3 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Hall Of Fame 2026
A mostly boring, lifeless ceremony that raises questions about its viability in the future.
If you bought tickets to the WWE Hall of Fame or stayed up late to watch the ceremony, you very likely are feeling a bit ripped off.
Friday’s ceremony, honoring inductees Stephanie McMahon, AJ Styles, Demolition, Bad News Brown and Sid Vicious, was somehow simultaneously a brisk two hours that dragged on and felt every minute of those two hours.
The ceremony featured induction speakers who barely scratched the surface of what the superstars being honored meant to the industry. If you knew nothing about Demolition heading into Friday night, Haku, Arn Anderson and Warlord didn’t leave you with a deeper understanding of their contributions or any really fun or insightful tidbits from their careers.
The inductees themselves delivered mostly safe, sterile remarks that avoided “tales from the road” and stuck to thanking family, fellow wrestlers… and Vince McMahon.
When the best speakers are Stephanie McMahon’s three daughters, you know it’s not a great show. (Although, they shared the stage with Linda McMahon, who still has the personality of a wet blanket.)
Honestly, WWE really should evaluate this event and find a happy medium between a chaotic free-for-all with wrestlers just telling stories for hours on end and a sanitized awards show where superstars offer platitudes in nice clothes.
Let’s get to it…
DOWNS…
5. A Rambling, Stumbly Speech
Dennis Rodman’s Hall of Fame speech certainly will not go down as the worst ever. Hell, it isn’t even the worst celebrity speech – Mr. T, we’re looking at you.
But The Worm’s remarks were decidedly unremarkable, as Rodman stumbled his way through comments after revealing he had a speech prepared but opted to not use it. Instead, he left thoughts unfinished, praised Nick Hogan and did a bad Hulk Hogan impression, and spent a fair amount of time praising WWE, a company he never worked for. He went so far as to point out that a lot of wrestlers have been “damaged” or hurt, and WWE has “never turned their back on these people,” gesturing around the room at everyone gathered for the ceremony.
Perhaps you can absolve Rodman for assuming that WWE has a spotless record with providing for its former independent contractors, but really, this was such an odd tangent to improvise when you never set foot in the company.
4. An Immortal Dud
When WWE announced the create of the Immortal Moment award last year, it created a unique opportunity for the company to recognize a point in time in its history that stands apart from all others.
Last year, they enshrined the submission match from WrestleMania 13, with Bret “Hitman” Hart and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin speaking about what that match meant to them and the business. It was a pretty cool, meaningful moment to get the two of them together to wax about that legendary match.
This year, WWE chose Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant and the Bodyslam Heard Around the World at WrestleMania III, which was a truly deserving moment. However, the execution of the ceremony was a total botch.
First, The Miz gave the company line about 93,000 fans being jammed into the Silverdome (it was 78,000) and how Andre was undefeated (he wasn’t), before throwing to a video package that recycled clips of talking heads fans have seen before. Then, when it came to a live speaker, their challenge was finding someone to talk about the moment since Hulk, Andre and manager Bobby “The Brain” Heenan all have passed away.
That duty fell to Jimmy Hart, who was flanked by Nick Hogan and Andre’s daughter Robin. Hart told a quick, pointless anecdote about the Silverdome hosting the pope and the Rolling Stones around the same time as WrestleMania III and about outdrawing the pope before unveiling the statue.
And that was it. There was no insight, no real anecdote about the match, no context. It felt like the moment existed because they were obligated to do so and then turned out the bare minimum.
3. ‘Thank You Vince’
There is no denying Vince McMahon’s influence and impact on WWE and its countless superstars through the decades. It’s hard to imagine a wrestler coming through the company in the past 40-plus years and not have a reason to thank the former, disgraced chairman.
The reality, however, is that Vince is toxic for a number of reasons, and his many black marks should not be whitewashed by a few hearty stories. And he absolutely should not be receiving a “Thank you Vince” chant in 2026.
But here we are. And the fans in attendance couldn’t help themselves to launch into that chant during Stephanie McMahon’s Hall of Fame induction speech when she name-dropped her dad. The conspiracy theorist would suggest that Steph did that deliberately, knowing the dopier fans would mindlessly express gratitude for a guy who is being sued for allegedly engaging in sex trafficking and abuse of a former employee. Meanwhile, she could claim she was just quickly thanking her flesh and blood, a harmless gesture (unlike in 2022, when she herself led a “Thank you Vince” chant when he retired the first time).
Stephanie wasn’t alone in thanking Vince. Both members of Demolition, Barry Darsow and Bill Eadie, name-checked the former chairman during their induction speeches.
All of this is a far cry from previous Hall of Fame ceremonies, where Vince reportedly instructed inductees to not mention him in any capacity, because he didn’t want the focus on himself. Now, only after he’s been forced to resign in disgrace, does WWE loosen the reins a bit and allow people to give kudos to the former chairman.
2. A Beacon Of Women’s Wrestling History
To hear the WWE company line, Stephanie McMahon is women’s wrestling. Everything fans enjoy today about its female superstars is due to the former chairman’s daughter, who had to scratch and claw and “work 10 times as hard to get her foot in the door” (according to her daughter Aurora) to ascend to the top of her family company.
The revisionist history about Stephanie’s influence has been an ongoing psyop on fans for years, repeatedly telling them that she was single-handedly responsible for the end of the divas and the launching of the women’s evolution. Without her, women would still be having bra-and-panties matches or wrestling in Jell-O (Jim and Joe would be proud).
