How Would You Fix The WWE Hall Of Fame Ceremony? | Question Of The Day

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Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!

As previously reported, according to WrestleVotes, WWE isn’t happy with how fans left the Hall of Fame ceremony last year after Paul Heyman’s induction, which was the first of the night. While nothing at all has been announced regarding this year’s ceremony—which is strange, considering it’s January 16th and we don’t even know when and where it is taking place, which is something people should know by now in order to plan out their weekend if they want to attend the shows—it’s safe to say things won’t be planned in exactly the same fashion as 2024’s event.

My question for you today is “What do you think WWE should do to fix the Hall of Fame ceremony? How would you approach setting this up? Or would you just cancel it entirely, for whatever reason?”

Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.

As far as my answer…

I think this worked best when WrestleMania was one night on Sunday, we had the Hall of Fame on the Saturday night beforehand, and there wasn’t an NXT Stand & Deliver pay-per-view either. Obviously, that is not going to be the case, and I’m not advocating for WrestleMania to go back to one night ever again. I’m actually fond of the two-night idea, even if I do think NXT could stand to be moved out of the mix potentially.

But one thing I do think isn’t working well is having the Hall of Fame take place following SmackDown. In particular, it’s not going to work this year with SmackDown being three hours. Nobody but the most avid fans and/or people who do this for a living like myself are going to stay up to START watching the ceremony at 11pm. If you rush it to make it a one hour event, it’s not going to be worth it, and if you let it go on as long as the HOF used to, people will just be going to bed by the time they need to start waking up to get ready for Stand & Deliver—assuming that takes place on Saturday again, too, but WWE hasn’t announced that, either.

Of course, one of the other problems they have going for them is that they keep waiting on inducting people until they’ve passed away. We were robbed of Macho Man Randy Savage, Vader, Sid, and so many others (and those men and women were robbed of their rightful moments, as well). The less major names they have to put on the show, the less interesting it is for people to want to tune in to watch at all. Trying to book around that by saying Lia Maivia isn’t a draw, but The Rock is, and people will tune in to hear his speech just clearly didn’t work, as The Rock talks all the time about his family, so that was nothing new.

The first thing I would tell WWE if they were to consult me on this would be that it’s past time certain people get inducted while they still can do it. Lex Luger is a perfect example. Why continue to push Batista aside? You can’t put someone like Big Show in while he’s in All Elite Wrestling, but with the working relationship WWE has right now with TNA Wrestling, why not induct The Hardy Boyz? Try to get Stone Cold Steve Austin to give the speech for Brian Pillman to be inducted posthumously with Lexis King accepting on his behalf. How is William Regal not in yet? Victoria? Mickie James? Ken Shamrock would be fun. I can keep naming people, but you get the point. Chavo Guerrero isn’t going to be the record-setting viewer maker headliner, no, but current day fans will care a lot more about him than the black and white photo era that even I at damn near 40 years old have never heard of before. Throw in some mainstream people like Cyndi Lauper and it wouldn’t be too hard to get to 4 or 5 names worthy each year, with a quick recapping of the elder statesmen in a short video package to honor the stars from too many generations ago to be relevant in 2025.

That aside, even if you have a lineup that people are personally interested in, you still have to give them a proper means to watch this. As I said, casuals aren’t going to start watching this largely superfluous show at 10 or 11pm. It’s too much on the schedule to ask the staff to do this in the afternoon on Saturday, as that’s necessary to set up and prepare for WrestleMania that evening, so that’s not an option either. You also can’t put it before SmackDown in case people run long, or you have to set up hard time limits that cut into the fun of it all and forces it to be rushed. Also, you’re then asking people to be in the arena from let’s say 6-8pm for the Hall of Fame, then 8-11 for SmackDown. By the time SmackDown is over, they’re going to be tired and cranky.

To me, the most obvious solution is to just put this on Thursday night and basically all the problems are solved. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that could be considered the official kickoff of WrestleMania Week in many ways. While that Monday Night Raw and Tuesday night’s NXT will be factored in, you’re looking at Wednesday being free (which they could use to air something like The Slammy Awards or a multitude of other things), HOF on Thursday night, SmackDown on Friday night with the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal if they’re keeping it on that show, WrestleMania Saturday and Sunday, and the Raw after Mania the next Monday, followed again by the NXT after Mania on Tuesday.

Where does Stand & Deliver fit in there? If they’re not going to just continue to have that on Saturday morning/afternoon, why not just make that a Spring Breakin’ type situation where they classify those two episodes of NXT as special events, put the matches there, and have them take place in the area where WrestleMania is happening, instead of the WWE Performance Center? True, it’s not a traditional “premium live event”, but CW would be happy as all hell about it, and you can appease Peacock by having another NXT dedicated PLE another time in the year. In 2024, there was an NXT PLE in February, April, June, July, September, October, and December. We’ve got the same show in February (Vengeance Day), so just do something in late March or early April if need be, or in May, even, and spread the rest out with June/July for Heatwave or Great American Bash, August/September for No Mercy, late October / early November for Halloween Havoc, and December for Deadline. Same amount of shows.

Try it for one year. If fans don’t come out on a Thursday night for the Hall of Fame and pack the venue, which doesn’t even need to be a big one at all as well, and if people don’t tune in on the Peacock feed you’re broadcasting, then you know that maybe it’s a HOF issue in general and not something with the scheduling. After all, less and less people are watching the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes and such. If the Emmys are struggling, another awards-based program like the WWE HOF is naturally a struggle, too. It just happens to have a more niche built-in audience. At that point, if it fails enough, consider taking it away from the fan-based viewership concept and reverting back to the classy dinner situation it used to be. Book the Thursday night as a rest day, essentially, with a nice meal and only invite the wrestlers and their guests and such. Broadcast the show in a way where you don’t have a red carpet affair and commercial breaks in a traditional sense. Just put it up there for the most hardcore and nerdy fans to watch and let the boys talk among themselves. See if that works.

At the very least, don’t do the most obvious mistake and put the headliner everyone wants to watch as the opening act and expect people to sit through the rest of it to watch people they’re less interested in. Anyone could’ve seen that coming.

What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!

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