When the Road to WrestleMania begins, a lot of scuttlebutt about the Hall of Fame begins. Hell, a few months before, there’s talk about the HOF. Throughout the year, fans talk about who belongs in the WWE Hall of Fame. What bothers me is the number of importance fans put on WWE’s Hall of Fame. The ceremony is what you want from a Hall of Fame induction, the size, and effort put into the presentation respects the contributions of those who go in. No problem there at all.
My thing is about who goes in. The induction process itself. Let’s take a look at the criteria to be considered for the WWE Hall of Fame.
WWE Hall of Fame Criteria
Superstars and personalities must be in footage within the WWE video vault.
Requirements Are Thin
That’s it, honestly. You just have to be featured in the video vault. Koko B. Ware, for instance, had a lot more importance to CWA/USWA/Memphis than to WWE. Actually, he was with the company for about six years and was never a champion, never involved in significant feuds, never part of a truly hot team—he showed up and did his matches and his gimmick.
Fans loved it but fans also loved Kai En Tai’s “We Are EVIL!” gimmick, Val Venis, Gangrel and the Brood, D’Lo Brown Being From Europe, The Fabulous Rougeaus, Ken Shamrock Snapping, and so on. All of those listed achieved stuff in WWE or were involved in the mix of things.
Since it’s a promotion-specific hall of fame, the base criteria should be contributions to the promotion. Years with the company, impact of the contributions to the promotion, importance to the promotion throughout an era, and so on.
Of course, you do need to have some people to add to the Hall of Fame. So, those wrestlers and teams I rattled off who should be in the WWE Hall of Fame by their criteria—they will eventually end up in there.
Should We Put So Much Importance On the WWE Hall of Fame?
Wrestlers themselves put importance on the Hall of Fame, so I suppose. Personally, I don’t think fans should treat it as if it’s an actual honor hall with criteria. Sure, there are different wings. And yeah, WWE has gotten more organized about requiring specific inductees for those wings.
However, we as fans shouldn’t be disgusted or upset that someone wasn’t inducted. “I can’t believe Los Bouricas isn’t in the WWE HOF! Savio was awesome! WTF?!” I mean, yeah, I enjoyed Savio Vega as well but he’ll eventually go in.
He is in the WWE video library, after all.
My WWE Hall of Fame 2020 Picks
Oh yeah, before I forget, here are my entries for the Hall of Fame 2020 class.
- The Blue Barred Steel Cage
- WCW Slam Jam Vol. 2
- WWE’s Pre-Titantron Video Board From the 90s
- The Young Stallions (Jim Powers and Paul Roma)
- WCW Monday Nitro’s Entire Entrance Set
- Missy Hyatt
- The Fabulous Rougeaus’ “All American Boys” Theme
