News

Bella Twins Comment on WWE Hall of Fame Induction, Shorter Speeches This Year, More

By John Canton • Published 31st March 2021

The first part of the 2020-21 WWE Hall of Fame was taped yesterday at Tropicana Field in Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida. It’s the same venue that WWE has been using for Raw and Smackdown shows since SummerSlam in August. The 2020 WWE Hall of Fame class had their ceremony yesterday. The 2021 Hall of Fame class will get to do their induction today or Thursday as well (I’ve seen differing reports on what day they tape). All of it will air next Tuesday, April 6 on Peacock and WWE Network.

You can see the photo of the 2020 WWE Hall of Fame class above. Batista was not there since he’s filming a Thor movie in Australia and will be inducted at a future Hall of Fame ceremony, possibly next year. Jushin Thunder Liger wasn’t there because he lives in Japan, so likely just filmed a message accepting the honor. Titus O’Neil is not in the Hall of Fame class, but he did win the Warrior Award for this year due to his incredible charity work.

The Bella Twins, Nikki and Brie, were part of the 2020 Hall of Fame class. During their new podcast, the Bella Twins talked about their induction. Thanks to Fightful for the transcript of the comments with Brie talking about how their speeches had to be shorter this year.

“We had a speech written, but then we realized it was too long because we’re only allowed to do our speech for three to five minutes. We wrote a 15-minute speech because usually, they are like ’10 to 15 minutes,’ then we found out they were like, ‘No, it has to be three to five minutes.’ To do your Hall of Fame speech and take out that much stuff is really hard. We’re wondering like, ‘How do we condense this. What’s important? We want to thank all these people and tell stories.”

Nikki Bella commented as well:

“We’ve always been grateful women and that’s where it’s difficult. The majority of our speech is thanking people and they’re like, ‘talk more about yourself.’ We’ve already proven ourselves as Hall of Famers. It’s almost like winning an Oscar. You’re thanking the people who helped you get there.”

What we don’t know is if every Hall of Famer was given around five minutes to speak. It’s possible that the New World Order’s Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman were given more time. We’ll find out next week.

Here are some photos from Davey Boy Smith’s daughter Georgia at the ceremony honoring her dad. This is where the main pic is from.

TJR Thoughts: It makes sense that the speeches would be shorter since they are going to show the 2020 and 2021 Hall of Fame class during the same broadcast. I assume it will run three hours in length, so in order to get the video packages in along with the speeches, it has to be shorter than what we are used to seeing. It also isn’t necessarily a bad thing because fans and even performers have complained in the past about speeches running two long. Five minutes does seem a bit short, though. I think ten minutes would be the most ideal.