In salute of #InternationalWomensDay I thought it was time to talk about a 2017 WWE Hall of Fame inductee, but more specifically, my wife, Beth Copeland, aka The Glamazon, aka The Glamamom, aka Beth Pheonix(that’s a lot of handles).

Now obviously I’m biased, and extremely proud of Beth, but after she expressed doubt as to whether she should go into the HOF so quickly, I looked at her resume. I stepped out of the husband shoes and looked at her question and came to the conclusion, that, hell yeah she should be. Who cares what year it happens, if you have a HOF resume, you deserve to go in plain and simple. There’s no time eligibility as with pro sports, so who cares when it happens, as long as it does. It’s not a race between people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that’s mine, and since I’m a hall of famer myself, my opinion is more important(I kid, I kid, kind of).

Let’s roll through the credentials:
-first women’s ladder match in history vs Katie Lee Burchill
-first women’s Table match in history with Natalya vs Laycool
-first women’s I Quit match vs Melina
-second woman to ever enter the Royal Rumble(and eliminate The Great Khali)
-3 time WWE Women’s Champion
-1 time Divas Champion
-third most female ppv appearances with 38, one behind Trish Stratus and Natalya at 39

There’s a reason she was put in those positions. She was damn good at her job. I always felt(even before we were an item) that Beth was a wrestler. Plain and simple, she could wrestle. In a time when female physical strength was not in vogue, she still stuck to her guns(get it?). In the days of diva searches(no offense diva search contestants) Beth was a throwback. She joined her high school wrestling team. The first woman to do so at her school and broke down barriers, all with the goal of making it to the WWE after seeing Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart at Wrestlemania 10. She was, and is, a true fan of the industry which sadly can be a rarity within the industry. She left a good, safe job to hop in her Geo Prism and drive to Louisville, KY to try and get into OVW(at that time WWE’s farm system).

After being told for years by the higher ups in WWE talent relations that she wasn’t what they were looking for(which was the next Trish Stratus) and waitressing in Perkins to make ends meet, she continued showing up. Finally she was hired, eventually made it to Monday Night Raw, and in her first match, broke her jaw(and finished the match). Not deterred she came back with an idea and a different attitude and The Glamazon was born.

She could play the straight woman to Santino. She was the woman who the company could depend on for years on pay per view. She was one of the women to keep the flame alive for women’s wrestling in an era where it was put on the back burner, and let’s face it, given little attention by the WWE. I think the current renaissance of the division happened in part because of women like Beth, Nattie, Laycool, Mickie James, Candice etc. Those were some leanly written years for the women’s division but they kept the torch lit for women like Charlotte, Bayley, Becky, Nia and Sasha to show what badasses they are today.

The truest testament of your skill is what your peers think, especially in the WWE locker room. That’s a tough audience to win over, and Beth had the respect of everyone for being a worker. So this year that’s honored. And that’s great. But more important than all of that is the woman she is. Strong, idenpendent, smart, continuing her education and recently receiving her masters in forensic psychology and now about to embark on getting a degree in clinical mental health. All while being a mother to our two little girls, Lyric and Ruby and setting a sparkling example of what a woman can be if she believes in herself. In spite of today’s political climate. So, yeah, I’m pretty proud of her.

Who cares about the WWE Hall of Fame, if there was a Hall of Fame for life, Beth would be in first ballot.

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Rude wrestled from 1982 until his 1994 retirement due to injury, with a final match following in 1997. Among other accolades, he was a four-time world champion (three-time WCW International World Heavyweight Champion and one-time WCWA World Heavyweight Champion), a one-time WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion, and a one-time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion. Rude also challenged for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship and the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on pay-per-view.

Rude was the co-founder of D Generation X stable along with Triple H, Shawn Michaels & Chyna.
On November 17 of that year, he became the only person to appear on the WWF’s Raw Is War and WCW’s Monday Nitro on the same night, as the former was pre-recorded and Rude had left for WCW in the interim.
Rude will be inducted by one of his greatest rivals, 2009 inductee Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat.

Here is a video package of Rick Rude’s lustrous career by WWE

Rick Rude died April 20, 1999 (aged 40)
Alpharetta, Georgia, United States due to Heart Failure.
Rest in Peace Sir.

Kocianski had a successful amateur wrestling career in high school, before being trained by the All Knighters. After her debut in May 2001, she wrestled for numerous independent promotions, and was the inaugural GLORY Champion. She also appeared at the inaugural Shimmer Women Athletes shows. In 2004, she began working for Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), and signed a developmental contract with WWE in October 2005. She debuted on WWE’s Raw brand in May 2006, but suffered a legitimate broken jaw the following month. As a result, she had numerous surgeries and returned to OVW for further training. While there, she won the OVW Women’s Championship twice, although her second reign is not officially recognized by OVW.
(Source: Wikipedia)

BREAKING: As first reported by @RollingStone, @RealDDP will be inducted into the #WWEHOF Class of 2017! https://t.co/76Kxz8PcBr pic.twitter.com/qcG47uhnJe

— WWE (@WWE) February 20, 2017

DDP first broke into the wrestling business in 1988, as a manager in the American Wrestling Association,^[2] where he worked for nine months before signing with WCW in 1991. There, he continued as a manager until late 1991, when he became a wrestler.
Diamond Dallas Page will join Kurt Angle, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express and Teddy Long in the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2017.