The self-awareness of AJ Styles

If you have ever subjected yourself to the entirety of a WWE Hall of Fame broadcast, you know the exquisite agony of the third hour. Your eyes glaze over. The audience in the arena starts looking at their phones.

Someone from the late eighties is twenty-five minutes into a rambling story about a road trip through Poughkeepsie that absolutely lacks a punchline.

This is the inherent flaw of the ceremony. WWE hands a live microphone to retired professional wrestlers and tells them there is no hard red light. These are people whose entire careers were built on talking people into buildings. It is a recipe for absolute disaster.

That is exactly why AJ Styles' recent comments are the most refreshing thing I have heard heading into WrestleMania 41 weekend. According to recent reports, Styles is actively planning to keep his induction speech brutally brief.

His reasoning is hilariously blunt.

"I do not want people to hate me based on my speech."

It is the kind of pristine self-awareness that made Styles a generational talent in the ring. He understands pacing better than almost anyone. He knows the crowd in Las Vegas is going to be exhausted.

They have been drinking since noon. They just sat through SmackDown. They have two massive nights of wrestling ahead of them. Styles recognizes that nobody has ever left a Hall of Fame ceremony complaining that a speech was too short.

Think about the timeline we are living in. The guy who was the absolute heart and soul of Total Nonstop Action is going into the WWE Hall of Fame. The man who built the six-sided ring on his back earned this spot ten times over.

It took him until his late thirties to even step foot in a WWE ring. He debuted at the Royal Rumble in 2016. Since then, he has carried the company through some creatively barren years. His reign as WWE Champion on SmackDown essentially kept that show afloat when the rest of the product was unwatchable.

Now, he is applying his match psychology to his podium time. Get in, hit your spots, thank the people who got you there, and get out before the crowd turns on you. It is brilliant.

The Dennis Rodman of it all

While Styles is providing a masterclass in brevity, the rest of the 2026 class is leaning heavily into the weird, wild nostalgia of the Monday Night Wars. The announcement that Dennis Rodman is heading into the Hall of Fame this year forces you to recalibrate how you view the celebrity wing.

On one hand, it feels incredibly random. We are decades removed from the peak of the New World Order.

But on the other hand, if we are strictly talking about mainstream cultural impact during the hottest period in the history of the industry, Rodman absolutely belongs. He skipping Chicago Bulls practice during the NBA Finals to go hit people with steel chairs on WCW Nitro is still one of the most surreal crossovers in sports history.

He was not just a celebrity guest waving to the crowd. He was actively participating in main event storylines with Hulk Hogan and Diamond Dallas Page.

Rodman actually wrestled. He teamed with Hollywood Hogan against Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone at Bash at the Beach 1998. The match itself was a slow, lumbering mess of posing and stalling, but it did a monstrous buyrate.

It was the absolute zenith of Eric Bischoff's obsession with throwing Ted Turner's money at anyone who was famous in the mainstream.

The rumor mill suggests that Rodman’s induction might be opening the door for more WCW names to join the 2026 class. This is where WWE's historical revisionism usually kicks into high gear.

They love to curate the WCW legacy. They highlight the moments that serve the overall WWE narrative. Putting Rodman in the Hall of Fame is a safe, headline-grabbing move. It guarantees a few mainstream sports blog write-ups and gives the video package editors an excuse to play that incredible nWo b-roll.

But it also highlights the glaring omissions that hardcore fans have been complaining about for years.

Mark Henry is right about Jim Johnston

This brings us to the most frustrating omission in the history of the WWE Hall of Fame. Mark Henry recently went on record to state the obvious. Jim Johnston needs to be inducted.

Henry did not mince words. He pointed out that Johnston managed to do something that actual in-ring talent often failed to do. He connected with the audience on a visceral, immediate level.

If you hear shattering glass, you know exactly who is coming through the curtain. If you hear that slow, menacing gong, the hairs on your arm stand up. That was all Jim Johnston.

For over three decades, Johnston was the solitary genius locked in a studio in Stamford, Connecticut, churning out the soundtrack to our collective fandom. He didn't just write entrance music. He wrote the emotional cues for an entire generation of viewers.

He gave Stone Cold Steve Austin his swagger. He gave The Undertaker his dread. He gave D-Generation X their chaotic, anti-establishment anthem.

Henry advocating for Johnston is important because it comes from a guy who understands the value of presentation. Mark Henry’s own entrance theme—the Three 6 Mafia track—is legendary. But Johnston was the architect behind the scenes for almost everyone else.

The fact that Johnston was unceremoniously released a few years ago remains a massive black mark on WWE's presentation. They replaced him with the generic, interchangeable butt-rock of CFO$ and def rebel.

Today's entrance themes sound like royalty-free YouTube intro music. If you watch Monday Night Raw, you hear the same generic trap beat or uninspired metal riff for three hours.

When a wrestler runs down for a save, the crowd has to look at the giant LED screens just to figure out who is coming out. It is pathetic. The pop is delayed by three seconds because the auditory cue is completely dead.

Johnston belongs in the Hall of Fame more than half the wrestlers currently occupying it. He built the modern aesthetic of professional wrestling just as much as Vince McMahon or Kevin Dunn did. The refusal to acknowledge his contributions on the biggest stage is petty.

The shadow of Ashley Massaro

While the debates over Rodman and Johnston dominate the timeline, there is a much heavier, more complicated conversation happening quietly in the background. Reports have surfaced recently regarding WWE's internal stance on a potential induction for Ashley Massaro.

This is the part of the Hall of Fame process that always feels uncomfortably corporate.

Massaro's tragic death and her subsequent legal issues with WWE over concussions and alleged abuse make her a deeply sensitive subject for a publicly traded company. It is a stark reminder that underneath the glitz and glamour of WrestleMania weekend, this business is built on broken bodies.

Fans who grew up in the Ruthless Aggression era remember Massaro fondly. She was a massive part of the SmackDown brand during a very specific period. She transitioned from the Diva Search into a genuinely popular babyface.

But honoring her means acknowledging a very dark, legally fraught period in the company's history. WWE hates messes. They despise anything that cannot be neatly packaged into a three-minute video essay with a soaring soundtrack.

The reality is that the Hall of Fame is not a real, objective institution. It is a promotional tool. It is a television show. It is designed to sell tickets and Peacock subscriptions, not to provide an unvarnished look at the history of the sport.

Inducting Massaro would require a level of grace and accountability that this industry rarely demonstrates. If they ignore her entirely, it feels callous. If they induct her, it opens up a news cycle they desperately want to avoid.

It is a lose-lose situation born out of the industry's own historical negligence.

Looking ahead to Las Vegas

As we barrel toward WrestleMania 41 in April, the shape of this Hall of Fame class tells you everything you need to know about where WWE is at right now.

They are leaning on bulletproof, undeniable legends like AJ Styles to anchor the credibility of the event. They are bringing in mainstream oddities like Dennis Rodman to pop a rating and get some free press.

And they are actively ignoring the structural complaints of their most dedicated fans. They are choosing to gloss over the people behind the scenes who built the foundation.

It will be a spectacle. It always is. Allegiant Stadium will be packed, the video packages will be immaculate, and someone will inevitably cry at the podium.

I just hope, for the sake of everyone watching in the arena and at home, that they listen to AJ Styles. Get up there. Say thank you. And get the hell out of the way.