Vincent Kennedy McMahon

Inducted by: Hulk Hogan

Should’ve gone first overall, as I’m sure he’d be the first to tell you. This is the one person without whom you cannot tell the story of professional wrestling.

Took over his dad’s regional promotion in the early 80s and built the biggest promotion in history, through a combination of unparalleled vision (bringing Hulk Hogan in as monster babyface champion, being the first to go national, creating WrestleMania, basically inventing the concept of Pay Per View) and ruthlessness (destroying the territory system, raiding other companies for talent, pulling strings with cable companies to undercut other promotions). Threatened with bankruptcy in the mid-90s, he changed the style of the entire company, and put himself into onscreen storylines as the villainous boss in what turned out to be the biggest angle and feud in wrestling history. He turned that momentum into total victory over WCW in the Monday Night Wars, and complete, unchallenged domination of the wrestling industry.

The Rock is already a household name well beyond wrestling circles, and is an elite marquee headliner for my first HOF induction. While I'm unsure if the "potential doesn't matter" only applies to wrestlers continuing to build their wrestling career, or if it doesn't count in general, I would note that while I'm unsure as to whether Rock or Hogan has higher overall name recognition at this time, Rock has already far surpassed Hulk as a movie star and seems destined to be the biggest overall star to be primarily birthed in the wrestling world. As an added bonus, he's the rare candidate for headliner who seems to be basically scandal-free and - fingers crossed - seems like one of the safest bets to never bring shame or negative PR upon my Hall.

There may be a number of other more 'accomplished' wrestlers in terms of titles and longevity, but there's only ever going to be one Andre the Giant. Beyond the obvious iconic status in wrestling, he was a crossover cultural sensation due to both his immense size as well as his charming personality. We look forward to having a wing dedicated to Andre, with a life size statue, a theater showing some of his greatest matches in between runnings of The Princess Bride, as well as a bar setup where people can take the Drink Like Andre challenge (this last is having trouble getting through our legal department, but we're confident they can work out the kinks).

We will be flying Rob Reiner in to do the induction.

Antonio Inoki

So far all the picks have been from American wrestling, but Japanese wrestling is extremely popular in it's own right and it could be argued that Inoki is both the Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon of Japan.

Inoki's wrestling career spanned almost 40 years, during which time he won innumerable championships and honours, including even defeating Bob Backlund for the WWF Championship in 1979. This reign is not officially recognised by WWE, but I can assure you that it happened:



Inoki was not only the most popular wrestler in Japan, but was one of the most famous people in all of sports in the country. He once faced Muhammed Ali in a sort of wrestling/MMA hybrid match. Along with Ric Flair, he headlined two shows in North Korea which drew 150k and 190k spectators!

Aside from his in-ring accomplishments, Inoki is also one of the most important promoters in the history of this business; he founded NJPW which is still going strong today (although he no longer owns it) and I'm pretty sure is the #2 promotion in the world. He also has his own training facility and has trained numerous Japanese stars including Tiger Mask, Hiroshi Hase, Great Muta, Riki Chosu, Shinya Hashimoto, and Tatsumi Fujinami.

Inoki is also a big name outside of sports in Japan; he has been involved in the world of politics, during which time he successfully negotiated with Saddam Hussein for the release of Japanese hostages.

Might not have been at the top of people's boards but Antonio Inoki is one of the most important figures in wrestling history and helps establish my hall as an international Wrestling Hall of Fame. I am unsure who will be inducting Inoki as of right now, suggestions are welcome.

(sorry for naming a bunch undrafteds but I think everyone here knows who is available and it's just easier than keep saying undrafted).

teejayC's Hall of Fame:
Antonio Inoki (inducted by: TBA)