What’s the story?
Mike Johnson from PWInsider is reporting that William Regal is not set to be inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame this year. There were several reports that Regal was to be announced this week; however, the WWE instead announced Eric LeGrand as the Warrior Award recipient on Monday.
In case you didn’t know...
Many will recognise William Regal as the current General Manager for NXT, although he’s been in the pro wrestling business since 1983. Regal was a four-time WCW television champion as well as the WWE Intercontinental Champion twice. His biggest honour came in 2008 when he won the King Of The Ring tournament.
He has trained many top WWE superstars such as CM Punk, Daniel Bryan and Samoa Joe and continues to help aspiring rookies in WWS’s developmental brand.
The heart of the matter...
According to Johnson, sources in the company claim Regal will not be inducted this year due to the stacked class. Vader is another name that could miss out this year.
WrestleMania 33 is less than three weeks away and a handful of induction announcements are expected to come. The WWE still has not announced the inductee into the celebrity wing of the Hall Of Fame, with Cyndi Lauper or Regis Philbin being rumoured to get the nod. WWE also plans on having another round of the Legacy Hall of Famer wing.
WWE could announce multiple names in a week, which is highly rare but still a possibility.
What’s next?
We should probably expect the celebrity inductee to be announced next week on Monday Night Raw. Rumour had it that Shaquille O’Neal was going to be inducted. That speculation has probably been squashed as well as his WrestleMania match with Big Show after he announced he was in the Andre The Giant Battle Royal.
Author’ s take
This year’s WWE Hall Of Fame class is a solid one indeed. Having Regal added to that list would definitely enhance it as he deserves to be inducted, but he doesn’t HAVE to go in this year. Regal is still employed with the WWE working as the NXT General Manager, but more importantly, he’s one of the main trainers at the Performance Center. There is not a huge difference if Regal is inducted in 2017 or 2018, just as long as he’s inducted soon.
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