WWE’s Plans For The 2026 Hall Of Fame Are HUGE | Wrestling News

On today’s wrestling news

00:00 – Rundown
00:24 – WWE Planning MASSIVE 2026 Hall Of Fame
06:36 – Night Of Surprises, Returns and Surprise Returns On MSG Raw
11:26 – Shane McMahon Was At MSG For John Cena’s Final Raw
15:40 – Tony Khan LIVE With Ariel Helwani, THIS WEEK!

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Coming up on today’s wrestling news, WWE is planning a massive 2026 Hall of Fame. It’s tonight, surprises, returns, and surprise returns on Madison Square Garden Raw. Speaking of which, Shane McMahon was at MSG for John Cena’s final Raw. And Tony Khan will sit down with Ariel Helwani. We’ll tell you why this absolutely rules. I’m Adam Wilborn. I’m Michael Hlet. And this is the news. So, John Cena has only two appearances left. Mhm. in WWE as part of this final run with the company. Obviously, he’s going to be at War Games. We found out last night he’s going to be wrestling Dominic Mysterio in an IC title rematch and then of course we have his final appearance at Saturday night’s main event in Washington uh for his opponent to be determined, Gunther. Um, but may not be the last we see of him in WWE because not really a surprise to hear this, but confirmed by Brian Alvarez, it looks like John Cena is going to be going into the 2026 WWE Hall of Fame. Uh, yeah, Alvarez writing, “Believe his senior is very rightly in the uh 2026 Hall of Fame and a main event as well.” Uh, obviously it was his final Raw match last night tagging with Sheamus and Rey Mysterio. did like the bit afterwards or in the middle of the match I should say when Sheamus went, “No, no, you stand in the middle. You can’t take me.” Um, he uh he obviously started his career way back in 2002. Uh, one of the biggest stars this industry has ever created, an obvious headliner for the Hall of Fame. Do you remember who’s already in the Hall of Fame class of 2026 already? 2026? I do not. Stephanie McMahon was of course yeah in announced to be inducted on was that Saturday night’s main event they confirmed it for they did a flip reverse cuz she surprised Triple H take just hang was that wrestle pooer actually I can’t remember they got that was they got takes the next give me a minute I got some news but I need a second I had to walk back down to the ring you see how these titan back things are engine I had to drag Hogan around a building on one of these things once Oh, take needs a minute. Anyway, you’re in the Hall of Fame. See you later. That’s right. Some goddamn oxygen. I got Triple A to book. Oh, yeah. We got a book for TripleA. Uh John Cena, of course, already in the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame in 2012, which was recently legitimized cuz they finally put CM Punk in. Oh, yeah. After the whole Punk and Cody year, wasn’t it? 2025. Big year for big names in the Fed and Hall of Fames, I suppose. Yeah. I John Cena go to the Hall of Fame now feels opportune, doesn’t it? I think um WWE were very clever with how they’ve made all of this John Cena’s last. In spite of the fact that, you know, it’s wrestling, there’s never really a last and it’s all about kind of matches and official full-time contract John Cena versus every other John Cena. So, what do we know about John Cena being in the Hall of Fame already? Number one, as you point out, a natural guaranteed headliner that would one day be certain to go in in any year. But to have him follow up immediately from this retirement means what is that he can appear at Wrestlemania as well probably on both nights when they do the roll out of the legends along the stage. So there you go. You still get to see John Cena if you’re back in Vegas. Seen seen the looks or John. Fingers crossed we’ll see you there too. Um you’ll be able to see John Cena in Allegian if you didn’t get the chance last year. Uh look this is very much uh the usual conversation around the WWE Hall of Fame. There is no criteria of entrance but if there was John Cena would meet every single one. This is one of those times where there’s very little sort of uh divisive conversation about what what like um what like merits entry or anything like that. As we’ve said time and time again, what merits entry is the power players within WWE sitting around a table being like them and somebody else going, “Yeah, right.” Like and potentially if they can sell a few tickets to whatever version of the live event they do. Last year, Triple H like went longer than one of his own Wrestlemania matches in front of an audience mostly of WWE people that were asleeping. Uh big weekend. Come on. It was um but presumably a bit like um in Madison Square Garden last night. More on that in a second. Um it’ll be a big ticket item and one assumes that they could probably, you know, put this in an arena again if they wanted. They can put it in any of the