3 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Hall Of Fame 2024 (Results & Review)

1. Better Format Needed

Throughout the years, WWE has struggled to find an ideal solution for the question of how to present its Hall of Fame ceremony. It used to take place the night before WrestleMania, but when Mania went to a two-night event, the ceremony got bumped to a post-SmackDown showing.

In theory, that would be great: there’s a built-in crowd of 10,000-plus wrestling fans already packed into an arena, and this is just another selling point for them.

However, it also means that if the ceremony stretches beyond two hours – and this year’s edition clocked in at three hours – then it’s running well past midnight and runs the risk of turning off fans. And that’s exactly what happened Friday night, as tons of fans poured out of the Wells Fargo Center after Paul Heyman’s leadoff induction speech ended.

When the ceremony came back from a commercial break, the lights had very obviously been lowered, blocking out the upper deck and parts of the lower bowl. Reports online talked about staff actively asking fans to move their seats to the camera side of the arena, and subsequent camera shots showed plenty of empty seats.

Even the promise of appearances from the Undertaker and The Rock were not enough to keep fans in their seats, though Corey Graves tried immediately after Heyman’s speech ended.

Perhaps WWE should consider making SmackDown an hourlong show on the night before WrestleMania and start the Hall of Fame ceremony an hour earlier. Or maybe book it for Thursday in a more intimate setting.

But this setup is going to continue to have challenges, especially as there are fewer must-see Hall-of-Famers being inducted year to year, just by virtue of reaching critical mass with those already inducted.