Tag: wwe hall of fame 2017

Eric LeGrand to receive 2017 WWE Warrior Award

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Former Rutgers University defensive tackle Eric LeGrand will be honored by WWE at this year’s Hall of Fame ceremony.

It was announced on Monday that LeGrand would be the recipient of the 2017 Warrior Award. LeGrand was paralyzed from the neck down while making a tackle on a kickoff return during a football game in 2010. He has since served as a motivational speaker and started Team LeGrand of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation to help those living with spinal cord injuries.

In an interview with ESPN, LeGrand said that it was Paul “Triple H” Levesque who told him that he would be receiving the award.

“Paul’s assistant sent me an email on Tuesday saying Paul wanted to talk and wanted to schedule a call for Thursday,” LeGrand said. “So I’m sitting here for two days wondering what Triple H wants to say to me. My heart was racing for two days wondering what this was all about. When he called me, he explained the award to me and what they do at WrestleMania, and then he told me at the end that they want to present the award to me, and I honestly didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to react. This was incredible as someone who grew up as a fan since I was a little kid.”

LeGrand will be the third person to receive the award that was founded in 2015 to honor the legacy of The Ultimate Warrior. Connor Michalek, a WWE fan who had battled cancer and was eight years old when he passed away, and Joan Lunden were previously honored.

The Warrior Award is given to someone who “lives life with the courage and compassion that embodies the indomitable spirit of The Ultimate Warrior” and is a spin-off of an idea that The Ultimate Warrior mentioned during his Hall of Fame induction speech before he passed away, where he spoke of wanting WWE to honor integral employees who worked behind the scenes.

DDP joins 2017 WWE Hall of Fame class

Posted on by Joseph Currier

This Monday brought another addition to the WWE Hall of Fame with the announcement that Diamond Dallas Page would be part of its 2017 class.

Rolling Stone was given the news by WWE and conducted an interview with Page. He is the fifth officially confirmed member of this year’s class, joining Kurt Angle, Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, and Teddy Long.

In the interview with Rolling Stone, Page said he got the call from WWE telling him that he would be inducted into the Hall of Fame all the way back in October.

“They handed me the phone and said, ‘Boss wants to talk to you,'” Page said about finding out the news. “It’s HHH. I called him a couple weeks earlier and he hadn’t gotten back to me yet, so I thought this was that return call. So we’re talking about casual stuff, and then I start to hear him talk about my career and where I’ve been and how I got here, and then it hits me — is this that call? I’m not a guy who has trouble talking, but I couldn’t talk. Tears are running down the sides of my cheeks and I just said, ‘Bro, I love you man.'”

DDP is best known to wrestling audiences for his run as one of the bigger stars in WCW in the late 90s through the closure of the promotion. He also had a brief stay in WWE after WCW went out of business, though he failed to reach the heights that he did during his WCW tenure.

Page didn’t find wrestling stardom until fairly late in his life and has since worked with wrestlers like Jake Roberts and Scott Hall on their physical health and substance abuse issues after developing his DDP Yoga program.

Teddy Long joins 2017 WWE Hall of Fame class

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Continuing the WrestleMania season tradition of announcing Hall of Fame inductees before Raw on Mondays, WWE added Teddy Long to the 2017 Hall of Fame class this week.

WWE chose Fox Sports to break the news, with an article also appearing on their own website. Long joins Kurt Angle and The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express as the already announced members of this year’s class.

“Well, I was really surprised, you know? I had thought about being inducted into the Hall of Fame and I thought ‘well, if they’re going to do that, I’m pretty sure my time will come one day.’ And that’s what did happen,” Long told Fox Sports. “I was real excited, it’s such an honor to be a part of something like this. To go into the 2017 WWE Hall of Fame…man, it’s just great. It don’t get no better than that.”

Long is best known to modern fans for his time as an on-screen character in the 2000s, where he served as SmackDown’s general manager for several years. He got his start in the 80s as a member of the ring crew for Jim Crockett Promotions before transitioning to a career as a referee and manager on television.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express joining WWE’s 2017 Hall of Fame class

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Adding to a class that already includes Kurt Angle as its headliner, it was revealed on Monday afternoon that The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express would also be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2017.

The announcement that Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson would be joining the Hall of Fame was made by CBS Sports, with WWE also posting an article about it on their website. Morton & Gibson were voted into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame in 2014.

“It was a surprise,” Morton said to CBS Sports. “I had a message on my phone (from WWE) to call the number back. I think they got ahold of Robert at the time. When they called, it was just like a suckerpunch. It just knocked us off our feet.”

“It’s an honor for Ricky and me to go into the Hall of Fame,” Gibson said.

Morton & Gibson remain one of the most popular babyface tag teams of all time, with their rivalry with The Midnight Express in the 80s serving as one of the most fondly remembered periods in tag team wrestling history.

They held the NWA World Tag Team titles four times during their peak, and had a brief run in the WWF in 1998. The duo most recently appeared in TNA Wrestling as part of The Hardys’ Tag Team Apocalypto match last year.

The 2017 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony is set to take place on Friday, March 31st at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida as part of WrestleMania weekend in the city.