WWE has announced that Jim Cornette will induct The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2017 during the WrestleMania 33 weekend. Below is what Cornette said about the team during his interview with WWE.com:
“By any standard, Ricky and Robert belong in the Hall of Fame. And that’s whether its longevity as a team, the attendance records they set, or the great matches that they had, which fans can still see on WWE Network.
Superman needs Lex Luthor, Batman needs The Joker, and we were the antithesis of everything The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express stood for and their wrestling style. It just clicked.
I said these horrible, degrading things about these two, fine, young, upstanding examples of American boyhood and people, on numerous occasions, tried to kill us.
Fans literally gave them pictures and gifts at the matches. They considered them members of the family. I’ve seen inside fans’ houses, and they would have pictures of Jesus on the wall, and next to it would be a picture of The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express. That’s no lie.
Between the ’80s with The Midnight Express and the ’90s with The Heavenly Bodies, and then in the 2000s on the reunions with The Midnights, I think only Bobo Brazil and The Sheik had a longer-running rivalry.
And I still haven’t put an end to Rock ‘n’ Roll! I haven’t been able to do it, so I guess I have to roll over and induct them.
There’s one story I’ll probably tell at the Hall of Fame where The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express saved my life one night in Louisiana from an angry mob of fans.”
