WWE News: New Legacy Award To Be Unveiled At WWE Hall Of Fame

At this Saturday’s Hall of Fame Ceremony, it looks like WWE will be introducing a new award honoring several greats from the past. Below is a picture of a Hall of Fame t-shirt that is being sold in Dallas:

As you can see, at the bottom of the t-shirt it clearly shows WWE Legacy award which includes Ed “The Strangler” Lewis, Lou Thesz, Frank Gotch, George Hackenschmidt, Mildred Burke, Pat O’Connor and “Sailor” Art Thomas.

It appears that WWE are honoring the pioneers of pro wrestling who were not TV stars, and the Legacy Award is the way they are doing it.

Gotch and Hackenschmidt were responsible for the first huge wrestling gate and helped to get wrestling national headlines. Lewis was the most famous wrestler of the 20s, Thesz was the dominant world champion of the 50s, Burke was the first women’s champion to get worldwide attention and O’Connor was one of the smoothest and well respected workers of his day.

Ski’s Take – I have been following not just WWE but pro wrestling in general since I was seven years old (please don’t ask how old that makes me, even my children call me ancient), and I have to admit, apart from Gotch and Thesz, I didn’t know the others. A quick bit of research and I’m all caught up and I hope that I’ve educated you too.

It’s great that the WWE are honoring these heroes from yesteryear. Wrestling didn’t start with Uncle Vince and the WWF (as it was called then) and a lot of the younger fans possibly don’t know that. This is a great way of educating and honoring at the same time.