No, it’s not just because there is no physical hall of fame location—there’s something deeply strange about WWE’s Hall of Fame that was on display in New Orleans last night that could not (and should not) be duplicated in any sport.
1. Lita, shattering wrestling’s reality (known as Kayfabe) into a million demon seed pieces
I couldn’t tell what was odder, Lita declaring that her on-screen wedding featured “wrestling’s most slut-tacular wedding dress,” or her speech where the high-flying female talked as if everybody watching (in the stadium, and on the WWE Network, where the ceremony was being broadcast for the first time) knew that wrestling is scripted. From being introduced by her “bestie,” Hall of Fame Diva Trish Stratus, as Amy Dumas, to joke-explaining the story where the Big Red Monster Kane forced her to carry his demon seed, and finally saying that there is no Kane, only Glenn Jacobs, one of her favorite people to ever work with, this long rambly acceptance speech will definitely be edited down for future broadcasts.
2. Jake “The Snake” Roberts Gave Another Performance of A Lifetime
The true story of the night were the speeches from Diamond Dallas Page and Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Dallas, the clear choice to induct Jake, started from the stories of them living together the first time, where Jake shared his wealth of in-ring psychology wisdom with Dallas. This led to Dallas telling of repaying that debt to Jake through the DDP Yoga program which is credited for saving Jake from himself and his vices. When they started this second living situation, it had a name, the resurrection of Jake The Snake, and its goal was getting to that very moment, the Hall of Fame.
Jake’s speech was just just like the promos he cut: softly spoken, gut-wrenchingly emotional, and hard for some in the audience to comprehend. He talked of his addictive personality, of rock bottom moment where he “[couldn’t] look at the woman in the eye anymore,” and was “tired of lying to [his] children.” In his darker moments, he said he felt “jealous of [his] friends that were gone,” that he was “not going to commit suicide,” but he was “angry with god, [asking] why not me?” These complicated emotions were hard for some in the audience to sit still through, with some yelling well-intentioned, but wrongly placed, things like “YOU’RE A GOOD MAN!”
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3. Mr. T’s Momma Love gets What’d
Mr. T’s speech accepting entry to the “Celebrity Wing” of the Hall of Fame, for his work with the WWE at Wrestlemania 1 & 2 and Saturday Night’s Main Event started off simple. He thanked God a whole lot, and asked everybody to let him pay tribute to his mom for two minutes. 20 minutes of praising his mother later, the crowd got tired of it, and would yell Stone Cold Steve Austin’s disruptive “WHAT?” between each non-Mother’s Day holiday that Mr. T said he loves his Momma on.
4. Kane crashes Mr. T’s Momma Segment
As Mr. T’s speech included the sentences “Her urinary tract had to work for two. Her digestive tract had to work for two,” and had the audience either grimacing or howling in laughter. Just when it seemed like Mr. T. was going to keep expounding upon his mother’s virtues through Wrestlemania itself, the loud organ-music entrance theme of the aforementioned Kane (less a Big Red Monster today than a Big Pale Libertarian in a suit) blares and the man himself came out to interrupt Mr T.’s speech, give him a “end this now” scowl, which actually worked.
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5. Kane celebrated William Moody by revealing the real life Paul Bearer’s prankster sense of humor and nugget of truth inside of his character
Inducting his kayfabe father, Kane started by saying “I only came out because Mr. T’s Mother was cutting out time for My Daddy, Paul Bearer.” In what can only be described as the ultimate coincidence, or as Kane said irony, we found out that Paul Bearer, the pale-faced manager of The Undertaker, was a mortician’s apprentice before he even made it to his Paul Bearer gimmick. One of Kane’s favorite stories from travelling the road with Moody was the sole time he had to drive them both to the area, in a opened-top cadillac, but doing so while wearing a ski mask, which back in the day was needed to help keep kayfabe. Of course, Moody at one point popped up and back to life (he was faking the injury that ‘forced’ Kane to drive the car), to yell “ITS A MIRACLE, KANE CAN DRIVE, KANE CAN DRIVE!”
6. The Undertaker’s surprise first ever Hall of Fame appearance
The biggest moment that made one think “only in the WWE,” came as The Undertaker, famous for rarely, if almost never, breaking character, made his first appearance at the Hall of Fame. After William Moody/Paul Bearer’s sons came out to briefly speak on behalf of their father, the lights went out, The Undertaker’s theme music & entrance video played, and a cloud of smoke emitted from the stage entrance. Undertaker made his way out to the stage, in character, and with the urn in hand. With the “in memory of” graphic for Moody on the big screen, Taker held the urn high in the air.
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7. “The Bad Guy” Razor Ramon and “The Big Guy” Kevin Nash kept it brief for once
Both Kevin Nash and Razor Ramon (better known as Scott Hall) were rather short winded, especially for two well connected enough guys, and while Nash claimed that Hall told him to speed up the speech “because people have to wrestle tomorrow,” what’s more likely is that Lita and Mr. T’s speeches went over time, and everybody else had to keep it brief. There were no big stories from the road here, which is what fans want and hope to get from these two.
8. Carlito Colon kept himself unemployed and Carlos Colon kept it en Español
When former WWE superstar Carlito, son of Carlos Colon, introduced his father, along with current WWE tag team Los Matadores (Carlito’s brother Primo and cousin Epico), he immediately made it clear he’s not looking to get rehired. Responding to fans chanting his name, he said “keep it up, I’m used to wrestling in bingo halls and high school gyms,” and then he assumed the voice of someone talking backstage to say, “gotta bring the crowd down send out the Colons.” Further confirming that the alloted times had to be changed thanks to Lita and Mr. T, he then said “then they cut our time in half … it’s just like I never left.” Carlos Colon’s speech mostly in Spanish, and unfortunately, American wrestling fans have been trained to be cretins upon hearing another language, so you could hear one or two morons in the rafters trying to chant “SPEAK-IN-ENGLISH!”
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9. Former WWE CEO Linda McMahon Came Out Of Hiding To Induct The Ultimate Warrior
In the annals of odd couplings, this takes the cake. Linda McMahon, the monotone wife of Vince McMahon, was the person who the wild-mouthed and overly energetic Ultimate Warrior hand picked to induct him. And according to Linda, it didn’t begin here. Warrior asked for his last WWE tenure, that Linda to be his direct contact? Nobody can really understand this one. Is it to spite Vince? Does he realize Vince wants his wife out of the house so much he funded two of her hare-brained senate campaigns?
10. The Ultimate Warrior half-delivers on wild expectations for his HoF speech
Ultimate Warrior, and Warrior is his legally-changed last name, came out to give a speech that he rightly called “The most anticipated speech in the history of sports entertainment.” After stumbling on saying “WWE” (as opposed “WWF” as it was in his day), Warrior declared “I wish they’d put the F’g F back in the WWF.” So, it turns out even the loosest cannon can use self-censorship when the bigwigs back stage ask. Except his next sentence was “Can’t believe Jeremy Divik got his ass kicked by those wildlife people.” Guess you can’t clean an old Warrior’s entire vocabulary.
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