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The TWF Hall of Fame Class of 2011
By: TWF Dave | Posted: 12/21/11



Back in May this year we started accepting nominations for the "Pre-Wrestlemania era" TWF Hall of Fame class of 2011. I would now like to introduce you to that class -

Jerry "The King" Lawler
The King is a legend that's won a countless amount of titles throughout his forty years in the business, but he struggled to make it into this years Hall of Fame and had to come through a tiebreaker round to get here. These days he's known mostly for his juvenile jokes and arguing with Michael Cole on the WWE commentary table but back in his prime he ruled the Memphis territory and may well be best known for being involved in the first real crossover of mainstream entertainment with wrestling when he feuded with Andy Kaufman (another TWF Hall of Famer). The most enduring Jerry Lawler moment for me however, is the moment that, having lost a kiss my foot match, he had Bret Harts bare toes stuffed into his mouth.

The Fabulous Freebirds
You've all heard of the Freebird rule, right? That rule that states any two members of a larger group can defend a tag-team championship? Well, you've got these guys to thank for that. They can also lay claim to being the first wrestlers to use a rock music entrance track (and only the second ever to use entrance music period!), a track that you can check out by clicking Here! Perhaps best known for feuding with the Von Erichs in WCCW (a feud which saw Santa Claus beatdown Kerry Von Erich!) the Freebirds sustained in one form or another for an astonishing fifteen years!

"Superstar" Billy Graham
Without "Superstar" Billy Graham, there would probably have been no Hulk Hogan and wrestling as we know it may well never have existed at all. Graham was the prototype of the muscular, tanned, charismatic worker that got over more for all of those attributes than for his wrestling ability. That said, he was clearly no slouch in the ring as he's the longest reigning heel WWF World Champion in history - clocking in a 295 day title reign after beating the longest reigning WWWF World Champion in history, a man that just so happens to be our next inductee....

Bruno Sammartino
... who held the WWWF championship for 2,803 days from May 17, 1963 to January 18, 1971, which is the longest single reign in history. Sammartino held the title twice though, and his two reigns combined lasted for eleven years!

Sammartino was a legitimate tough guy, to the point that he claims that his first title victory was actually a shoot - his opponent "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers didn't know he was going to lose the title and only found out in the ring when Sammartino told him that "We can do this the easy way...or the hard way". The match lasted 48 seconds. He could also have been the only man to hold both the WWWF and NWA titles at the same time had he not backed out of a unification match with Lou Thesz for fear of making his already hectic schedule even more chaotic.

Terry Funk
The Wrestling Forum Hall of Fame
was established in 2007. This year
marks our fifth annual induction
class. To visit the TWF Hall of Fame
Click here
Terry Funk wrestled for over fourty years and even now, just a few years short of turning seventy he's still known to occasionally step into the ring. That says a lot about the man many refer to as the "Hardcore Legend". From wrestling World Heavyweight Championship bouts to wrestling No Rope Barbed Wire, Exploding Barbed Wire Boards & Exploding Ring Time Bomb Death Matches, Terry Funk has done it all in the ring and now he receives the ultimate accolade out of it too - Being inducted into The Wrestling Forum Hall of Fame!

Harley Race
Harley Race won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship eight times. In an era where a "world" title can change hands eight times in eight months that doesn't seem too special, but when you realise that Races' title reigns came through the Seventies and early eighties - an era when Champions were gifted the title because they were genuinely considered the best in the business as opposed to simply being handed it for storyline purposes - and then consider that an NWA Champion could only be crowned should the NWA board agree on it, a board that consisted of the owners of all the member companies of the alliance, then you should start to understand just how great Harly Race was. IF that doesn't clue you in, then maybe learning that Race was the man that passed the torch of greatness on to "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair will...

The Marquee Induction
As the top voted inductee this year, our Marquee Induction warrants his own special place on TWF. You can find it Here!
- TWF Dave
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