WWE Hall of Famer “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase recently took to an episode of his “Everybody’s Got a Pod” podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including Mike Rotunda’s induction into the WWE Hall of Fame.
DiBiase said, “It’s about time, you know? And I won’t mention any names, but there are several names that cross my path that have already been inducted, and I go ‘They inducted them before Mike?; And I just kind of throw my hands up in the air. But I guess — I don’t know that there was any time that Mike was revered for his like — it was always a tag team. It was him and Barry, and then it was him and me, Money Inc. And so, I never really got to see them wrestle as a team. But I heard from a lot of guys they were one hell of a team.”
Whether Rotunda should have gone in as IRS or as part of the US Express:
“I didn’t know Mike. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know Mike at all until he came to the WWE, and Vince got us together and said, ‘Here’s what I want to do.’ But the reality is, I mean, I think that our work together bears witness to the fact that we made a hell of a team. And did well together, so — and I didn’t know him until then.”
The early WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in the 1990s:
“They didn’t really make a big deal out of it. But eventually, they made a bigger deal out of it.”
WWE inducting celebrities into their Hall of Fame:
“I think it’s a novelty. is what it is. And I think each one of those guys, at some point in time, had contributed to and was a part of our show, in some way. And so I think it’s just a tip of the hat to them for taking the time to be a part of a wrestling show… Unfortunately, I think that’s more what it’s about; it’s marketing and selling tickets. That’s the deal, you’re selling tickets. And you get a crossover. So I don’t know, if I really think about it it’s kind of like — you know, if you contributed really something that’s significant to our business, well I can understand that. But when it gets right down to it, I do believe that — but again, wrestling is show business. But when you’re inducted into the Hall of Fame, if you’re not being inducted because you had like a 60-0 record or whatever. Oh my gosh, if you tried to count up all the wrestling matches I had in my career? It’s like, there are 360 days in the year and I can assure you that I wrestled 300 of those days every year. At a minimum. But it’s more about the body of work that these people did. And so I can see where some fans could go and say, “What do you doing putting a baseball player in the Hall of Fame?”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
