I agree that people who have not stepped foot in a WWE ring should not go into their HOF, aren't there two wrestlers that wrestled for every other promotion but WWE and they made it in? How is that logical??
What the #$#@ is that ??? WWE basically owns the entire heritage of pro wrestling at this point now that it controls the libraries of World Class, AWA, UWF, WCW, ECW etc - what they have done is attempt to honor the ENTIRE INDUSTRY, all the stars who made the industry successful, the groundbreakers who made wrestling the massive success it is today.
Do you realize that the NFL has enshrined footbal players from the AFL league in it's HOF for years, and in fact has honored their accomplishments with listings in the NFL record books ? They realized the contribution that the AFL made to the success of pro football in America and rather than marginalize it they've honored it through the years. Joe Namath was an AFL star, not an NFL star, etc. In fact, without the AFL there never would have been a Super Bowl. What made the Super Bowl special was it pitted the two champions of the completely separate and unrelated pro football leagues against each other in final game to determine a true pro football champion. The allure of the Super Bowl, especially after AFL teams like NY Jets and Kansas City started winning against older, more established NFL franchises, made that game itself way more popular than NFL or AFL championship games.
Personally I think it's terrific that McMahon has given honors to great wrestlers from the past such Nick Bockwinkle, Dusty Rhodes, The Von Erichs, etc. If he didnt it would just show him as petty and inconsiderate to a huge base of fans world wide who grew up and/or were interested in business because of those guys. Heck, an awful lot of McMahon's success came from the wrestlers who came out of those companies, who were established stars in the industry before the ever worked for him. Hogan was main eventing vs Bockwinkle in the AWA, Piper, Greg Valentine, and Rickly Steamboat were all doing Starrcade before they ever appeared at WrestleMaina, Randy Savage and Ted DiBiase were stars in the Mid South (to a bigger extend so was Jerry Lawler), Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannety were tag team champions in the AWA, as was Scott Hall, Curt Henning was AWA World Champion and wrestled some terrific matches vs Bockwinkle for that belt, Steve Austin and Brian Pillman were top level talent in WCW, as was Vader, the list goes on.
An awful lot of people never would have watched wrestling or became fans without those other promotions and their stars, more than a few of which helped Vince make a lot of money over the years. It is ABSOLUTELY THE RIGHT THING TO DO to honor those legends with HOF induction, anything else would be so small minded it wouldnt be worth the paper it was written on.
