WWE has begun announcing names for the Hall of Fame ceremony this year, a historic class as it’s the first to be picked by Triple H and not Vince McMahon. However, it appears that a rule that McMahon implemented years ago is sticking around.
Class
The biggest name is Paul Heyman, as Philadelphia is the home of ECW, followed by Thunderbolt Patterson, Muhammad Ali, The US Express (Mike Rotunda & Barry Windham), and Bull Nakano. The ceremony takes place following SmackDown on April 5th at the Wells Fargo Center on WrestleMania weekend.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted McMahon had a rule that every class needed a black wrestler and a women’s wrestler.
The rule
“So it’s interesting that Thunderbolt is now allotted in the WWE Hall of Fame. The one thing that we learned is when Vince McMahon picked the Hall of Fame, they had a certain quota thing, which was there has to be a black wrestler, and there has to be a woman wrestler in every class. And in the new Hall of Fame, it appears that that is the same thing. There’s one woman, which was Bull Nakano and Thunderbolt. So that’s the deal. Thunderbolt announced today, and then probably, I don’t know if it’d be tomorrow or Friday or whatever, but Lia Maivia [The Rock’s grandmother] will be announced as a promoter. Dwayne is gonna give the speech.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit F4WOnline.com with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. An F4WOnline.com subscription includes the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and daily audio shows in addition to thousands of hours of archived audio shows.