venues in Vegas. Was an arena if anything might bloody have to. We’re going to have to last year. Uh and expect to sell plenty of tickets to see John Cena’s big speech. There’s that interview that he’s done, the long form one dropping. Yes. on the day of his Saturday night’s main event. Um, which may serve as a bit of a primer to a Hall of Fame induction speech. But yeah, expect a big one around John Cena going in as the main event candidate. Who inducts him? Oh, I don’t know. Like if Squ I imagine if they give him like a seat in the crowd and shout him out, you can get at least a little bit of a win, you know, and he’s got a second generation link to the company nowadays as well. I don’t know. But that in itself will become its own speculation. I suppose it’s a bit like picking if you think Triple H cuz it obvious but he might be busy with you know the Steph side of things but then Double Bubble. Who cares? Like but you could also go for like a career rival like Randy Orton or someone like that. You could go for a career rival. You know what else you could go with? You know how they sort of kind of ran out of ways to like lure Steve Austin back to Wrestlemania weekend. So they were like should we put matches in? Should we put you and Brett? You got to come for putting you and Brett in. Yes. Like should they just be like, you know, you were like the biggest star. Can you end up the other biggest star? They just like well like exquisite quid. Go on then. Can I ride my bike to the ring? Go on. They just don’t do that again. And Dwayne says, “Actually, I’ll do it.” Thank you. I could The Rock is a shout like The Rock. They got The Rock. I want to say it was 2008. I apologize for the year there, but they got The Rock when um Rocky Johnson, maybe Peter, but definitely Rocky Johnson. He was shooting on Cena, weren’t he? Yeah. That was kind of what kicked all off. But he was kind of nowhere near live WB appearances at the time. And that was the one where they were like, “Yeah, we’re coming to your dad.” And he was like, “All right, fine.” He put the suit on, and he cut the promo and all that kind of stuff. Please let it be The Rock. I love him so much. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was The Rock, actually, for John Cena. Yeah. Um, there will be a laundry list of names, no doubt. Imagine plenty of them will be shooting their shot online in the days to come. Look out for basically anybody that John Cena’s ever wrestled, probably me of anything. Like, you know, imagine like, please welcome to induct Cena into the WWE Hall of Fame. It’s Kevin Federine. It’s former Wrestlemania opponent kind of Elias. You know, JBL, please be careful with what you say. Yeah. John Cena, Hall of Fame 2026. If that’s your cup of tea, and why would it not be? I’m sure WWE will be putting tickets on sale to that very soon. Indeed. Speaking of tickets, uh WWE sold loads of them to Madison Square Garden last night. You expect some obnoxious figures dropping on how much those things costed. Uh but he did uh sell the building out for John Cena or as good as sell the building out for John Cena’s final night. Ain’t not bad for a company that’s allegedly struggling on Monday Night Raw and in Madison Square Garden. And with that came a sense of ceremony. We talked about this on the Raw preview podcast. We will talk about it in depth on the Raw Review podcast later on on the What Culture Wrestling Podcast YouTube channel. But yes, it was a night of big surprises, big returns, and a little bit of both. Um, up and down the show, we had the return of AJ Lee, uh, coming to the aid of Maxine Dupri, being revealed as a secret trainer. Well, not so secret trainer. We kind of thought it might be her. Becky Lynch once again trying to cheat in an effort to desperately defeat Maxine Dupri in her Intercontinental title defense. AJ Lee made the return, stopped Becky Lynch cheating, stopped her in her tracks, and resulted in Maxine Dri becoming the Intercontinental Champion. And AJ Lee later said that um you know even though she’s kind of come back just to support her husband, there was just something about Becky Lynch that got on her nerves only to be interrupted by Ria Ripley who asked if she could have a conversation. We can assume that uh maybe both Aly and Becky Lynch will be the fifth women on their respective war games teams. Now Charlotte’s actually bloody decided to show up. We think uh elsewhere if Becky’s on the opposing team, she’s definitely in War Games. Yeah. Elsewhere on Monday Night Raw, we had the return of Gunther and the return of Gunther’s old theme, if that’s your cup of tea. He was undeafrebbled and given his old sort of class. Come on back. I liked his death rebel one for what it was worth. One of the few good ones, but yeah, I think a lot of people responded well to him coming back as like the more sinister