Friday night’s Hall of Fame induction allowed WWE to bundle up everything into one neat package and stick some of the biggest female superstars on camera to nakedly praise Steph: Liv Morgan said she was the most iconic female in WWE history and she learned how to be a bitch from her; Becky Lynch praised her facial expressions and character work; Charlotte Flair claimed the women’s evolution wouldn’t have been what it was without McMahon; Trish Stratus said Steph was the person who grabbed the women and led them into the future.
The video package then ran through the very impressive list of women’s firsts (WrestleMania main event, Hell in a Cell match, Royal Rumble, etc.), thus attaching these accomplishments to Stephanie and suggesting that none of this would have ever happened had it not been for her.
None of this is to say that Stephanie McMahon didn’t help push WWE toward parity for women’s wrestling. But that was as much a business decision as anything else. They treat it like a purely altruistic thing that was driven solely by Big Steph, which is a bit laughable.
Just give McMahon her kudos and flowers honestly and let her accomplishments stand without the embellishments.
1. A Sanitized, Dull, Lifeless Ceremony
Once upon a time, the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony was an entertaining gathering of legendary figures laughing and roasting each other, telling stories and joking with one another, offering insights into their careers and thanking the fans for their support throughout the years.
However, as the ceremony has become more “organized,” it has also become a more corporatized event, with its soul seemingly stripped from it. Friday’s HOF ceremony was a dull, lifeless event that said a lot while saying nothing. There were very few entertaining stories during the inductions or acceptance speeches. Even the Good Brothers kept their remarks surprisingly short and focused, with Karl Anderson only sharing one short anecdote about AJ Styles offering advice at an independent show.
To be fair, some of the speeches in past years have droned on for far too long, turning the ceremony into a marathon. But if you go back and watch speeches like Ric Flair, Paul Heyman and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, these speeches sounded like they had been sanitized by the corporate overlords to remove all grime and emotion. There were no “tales from the road” sprinkled in these remarks. Stephanie McMahon’s speech was by far the best; it also was the only one to dive into any real depth.
Perhaps this was just a byproduct of the inductees themselves: Styles just retired two months ago; Demolition hadn’t been around in WWE for more than 30 years; Sid Vicious and Bad News Brown had both passed away and their families were only shown in the audience; and Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant weren’t around to talk about their Immortal Moment.
But if this is the new normal for these ceremonies, they are going to quickly become a must-avoid event for fans. Why would you pay to watch video packages and hear wrestlers thank their families while wearing a nice suit or dress? What made previous ceremonies worthwhile were the stories, the outlandish tales and in-jokes, the deeply insightful reflections, and the realness of it all.
This was the opposite of that.
UPS…
3. Here Comes The Ax, Here Comes The Smasher…
Both Bill Eadie and Barry Darsow said it themselves during their Hall of Fame induction Friday night: neither man believed that Demolition would ever be let into the hall.
The fact that they were inducted in 2026, nearly 35 years after their act ended in WWF really is remarkable. They were inducted by three tag team wrestlers who faced them during the height of their careers in WWF: Haku, Arn Anderson, and Warlord.
Darsow thanked a litany of people, including his tag partner, noting that all he had to do was follow Ax’s lead. He suggested that Demolition do a run in at WrestleMania this weekend, only for Eadie to quip that he would have to do a walk-in because he’s “a lower” than Darsow. Eadie closed his remarks by quoting Dumb & Dumber about how it felt to be induced: “I like it; I like it a lot.”
Just a simple, short, no frilled induction that captured a few nice moments with one of the biggest tag teams in the past 40 years.
2. The Human Side Of Steph
A good corporate executive knows how to use public relations to blunt criticism and create a positive atmosphere. It doesn’t mean that what was said or done is untrue, but accentuating the positive can overshadow any negatives.
Witness Stephanie McMahon’s Hall of Fame induction, which included a heaping helping of praise, but also a significant focus on her family – especially her three daughters, who formally inducted her – her work with Connor’s Cure to fight pediatric cancer, and her empathy for everyone.
People are complex individuals. It’s exceedingly rare to meet someone who has few or no good qualities. For all the criticism Stephanie receives, hearing the very human stories about her dancing with her daughter Vaughn in the kitchen, or the challenges she and Paul Levesque faced when even conceiving their kids, put things a bit more into perspective.
These fluff stories don’t absolve the criticisms, but they should be singled out for some praise.
1. AJ Keeps It Humble
Logan Paul’s theme song might be “Humble,” but AJ Styles really embodied that attribute with his induction Friday night.
Styles spoke about how much he loved wrestling and being the character, talking briefly about passion, the camaraderie of the locker room, and the European and other overseas tours. But did he miss wrestling since retiring in January? The answer was a simple “no.”
But the reason was even simpler: it was his family. Styles said that being able to go home to his wife and kids every night and not have to Face Time with his daughter or miss birthdays and sporting events meant the world to him, which was a really nice sentiment.
He quickly closed his brief remarks by noting that his new role with WWE allows him find new superstars, and he broadly thanked everyone he worked for and with during his career.
While Styles’ comments weren’t particularly dynamic, they were clearly from the heart, and he opted to simply thank everyone and draw attention to his family, which is very similar to his comments on Raw when he retired.