WWE Hall of Fame 2017 inductees: Kurt Angle headlines this year’s class

The WWE inducts several wrestlers, personalities, celebrities, and more into its Hall of Fame each year. While there isn’t a physical Hall of Fame destination, each year before WrestleMania, WWE will host an event where speeches are given by inductees, and careers and moments are revisited. It’s a wonderful way to connect wrestling’s past to its present, and in the age of the WWE Network, where the history of WWE, WCW, and more is just a streaming selection away, you can even do the rest of the work yourself after discovering — or rediscovering — one of the inductees.

On Friday, March 31 at 8 p.m. ET, exclusively on the WWE Network, you can watch the 2017 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony. To get you prepared for what you’re going to see, though, let’s take a look at each of the seven inductees.

Kurt Angle is back where he got his start. Well, back where he started life as a sports entertainment-style wrestler: Angle is a legitimate Olympian with the gold medal to prove it, as he came out on top during the 1996 Summer Olympics freestyle wrestling event. This was part of his early character, with one of Angle’s signature moves even labeled the “Olympic Slam” for much longer than you would have expected given how protective that organization tends to be with their name.

Angle was tremendous at everything: He was (obviously) a gifted wrestler and adapted incredibly well to the world of wrasslin. Angle was a hit in comedy segments on WWE television, in serious feuds — you name it, Angle could do it, and do it well.

There’s also the chance that Angle returns to the WWE as an on-screen figure or even maybe as a wrestler at some point before he officially hangs up his boots. The start of that journey, whatever it might be, begins on Friday when he’s inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Tag team wrestling was incredible in the 1980s, and The Rock n’ Roll Express deserve a whole lot of credit for that along with the Midnight Express — a team whose manager, Jim Cornette, will be inducting Ricky and Robert into the Hall of Fame. Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson thrived in the age of territories, pairing together through basically every historic promotion you can think of.

Although their look, at this stage, is so 1980s that it somehow seems even older ...

... the tag team magic they worked in the ring is still incredibly effective at telling stories to this day.

Speaking of tag team wrestling, here’s Teddy Long, whom you likely know as the former general manager of SmackDown and WWE’s resident tag team enthusiast. If you were in the ring on SmackDown and you were just talking, or you showed up to interrupt someone else’s fight, or you accidentally made eye contact with Teddy Long, he would put you into a tag match ... playa.

That’s not all he did, though. He was a former manager in WCW. He was a referee in NWA and WWE. Long has spent a, well, long time in the business, and please, please let him try to start a tag team match between the Rock n’ Roll Express and literally anyone else in attendance.

Diamond Dallas Page was a phenomenon in WCW, and also one of the few wrestlers to never join the New World Order. In fact, along with Sting, he was consistently one of the only forces fighting against them with any success. Page would headline major shows, fought alongside Karl Malone to take on Hollywood Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman, has one of the most recognizable finishing moves of all-time in the Diamond Cutter, and was betrayed by David Arquette in a title match that allowed Jeff Jarrett to win the title.

Okay, well, they can’t all be winning stories.

Page spent time in WWE as well, and this is probably a good time to let you know that he didn’t even get into wrestling until he was already in his 30s. He was a manager who eventually trained to become a wrestler and worked his way up from the very bottom. He always had the look and the size, and once the rest of the package caught up, well, he’s going into the Hall of Fame now, isn’t he?

And we didn’t even get into DDP Yoga, which has literally saved the lives of former wrestlers. He should get into the Hall of Fame for that if nothing else, but there’s plenty else there, too.

Beth Phoenix was a noticeably muscular, talented wrestler at a time when WWE was, well, not hiring women who were either of those things. WWE talks about beginning the women’s revolution in the last couple of years, but the early seeds were planted during the time of Beth Phoenix, who helped show that there was more to women’s wrestling than what WWE audiences were accustomed to.

And hey, that’s the kind of thing that even Beth herself admits: she pushed herself and her competition hard to make WWE have no choice but to hire her, and she talks about how her performances during a “leaner” period in women’s wrestling in WWE helped bring about the kind of gradual changes we’re seeing today:

“There were times where the trend wasn’t to have wrestling matches. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it wasn’t the style, it wasn’t the brand, it wasn’t the flavor of the month. If these girls today have an easier time because of what we did in the past, that’s the point.

Now, if only WWE would bring Beth Phoenix back to wrestle when things aren’t quite so lean ...

Rick Rude deserves to be in the Hall of Fame just for having the face of Jake “The Snake” Roberts’ wife, Cheryl, airbrushed onto the crotch of his tights. He also deserves to be in the Hall of Fame for having an all-time mustache, wrestler or no. Rude deserves to be in the Hall for a whole lot of things, like being an incredible heel whose career involved both WCW and WWE, who worked as an active wrestler and as an enforcer-slash-manager.

You really can’t say enough about Rick Rude — hell, SB Nation’s wrestling newsletter is named after one of his moves, the Rude Awakening — so watch the video WWE released to announce his induction, and take a moment to be disappointed that he’s no longer with us.

The Warrior Award was introduced three WrestleManias ago, following the surprise death of the Ultimate Warrior, who had just himself been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame days before. It’s meant to go to someone who, in WWE’s words, “has exhibited unwavering strength and perseverance, and who lives life with the courage and compassion that embodies the indomitable spirit of Ultimate Warrior.” This year, that person is Eric LeGrand.

LeGrand played football for Rutgers University before suffering a spinal injury that would leave him paralyzed from the neck down. Since that time, however, he has managed to regain the ability to move his shoulders, and has regained sensation throughout his body.

His story is inspiring, and it’s no surprise that he’s a motivational speaker given what he’s been through in his life. And now, WWE plans to honor him with the Warrior Award, which will be given to him by the late Warrior’s wife, Dana.