Countdown To WWE Wrestlemania 33 #29: WWE 2017 Hall Of Fame Class Memories (Part 2)

David TeesMarch 29, 2017, 11:30 pm

Every day from March 1 until WWE Wrestlemania 33 on April 2, Fightful will be bringing you the Countdown To WWE Wrestlemania 33. Each day, you will be getting a top 10 list or an event preview or statistics/figures from past ‘Mania events and everything in between.

In today’s column, we will be looking at my WWE 2017 Hall Of Fame Class Memories. I will be giving brief personal memories of each person being inducted into the 2017 WWE Hall Of Fame class.

The Rock N’ Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson), being inducted by Jim Cornette

I unfortunately didn’t catch onto the Rock N’ Roll Express until after their heyday, but thanks to VHS Tapes and the WWE Network, I got caught up on this team's greatness. The feud between The Rock N’ Roll Express and The Midnight Express is the stuff of legend; it will never be duplicated again. There are also classic matches between The Rock N’ Roll Express against both The Andersons and The Russians that need to be checked out.

Although they had a lot of success as a tag team, neither of the members of the team found much success as singles wrestlers. If you want to see later action from the team, they had a pretty good match with the Briscoe Brothers at a Pro Wrestling Syndicate show a few years ago. Even though they never found much success in the WWE, this tandem will go down as one of the greatest tag teams in wrestling history.

Rick Rude, being inducted by Ricky Steamboat

Sadly, Rick Rude is no longer with us, having passed away over a decade ago, but this man is easily one of the best workers in wrestling history. The battles this man had with Roddy Piper, Ultimate Warrior, Rick Steamboat, Sting, Ric Flair and others will be remembered for decades to come. Rude also had great interactions with longtime manager Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, as these two were one of the best manager/wrestler combinations of all time.

If you want to see just how to introduce a wrestler to the audience, watch Rude’s WCW return as the “Halloween Phantom” as he battles Tom Zenk at WCW Halloween Havoc 1991. When that mask came off after the match, the place went insane. Rude also played a pivotal role in the Dangerous Alliance alongside Paul E. Dangerously (better known nowadays as Paul Heyman). Rude may no longer be with us, but the classics he put together in the squared circle will be remembered forever.

Kurt Angle, being inducted by John Cena

Although he spent more time in Impact Wrestling than he did in the WWE, the amount of great in ring work Angle put together throughout his career easily makes him one of the greatest technical wrestlers of all time. Angle had so many legendary matches with Brock Lesnar, Shawn Michaels, AJ Styles, John Cena, Steve Austin, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit and many others, the list is simply too big to put together in this piece.

Even his work in Impact Wrestling alone makes him worthy of just about any pro wrestling hall of fame–just check out his bouts with AJ Styles to find out for yourself. The man is also one of the toughest men walking the Earth today, wrestler or not, because he won an Olympic gold medal with a broken neck. Angle also returns to Wrestlemania, where he had two of the biggest matches of his career against Brock Lesnar (‘Mania 19) and Shawn Michaels (‘Mania 21).

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