WWE Hall Of Fame 2004 - Bobby "The Brain" Heenan Steals The Show

In 2004, at the 20th Wrestlemania, Vince McMahon decided to make the Hall of Fame presentation and ceremony a special event all unto itself. He inducted a stellar cast of former wrestling stars and made his current wrestlers get all dressed up and sit in a room while the new hall of famers were honored. And then he had it recorded to be sold on DVD. And we wrestling fans ate it up.

The WWE Hall of Fame was actually created in 1993 with the induction of Andre The Giant. It happened the next three years, but went dormant until the 2004 version. Included in the process of induction was a someone doing the inducting. Each member of the 2004 Hall of Fame had someone inducting them, with a short speech about their career and what they meant to them.

Held at the Hilton in New York, the show was awkward in that it seemed so low rent, yet to the wrestlers and the people, it seemed like the greatest thing in the world.

Here is a list of those who were inducted, with the person who inducted them in parenthesis.

Big John Studd (his son)
Don Muraco (Mick Foley)
The Junkyard Dog (his daughter)
Harley Race (Ric Flair)
Bobby Heenan (Blackjack Mulligan)
Greg Valentine (Jimmy Hart)
Jesse Ventura (his son)
Sgt. Slaughter (Pat Patterson)
Tito Santana (Shawn Michaels)
Superstar Billy Graham (Triple H)
Pete Rose (Kane)

Yep, Pete Rose. Having Rose in the Hall of Fame because of his cameos on three Wrestlemanias makes the Hall a joke, but then again, it's a wrestling hall of fame and if they took it completely seriously, people would still think it was a joke. At least they were able to make gambling jokes as his expense.

The reason why fans go ga ga over these Hall of Fame shows is because the wrestlers get to talk about their career and tell road stories. To baseball fans, it would be like having Willie Mays discuss what it was like to play center field at the Polo Grounds. While most people won't be able to understand that analogy because they see wrestling as of little importance, to wrestling fans, it's an exact analogy. To hear Ric Flair tell stories of Harley Race's toughness, or to hear Mick Foley talk about how Don Muraco was nice to him simply makes wrestling fans feel better about the sport (or sport/entertainment).

The best stories were from Jesse Ventura and Bobby Heenan who were able to go on for a long time and given the most freedom it seemed. For Ventura, he was the biggest star being that he was the former Governor of Minnesota. But Heenan was the funniest of them all and the best story teller. He told jokes as if he was a stand up comic and even though he was just off treatment for throat cancer and he was a little hard to understand, he was fantastic. He told stories about being placed with Ric Flair and not being able to hang drinking with "The Nature Boy" and asking out of the predicament. And at the end, after having the crowd laughing for 20 minutes, he had them teary eyed by saying that the night would be better if only Monsoon was there. He was speaking about his long time partner, Gorilla Monsoon, who had died several years earlier.

There were two members posthumously inducted. The Junkyard Dog had fallen asleep at the wheel on his way to his daughter's graduation and died in a one car auto accident. His daughter inducted him by thanking his fans. Also, Big John Studd's son, John Minton Jr. seemed to be overwhelmed by the love that he received from the fans because of his father, who died from cancer. Even though Shawn Michaels didn't seem like he was the right guy to induct Tito Santana, he seemed like he really respected Santana for being able to leave the business and take care of his family after retirement, something that many wrestlers fail at doing. Triple H even did Superstar Billy Graham's famous rant.

I'm the man of the hour, the man with the power, too sweet to be sour. I'm the reflection of perfection, the number one selection. I lift barbell plates. I eat T-bone steaks. I'm sweeter than a German chocolate cake. How much more of me can you take? I am the women's pet, the men's regret. What you see is what you get. And what you don't see is better yet.

It was definitely fun to watch the guys tell stories, but because there's not much going on except one camera on a guy standing at the podium, I found the production values to be lacking. The stage wasn't well lighted and some of the guys didn't seem like they were too excited to be there.

The video editing was also terrible at times as you saw jump cuts and just editing negligence in general. Very rarely do you see the WWE lack in production values, but this was one of those times.

The extras include a few matches and a few old interviews from each guy. While they are fun to have, the meat and potatoes of the 2 disc set is the several hour presentation.