Thoughts on WWE Hall of Fame ceremony
Saturday night’s WWE Hall of Fame ceremony at Reliant Center in Houston is best summed up by two words: nice and efficient.
WWE addressed the biggest complaints about last year’s event in Orlando – that the show dragged on too long and the crowd was unruly – by imposing time limits on the speeches and putting up signs that said that catcalling the wrestlers on stage was prohibited and would result in ejection.
Except for the inductions of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Ricky Steamboat, speeches by the inductees were limited to five minutes, and speeches by the person inducting them were held to three minutes. The time was counted down on a large screen at the back of the arena.
The whole event lasted just under 2 hours and 25 minutes. Last year, Ric Flair’s induction speech and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s monologue alone lasted nearly two hours. Personally, I love hearing these great story tellers tell their stories, so I would have been fine with the speakers getting some more time (within reason).
I do applaud WWE for recognizing that the disrespectful behavior of the crowd last year took away from the event. The Hall of Fame ceremony is supposed to be a classy affair and the wrestlers are mostly out of character, but many fans last year acted as if they were at a house show.
For the most part, the audience in Houston was well-behaved. Predictably, John Cena was lustily booed whenever his face appeared on the screen, and there were several “What?” chants, but overall it was a huge improvement over Orlando.
The main event of the evening, obviously, was the induction of “Stone Cold.” What has always impressed me about Austin is that there is no pretense with him. At the hotel bar after the ceremony, Austin – who had changed from his suit into a t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops and baseball cap – mingled with fans and WWE talent while double-fisting some beer. When fans had chanted “One more match!” during his speech, Austin didn’t even bother teasing that he would come back. “Ah, I don’t know about that,” he said.
Steamboat gave a very heartfelt speech, and he also provided the first WrestleMania moment of the weekend for me when he and archrival Ric Flair did a collar-and-elbow lockup on stage.
Other observations from Saturday’s event:
I said earlier that the wrestlers were mostly out of character at the Hall of Fame. The major exception was Chris Jericho, who remained seated for standing ovations for Flair and Steamboat. During Steamboat’s speech, “The Dragon” went into kayfabe mode and called out Jericho, who stood up and smirked. …
One wrestler who rarely breaks character in any setting is The Undertaker. As has become the norm, he did not attend the ceremony, as WWE likes to keep a certain aura surrounding the character. …
Terry Funk had some humorous lines. The best was:” They say you’re only as old as you feel. Well I feel 105 and I’m ready to go.” He then talked about participating in a battle royal in heaven someday. “In heaven, every seat is a ringside seat. … And it’s BYOB.” …
Koko B. Ware came across as a really likable guy and very appreciative of the honor. As usual, though, he may have been upstaged by Frankie, who kept trying to snatch Koko’s notes. …
Former Freebirds leader Michael Hayes works behind the scenes these days, but he still knows how to entertain. Despite being older and heavier, the dapper Hayes still strutted onto the stage and moonwalked to “Badstreet, USA” before inducting Kevin Von Erich. …
Von Erich, the lone survivor of the five Von Erich boys who wrestled, delivered a moving speech that hit the right note. When talking about the deaths of his brothers, he said that he was still part of a brotherhood with his fellow wrestlers, who supported him in tough times. …
Howard Finkel was well aware of the time constraints on his speech, as he zipped through it. This honor obviously means a lot to Finkel, so I felt a little bad for him that he couldn’t just take a deep breath and truly savor every second he had on the podium. …
Bill Watts went over the allotted time on his speech, but he was on a roll and, thankfully, no one gave him the hook. He did create an awkward moment when talking about how much he and Bruno Sammartino used to bench-press back in the day. “And we didn’t even know what a steroid was,” he said. I doubt that will make it onto the DVD.
Comments
i also attended the hof last night as well as last year and was surprised that this year there were alot of empty seats at the arena. it was a great night even though i wish austin would have talked a little longer but i guess he wanted to get back to the hotel and throw down some beer. i was disappointed that you had to pay for the program when they were free in the past. oh well. looking forward to going to mania tonight and raw tomorrow night.
Posted by: jason | April 5, 2009 9:16 AM
Thanks Kevin for the info. I thought this HOF kind of sucked to be honest. Dory Funk was incredibly boring. I wish Kevin Von Erich could have had the time to talk about his dad and each brother a little bit. I wonder if Stone Cold talked about the wrestlers who helped him along the way. Bill Watts talking about being billed as "Big Dick" and then later talking about accepting Christ seemed kind of hypocritical to me. The crowd really seemed dead during the non-Steamboat and Austin inductions. I know they couldn't be unruly, but they didn't seem to clap very much early on.
