Ok so I have decided to keep the person I know the most and whoise career I have enjoyed the most to last as I will proberbly have the most to say about them and I would like to end on a high as apposed to end this post just dribbling and rambling about stuff I dont really know much about so without further adu here goes.
Gordon Solie was inducted in to the hall of fame this year and he is one of those people who managed to get inducted despite never as far as I know having actually worked for the WWE in any capacity. He had however worked as a play-by-play announcer for Georgia Championship Wrestling, Championship Wrestling from Florida, USA Championship Wrestling, Continental Championship Wrestling, and WCW (World Championship Wrestling). I am not very familiar with his work at all but I do know that he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential wrestling announcers with good old JR (Jim Ross) stating that he was the most significant influence on his own career as an announcer. I kind of have to say with this one that if JR believes he belongs in the hall then he belongs in the hall.
Eddie Graham, was inducted into the hall of fame this year, during his time in the world of wrestling he was a wrestler a promoter and a booke. The guy had a long career debuting in 1947 and retiring in 1980 but as he retired before my birth and before wrestling really started to be regularly recorded and saved he is not a person I am very familiar with at all, sure I have heard the name come up but I dont really feel qualified to talk about him. I will say however that I am glad that the WWE recognises people whoise glory days predate the company.
Mae Young, unfortunatly for a lot of people she will be known as that old Lady who had a think with Mark Henry and gave birth to a hand. Yes she was used by WWE a lot in her latter years as joke fodder but when it comes to female wrestlers she is actually a pretty darn important one and one who I think is worth a spot in any wrestling hall of fame. Young is believed to have competed wrestling in seven diffrent decades. There is some debate about when exactly she started but it is known that she was wrestling in Memphis, Tennessee on December 7, 1941, which just so happens to be the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. During World War 2 with many men absent fighting overseas Young not only flurished herself but also helped other Women get into the world of wrestling expanding their role in the sport. While working for Championship Wrestling from Florida, she became the NWA Florida Women's Champion(1 time) and she was also at one point the National Wrestling Alliance's United States Women's Champion, as well as also once holding there World Tag Team Championship (with Ella Waldek), I know some people will stop me and say that anyone can be given a belt but look at it this way people are not given belts unless companies know the belts are safe in there hands and that they will bring asses to seats. Yes her latter days in the WWE might have ended up a little comical but she was a trail blazer helping to open up the world of wrestling for Women and helping it to grow and change.
"Soulman" Rocky Johnson (Wayde Bowles) is a Canadian retired professional wrestler. During his wrestling career, he became a National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) Georgia Champion and a NWA Southern Heavyweight Memphis Champion, as well as winning many other championships. Along with his partner Tony Atlas, Johnson was a part of the first black tag team to win the World Tag Team championship in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Nowdays most people proberbly have no idea who Rocky Johnson was despite his impressive career if people even know who he is then they possibly just know of him as the father of American actor and professional wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as his sons achievments have sort of eclipsed his.
Even a certain degree of credit for the Rock can be placed on his fathers shoulders as he was one of the people responsible for training his son Dwayne to wrestle. He initially didnt want his son to enter the world of wrestling because he knew it was extremely difficult, he agreed to train his son on the condition that he would not go easy on him. The Soulman helped Dwayne get signed to a WWF developmental deal. Initially, he appeared on screen in angels connected to his son but when his son went from wrestling under the name Rocky Mavia and became the Rock this stopped.
Johnson was also hired as a trainer for the WWE developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling, in early 2003 but this appointment only lasted for a few months. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame by his son, The Rock and strangly enough he wasnt the only person connected to The Rock inducted this year. As part of the first black tag team to win the WWF tag team belts and with his other acheivements I believe he is worthy of his spot in the hall of fame.
"High Chief" Peter Maivia AKA Fanene Leifi Pita Maivia (born Peter Fanene Anderson)was an American Samoan professional wrestler. He is the maternal grandfather of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, part of the famous Anoa'i wrestling family and was a promoter for the National Wrestling Alliance in Hawaii. His acomplishments were all in the NWA so his place in the hall of fame is one more gained from his contribution to the world of wrestling rather than to the WWF/WWE as a company. In fairness he is not someone who I feel qualified to talk about in depth but I can certainly understand his place in the hall of fame.
2008 Saw one team inducted into the hall of fame and that was The Brisco Brothers, which was comprised of Freddie Joe "Jack" Brisco an American professional wrestler who performed for various territories of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), becoming a two-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, and multi-time NWA Tag Team Champion and his younger brother
Gerald Floyd Brisco is an American retired professional wrestler, currently employed by the professional wrestling promotion WWE as a talent scout who later in his career become an on screen stooge to Vince McMahon. I find these two a little hard to talk about as a lot of there most impressive things are stuff I have never seen. In a way I think that they would have been better being enterd in the hall seperatly Jack Brisco on the strength of his in ring career and Gerald Brisco more for his back of house work such as his role as a talent scout etc.
Now the next and final person I am going to be talking about is "The Stylin', profilin', limousine riding, jet flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin' n' dealin' son of a gun!" The Nature Boy Ric Flair a man who I feel needs little in the way of introduction yet here I am trying to sum up his career and his entitlement to a place in the WWE hall of fame, lets just put it this way if Ric Flair wasnt in the hall of fame then it would make most people stop and ask if the hall of fame had any credability what so ever. Flair was an American professional wrestler and manager who is currently signed to WWE under its Legends program.
Flair is widely regarded by a great many people as the greatest professional wrestler of all time and the best American performer of the 1980s. Flair had a career that spanned 40 years this includes time with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later WWE) and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). He also spent a whole lot of time in Japan and has pretty much been a major pay-per-view attraction throughout his whole career, Flair headlined at the premier annual NWA/WCW event, Starrcade, on ten occasions, as well as co-headlining its WWF counterpart, WrestleMania, in 1992, after winning that year's Royal Rumble in what can only be described as an incredable performance entering at number 3 and ending up the winner. PWI magazine awarded him their Wrestler of the Year award a record six times, while Wrestling Observer Newsletter named him the Wrestler of the Year eight times. Ric Flair is also the one and only two-time WWE Hall of Fame inductee he was inducted this year for his own individual career and in 2012 he was inducted as a member of The Four Horsemen. Flair is not only in the WWE hall of fame he is also a member of the NWA Hall of Fame, Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, and Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame.Unlike many other wrestlers even if you havent seen or know of the events in this or that federation if you have even a passing intrest in wrestling then your bound to have come across the work of Ric Flair.
Now I dont agree with Flair's almost constant alchol consumption or his cheating on his wives, his drunken helecopter dick airplane beahaviour (apparently what he got up to during a plane journey referd to as the plane ride from hell) but I do think that he would easily be one of the greatest wrestlers to have ever lived and I have to thank him for all of the wonderful memories he provided not only me but so many people over the years. So often he was so busy playing the villian role that he didnt get the respect he deserved, I remember wanting people like Hulk Hogan and Sting to rip his head off but now as an adult I can see the very important part he played.
Over all there was no one really in 2008 who I really felt didnt deserve to be inducted in to the hall of fame, even if I would have handled the Brisco's diffrently. Its personally not the best year for me as there is only really Flair who I grew up watching but its not a bad year at all.
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