The Probability of a physical pro wrestling Hall Of Fame has been discussed for years now. The WWE has inducted many legends and celebs into its Hall Of Fame but there has never been a physical building and Vince McMahon was reported to not be a huge fan of the idea. It is now looking like the chance of a Physical Hall may be closer than ever and Vince may be changing his tune on the subject.
While speaking on the recent edition of The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast, International Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame President Seth Turner talked about setting up a physical Hall Of Fame in New York.
“You got to have these opportunities to have up-close, interpersonal exchanges with these legends. We missed that when that was no longer in New York State. Certainly, you could go to, potentially, meet and greets and maybe stand in line to get an autograph or something, but that’s not what the hall of fame represented. It was a true museum based on the history of professional wrestling. In New York, a hall of fame is considered a museum, and a museum is an educational institution and that is governed by our New York State Education Department. That’s how we obtained our charter.
I am familiar with that with 25 plus years of working in schools, over 20 years of being a school administrator. How to charter the waters and turn the valves that got us the appropriate licensure that we could do business, but the goal is the brick and mortar museum. We’ve not left our eyes off the prize with that. We are working on that just as diligently as we are in hosting our event. Nothing that I want to report publicly but we’re working together. There’s a faction of us that worked on that explicitly, and who knows, maybe there’ll be an announcement soon. We’ll keep working.”
There were plans for a physical Hall Of Fame last year but Covid quickly put an end to that and those plans were scrapped. Turner went on to reveal how the situation ended up unfolding for the company.
“There was a point where I thought we were dead in COVID because we were just starting off our fundraisers and then had to cancel, and we had to cancel through PayPal. We were losing 2%, so we had $0, and we were losing 2% of everything we had to refund. We were underwater. COVID was scaring people.
Then you were part of something that dug us out of a hole, and it kind of happened when I quietly went and obtained a pretty important artifact, obtaining Bruno Sammartino’s original title belt. It had just breathed life back into everything, even when there was controversy. People wanted to contend this. I love it because okay, my friend Darrell Sammartino tells me what it is.”
It is still unknown if the Hall will become reality, but I think we can all agree it would be a great attraction for all wrestling fans.