Shane Douglas has opened up about an emotional and unexpected moment with Scott Hall that took place just months before Hall’s passing in 2022, revealing that the WWE Hall of Famer personally apologized for backstage decisions that negatively impacted Douglas’ run in WWF during the 1990s.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Douglas recalled how Hall approached him privately to clear the air about long-standing issues tied to locker room politics.

“He came to me and said, ‘Hey, can we talk?’” Douglas said. “Sure, we went and sat down and talked. And he said, ‘Look, he and Shawn were the instigators of the whole thing, and that Scott and Hunter and Pac really had nothing to do with it.’ And he said, ‘We should have never done it to you.’ And he said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ And I said, ‘Bro, I’m so thankful he came and said that. Water under the bridge.’”

Douglas explained that the conversation brought immediate closure, with both men choosing to leave the past behind that same day.

“We literally that day, talked, spoke about it, and put it behind us,” he said.

Reflecting on the moment, Douglas emphasized how meaningful the apology was, especially given the nature of the wrestling business where personal conflicts often play out publicly.

“I thought that took a big man to come and, especially in our business, where everything is always fought out in public and things are said,” Douglas said. “It’s one of the things I look back and I’m very thankful for.”

Douglas admitted he was deeply saddened by Hall’s passing at age 63, noting that it seemed the former Razor Ramon star had begun turning a corner in his life.

“I was heartbroken when he died, because it seemed like he finally was starting to get it together,” Douglas said.

Looking back on his WWF run in the early 1990s, Douglas described how close he was with Shawn Michaels, Marty Jannetty, and Dustin Rhodes during that time, recalling the tight bond they shared on the road.

“In ’90-’91, when I was in WWF, me, Marty, Shawn and Dustin, man, we were like four sides of these twins glued together,” Douglas said. “We did everything together. We traveled together, we ate together, worked out together. It was just non-stop, and we got along great, all of us.”

Despite that camaraderie, Douglas said he never fully understood why things shifted behind the scenes. He acknowledged Michaels’ recent comment that he “wasn’t very good” during that period, agreeing with the assessment while pointing to the circumstances at the time.

“He’s 100 percent right,” Douglas said. “When you get paid $50, and I still have the pay stub for a semi-main event in Warren, Ohio, Packard Music Hall, where you get paid $1,600 over four months of working in a semi-main spot, yeah, you don’t get the bouncy Shane Douglas for that much money.”

Douglas believes the situation ultimately impacted more than just himself, suggesting Vince McMahon’s plans for his character were also disrupted.

“Vince, I think, really had plans to bring that character in and get that character over, and it got derailed with all of that,” Douglas said.

He also used the discussion to reflect on his own struggles with opioid addiction, revealing the severity of his dependency and how close it came to costing him his life.

“I was told by all the doctors that there was no documented dose that high that didn’t kill somebody,” Douglas said. “Seventeen 80-milligram OxyContins, three times a day. So 51 80-milligram OxyContin tablets, three times a day.”

Douglas noted how unexpected his addiction was given his lifestyle, explaining he had little history with substance use prior to that period.

“If it could happen to me, I wouldn’t say I was straight-edged like, say, CM Punk is, but I wasn’t far off from it,” Douglas said. “And yet, here I went on a five-year bender with OxyContin, enough that should have killed me multiple times over.”

He described the emotional clarity that came with recovery, recalling how simple moments began to feel meaningful again.

“When I first got off the OxyContin, I remember smelling cut grass, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, does that smell good,’” Douglas said. “Watching a sunset or a sunrise, looking at your son as an infant laying in the crib. Those were things that when you’re on the OxyContin, it was just oxy, oxy, oxy, oxy.”

Douglas also credited Diamond Dallas Page for his role in helping both Scott Hall and Jake Roberts turn their lives around, praising the work done through DDP’s recovery efforts.

“Whatever Dallas is doing, I’ve seen the videos, but if there’s something like some hidden ingredient behind the scenes, he needs to patent that s**t,” Douglas said. “Because if you’d have told me prior that Scott Hall and Jake would be successful in getting cleaned up, I’d have laughed in your face.”

He added that Roberts’ recovery in particular stood out to him.

“I respected the war out of Jake, and I watched his insanity, and thought there is no way that anybody will be able to help him,” Douglas said. “To this day, I love seeing Jake, because by my estimation, he should have been dead a long, long time ago.”

Douglas closed by sharing a message about appreciating the people in your life and not leaving things unsaid, inspired by advice from his mother.

“My mother used to say all the time, ‘Tomorrow’s promised to no man,’” Douglas said. “If you have somebody out there that you want to say you love, tell them tonight, because you don’t know if you’ll be here tomorrow. If you have something hanging over your head, bothering you, eating at you, take the initiative like Scott did.”

He finished by reflecting on Hall’s final years and the growth he showed.

“I thought Scott, at the end of his life, showed a lot more grace than most human beings do in a lifetime,” Douglas said. “Being man enough to fess up that he had a problem, to work hard to get it back on track. It just saddens me that he didn’t get a chance to enjoy it longer than that.”