Demolition Announced For WWE Hall Of Fame 2026 (WWE News)
FINALLY, Demolition takes their rightful place in the WWE Hall of Fame.
Following in the footsteps of Stephanie McMahon and AJ Styles, the Demolition tandem of Bill 'Ax' Eadie and Barry 'Smash' Darsow are the latest names to be announced for the WWE Hall of Fame 2026.
Viewed by many long-time fans as one of the most glaring omissions from the WWE Hall of Fame, Ax and Smash were informed of their induction into the 2026 class thanks to a video call from the Undertaker.
Congratulations to Ax & Smash of Demolition and welcome to the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2026. #WWEHOF pic.twitter.com/iDWqIQoYeY— Undertaker (@undertaker) March 2, 2026
A subsequent X post from WWE seems to confirm that this will be the Ax and Smash iteration of Demolition, rather than the later Crush version.
Demolition is IN! ?
As announced by @undertaker, one of the greatest tag teams of all time will make history once again as Ax and Smash of Demolition enter the #WWEHOF as members of the Class of 2026!
— WWE (@WWE) March 2, 2026
MORE INFO: https://t.co/c9EUN09r0v pic.twitter.com/gJSbEelhhp
Demolition had previously been rumoured for a spot in the 2025 WWE Hall of Fame, with the tandem having signed WWE Legends contract in early 2025. That obviously didn't come to pass, and it was Earthquake and Typhoon, the Natural Disasters, as the tag team inducted last year.
The Legacy Of Demolition
Full disclosure: your writer grew up as a huge Demolition fan.
For those younger fans maybe not too familiar with Demolition, the team debuted in the then-WWF in 1987, though it was originally Randy Colley - the former Moondog Rex - as Smash alongside Eadie's Ax, complete with Johnny Valiant as the team's manager. That version of Demolition would wrestle just three matches before Colley was replaced by Barry Darsow in the Smash role, and the basics of Demolition were soon in place: the face paint, the studded entrance gear, the masks, the backbreaker/elbow drop finishing move combo that would come to be known as the Demolition Decapitation, and we'd later get the team's iconic entrance theme.
With Valiant - or Luscious Johnny V, as he was at that time - and Demolition not particularly meshing well together, Demolition's contracts were sold to the nefarious Mr. Fuji in a storyline sense. And from there, Ax and Smash were soon on their way to becoming one of the most dominant tag teams in company history, including winning their first slice of tag team gold by defeating Strike Force at WrestleMania IV. That run as WWE Tag Team Champions lasted a then-record-setting 478 days, with Demolition shining bright at a time when tag team wrestling was in a boom period for Titan, successfully defending their titles against the likes of the Hart Foundation, the British Bulldogs, the Rockers, the Brain Busters, the Powers of Pain, and the Twin Towers. As an act, Demolition would stay together until 1991, becoming three-time WWE Tag Team Champions, and bringing in Brian Adams as Crush in 1990 due to health concerns over Bill Eadie.
The last televised WWE match for Demolition was Smash and Crush losing to Genichiro Tenryu and Kōji Kitao at WrestleMania 7 in 1991, while the previous year's Survivor Series was the last time Smash and Ax - complete with Crush, too - would team up on TV under the WWE banner. Following that run, Bill Eadie would continue to work a variation of the Demolition Ax gimmick on the US independent scene and Japan, Barry Darsow would be repacked as Repo Man in the second half of 1991, and Brian Adams' Crush would become Kona Crush in 1992.
Ax and Smash would pick things up as Demolition on the independent scene in 2007, and most recently teamed together in 2017 as part of the NCWA 9th Annual Ivan Koloff Tag Team Tournament, joining George South in a losing effort against Bobby Fulton and the Rock 'n' Roll Express. Sadly, Brian Adams passed away in 2007 at the age of just 43.
As mentioned, yeah, your writer was a big Demolition guy growing up, but even without those rose-tinted glasses, there is no argument to be made that Demolition hasn't been long, long overdue a spot in the WWE Hall of Fame. In terms of why that hasn't happened until now, part of that is likely down to Ax and Smash being part of a 2016 class action lawsuit brought against WWE that alleged the promotion was responsible for traumatic brain injuries suffered by talents. On top of that, Ax brought a case against WWE in the mid-'90s where he attempted to claim the rights to the Demolition name and gimmick.
Either way, Demolition is now finally going into the WWE Hall of Fame, and fully, fully deserved. Congrats, guys!
On a sidenote, be sure to check out the excellent DEMOPOD podcast Ax and Smash nowadays do with Ryan Maher, and for even more on Demolition's role in wrestling history, be sure to check out our Why WWE Needs To Immediately Fix THIS Historic Mistake article from a couple of years ago.