Posted by: Glenn | April 5, 2009 10:05 AM
I agree that I would have liked to have heard the stories that those guys could have tied into their speeches -- too bad they couldn't have extended the limit just a few minutes. I was disappointed watching it on TV as alot of it was broken up with commercials and promoting the pay-per-view. On TV, it didn't have much flow to it because of the frequent interruptions.
Posted by: Beach Bum | April 5, 2009 11:33 AM
Kevin , a good job of reporting . There's nothing wrong with nice and efficient .
Years ago ( when I was a bigger fan of WW(W)F ) , these guy provided me with alot of entertainment . I still remember when I was living in Frederick eons ago , going to the old B'more Civic Center seeing Terry Funk .
Posted by: the artist formerly known as jack in hebron | April 5, 2009 12:30 PM
Nobody thought Ricky Steamboat would be having a match in 2009, so never say never with SCSA.
Posted by: Elevation | April 5, 2009 1:28 PM
I forgot to tape it as I was focused on Villanova figuring out a way to comeback on North Carolina. Was Vince awesome inducting Stone Cold?
Posted by: Matt | April 5, 2009 1:33 PM
I was extremely looking forward to see Rebecca who looks beautiful and of course Shawn last night and to the anouncement of the winner in the Greatest Legend of WrestleMania contest but unfortunately they did'nt announced yet. That contest is sponsored by best buy and I hope WWE dont rigged the results and Shawn wins it cause we had voted billion times for Shawn at that contest so a SURE win for him!
Posted by: Christian | April 5, 2009 1:48 PM
I think the only way they're ever going to be able to control the crowd at the Hall of Fame ceremony is to close it to the public. Obviously WWE is only as big as its fans, but the crowd has shown every year since they brought back the HoF that they can't behave in a respectful manner. The ceremony isn't a late-90s ECW event, the crowd should show more respect.
Posted by: Ray | April 5, 2009 2:19 PM
At one point the whole thing with Taker not breaking character made sense, but with so many videos of him at MMA events, appearing on Hatton/Mayweather 24/7 last year smiling and standing 2 feet from Batista (who at the time was his next PPV opponent), etc, it's a little silly now.
Posted by: Joe Barber | April 5, 2009 2:53 PM
I enjoyed how Flair quoted himself and used a paragraph out of his own book when talking about how he had wrestled Steamboat around 2,000 times and they never had a bad match. Cameras weren't rolling back in the day for most of their matches so the only record of how good they were is in the memories of the fans who were in attendance at the shows.
I had to look it up because when I heard him say that I knew I had heard or read it somewhere before.
Posted by: Bradley | April 5, 2009 3:11 PM
5 minutes is not enough time to talk about your career
I suggest they give 5 minutes to the intro and 10-15 minutes to the inductees with the main guy getting 20-30 minutes and maybe only have 4-5 inductees so they can get more time
My predictions for Hall of Fame 2009:
The Rock
Ted Dibiase
Demolition
Trish Stratus
"Ravishing" Rick Rude
The British Bulldog
Posted by: Nathan | April 5, 2009 4:13 PM
I watched the H of F ceremony on USA last night. USA only broadcast Steamboat and Austin's induction.
I really liked Steamboat's speech. What stood out about it is that he almost never spoke about himself. Nearly the entire speech was about the other wrestlers who did their part to help make him a WWE Hall of Famer. Very classy. It's easy to understand why Steamboat is so admired in the world of professional wrestling.
As for Austin I've never been a fan. In fact, I always rooted for Vince in their confrontations. But Austin was well spoken and gracious.
Now the only thing the WWE needs to do is build an actual Hall of Fame. It might be the only way to get Bruno Sammartino in there.
Posted by: Aaron Goldstein | April 5, 2009 5:46 PM
BEST (FEMALE)
1. Stephanie McMahon
2. Kelly Kelly
3. John Cena's Date
4. Kristen DiBiase
5. Candice Michelle
Honorable Mention: Rebecca Michaels
WORST (FEMALE)
1. Michelle McCool
2. Layla
3. Maria
Honorable Mention: Marissa McMahon
BEST (MALE)
1. Vince McMahon
2. Christian
3. Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat
4. Triple H
5. Ted DiBiase Jr.
Honorable Mention: John Cena, Mark Henry, John Morrison, Tony Atlas
WORST (MALE)
1. Rey Mysterio Jr.
2. Matt Hardy
3. Stone Cold Steve Austin
4. Blackjack Lanza
5. Jeff Hardy
6. Mickey Rourke
7. C.M. Punk
8. Roddy Piper
9. Bill Watts
10. Todd Grisham (for the one-foot break in his slacks)
Dishonorable Mention: Shane McMahon (tie knot way too big), Harley Race, Ric Flair
Posted by: Barr | April 6, 2009 1:34 AM