle it well, but the bottom line is, Scorpio had to be the aggressor to be charged with felon assault. Furthermore, it’s tough to cite self defense when the other guy was stabbed several times and had to be taken to the hospital. That also isn’t to say that the real-life Scaggs is a menace to society either, he was involved in a heated confrontation that was clearly taken too far. In fact, I actually had the chance to meet Scorpio at an autograph signing with fellow ECW alumni, Rhino a few years ago at a collectible store near Pittsburgh, and they were both very polite. Some of Scorpio’s personal problems during his career were well-documented over the years, but you don’t have too much negatively said about it. However, that doesn’t take away from the seriousness of this latest legal development.
In short, the 60-year-old former pro wrestler should be very careful and grateful that he could have a chance to spend some of his latter years on probation rather than in jail until the age of almost 67.
It’s unfortunate that a combination of timing and addiction issues kept Too Cold Scorpio from reaching his full potential or getting the credit for it, especially in hindsight. The real-life Scaggs broke into the sport in the late-80s, training in the New Japan dojo before he worked matches there in 1991. He worked as a foreign Jr. heavyweight in his younger days, and arguably left the promotion a few years too soon before the Super J Cup era of the mid-90s that showcased more light heavyweight wrestlers in Japan. New Japan always had a clear difference between the Jr. heavyweight and the main event division, but Too Cold Scorpio moved onto WCW before the light heavyweights were given more of a spotlight. The issue of timing was a recurring theme in his career because his biggest exposure in the United States at that point was when he signed on with WCW in 1992. The entire company was influx at the time, as a revolving door of figureheads didn’t know what direction to take the organization. Scorpio was only there about a year and a half, but his athleticism stood out, particularly because this was before the introduction of many of the lucha libre stars in the years that followed. His WCW Tag Team title run with Marcus Alexander Bagwell was relatively brief and forgettable, which had more to do with the status of the company than the talent of the team.
By 1994, he landed in ECW and was one of the stand out performers there as well. The fledgling company was relatively new and quite simply didn’t have many workers on the roster that had the television experience that Too Cold Scorpio did. That’s probably one of the reasons that for the next two years, Scorpio was a major fixture for ECW, winning the TV and tag titles. But, this was before the promotion landed on pay-per-view or had a national television deal so the exposure still had a somewhat limited scope.
He debuted for the WWF at the Survivor Series in 1996 with the Flash Funk gimmick. Taking into account the platform and the investment in the character with the dancers and the entrance, I think the office originally planned to put the promotional machine before the persona. However, it was still somewhat of a cartoonish gimmick at a time when the organization planned to completely shift gears to keep pace with WCW, the Ted Turner group that launched its own Monday Night show in 1995 and had taken the lead. The more edgy Attitude era didn’t really have a place for the Flash Funk character so it fizzled within a year or so. As a reflection of that, he was renamed to Scorpio, a nod to his earlier career and was added to the JOB squad, the tongue-in-cheek group of lower mid-card talent that were usually booked for the secondary shows.
By 1999, Scaggs left the WWF to deal with drug problems. In a Kayfabe Commentaries interview, he explained that he used crack cocaine during the latter portion of his WWF run. He made a few cameos in ECW that year, but largely disappeared from the American wrestling scene for several years after that. When he cleaned up, he resurfaced in Mitsuharu Misawa’s newly-launched Pro Wrestling NOAH group, a spinoff from All Japan, in 2000. Scorpio had a career resurgence in the Japanese league, working more of a physical style, but still incorporating the aerial maneuvers that he was known for. Another foreigner reignited his career in NOAH when Vader, who left the WWF a few years earlier due to weight issues, formed a notable tag team with Scorpio, winning the GHC Tag Team championship in the early-2000s.
The five years that Scorpio spent in Japan got him noticed and he signed a WWE developmental deal in 2006 to work as the Flash Funk character again. He was released by 2007, but continued to work on the independent scene for several years after that until he more or less quietly retired from any full-time wrestling. He worked a handful of matches in recent years for various groups.
Essentially, there was a reason that Scorpio always had a job somewhere, he was that talented, but he just wasn’t at the right place at the right time to truly get the big time exposure for the more casual fans to get the chance to see how truly spectacular he was in the ring. One of the many reasons that this legal situation is so disappointing is that there are underrated guys from his era that are finally getting the credit they deserve now through the myriad of retro projects in the industry. There’s undoubtedly a place for a Flash Funk legends figure from Mattel and at least one, if not both of his major career gimmicks to be included in a WWE 2K video game, but it’s difficult for someone in prison, potentially for the next several years, to get signed by a publicly-traded company such as TKO for a merchandise deal.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
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