serious gun, especially when he was just kicking Javan Evans all around MSG. Great main event. Go and check that one out if you haven’t already. Speaking of main events, the main event segment was a war games teaser for the uh the big showdown at Survivor Series where the final members of the men’s teams were revealed somewhat predictably but kind of, you know, unannounced and awesome kind of all the same. Roman Reigns made his return to Monday Night Raw, not just to shore up the Babyface team, but to take down the heels final member Brock Lesnar, of course, having recently uh realigned with Paul Heymon. Um threw around CM Punk and Cody Rhodess and was immediately presented as this guy that the baby faces couldn’t have been ready for that nobody could stop. And then Roman just kind of came out and stopped him and Wade Barrett talked about him being Brock’s kryptonite and all that kind of thing and there to be separated by security. Cody’s pretty good at beating Brock as well. He did all right, didn’t he? uh NYPD were there and you know what they you know what the NYPD obviously don’t do is watch WWE cuz if they had they wouldn’t have stood by the barricade because Roman Spielen threw it as Raw went off the air and then surprisingly maybe shout out to our producer Adam Nicholas who called this one but I didn’t see anybody else and Adam Pierce said that nobody else called this one. Uh Dolph Ziggler answered the call of the mystery opponent for Solo Sakoa in the John Cena time is now tournament and lost. Uh he got a nice response in Madison Square Garden. Obviously following Zack Ryder’s surprise appearance on Smackdown. Dolph wrestles for TNA. So the door was never shut, but it didn’t feel like it was swinging open for the Neoths based on a few things we know about other wrestlers on the WWE roster. Biggie did put a nice post saying like, “Oh, the gang’s all here because it must been the first time in forever him, AJ, and Ziggler were both sort of all within the WWE family. Wonder if he punched her in the tits to celebrate. just like old times. Um, so yeah, it it does appear like the Zack Ryder thing. It was a one and done for the benefit of the tournament. Ziggler was fairly he got to hit all his big moves, but he was soundly beaten by Solo. Appropriate that Ziggler came back and just took a wicked bump off of Simone Spike. That’s it. Yeah. Like kind of it’s exactly what he’s remembered for in small doses. And that’s exactly what this was. Cuz he’s solo, he’s class, he’s the best. We love the MFTs. Me. There will be no MFT slanders here. Uh, again, check out the Smackdown coverage if you actually enjoy the MFTs like we do because we’ll give you bloody loads of it. Uh, yeah. Um, I think that’s everybody. It was certainly one of those nights where they um aimed to make it feel eventful and did just that. Big one in the garden. We’ve got like it wasn’t just uh based on the ring, was it as well? As it turns out, there were others in the crowd indeed. Yeah, we’ll get to that in a second. But I really really enjoyed RAW last night. like it comes with a lot of anticipation and expectation. Not only just being in the garden, um I think we worked out the the Raw preview yesterday. The last time there was that um was Romans returned again actually was uh Punk and Seth in the steel cage on the road to Wrestlemania. One before that was the Bloodline putting Paul Heymon through the table on Smackdown. Funny, funny. Um but yeah, just so much fun this show and like you say, very very eventful. We’ll we’ll delve into way more detail on the Raw Review podcast. And if you want to know the ups and downs, Simon Miller will be here with them a little bit later on today. But yes, speaking of surprises, uh, or surprise appearances at Monday Night Raw. One we didn’t see, but we’ve subsequently learned about was Shane Mac. Shane McMahon was in the crowd for last night’s uh, show in Madison Square Garden. Uh he posted on Instagram a picture of himself and his son Rogan who in my head is still the small child who ran out of Wrestlemania 32. The little one on the starless one. Yeah. What? Who are you? You’re big now. Passage time is brutal on us all, isn’t it? Uh with Yeah. Shane posting, “Honored to be at MSG with my son Rogan to celebrate a true legend and my friend #thankyou Cena. He was a few rows back. who sat near his sister, although obviously didn’t show him on camera. Um, can you remember the one time that Shane McMahon wrestled in Madison Square Garden? I don’t. Would it have been his like Smackdown best in the world or like him being an on Smackdown? I can’t visualize a version of him in when he was there. Which way did he go? Like corporate actual actual good shame man rather like hardest man in the universe shame man. I want to say it’s probably that. You’re around the right era. Yes, it was uh a best of three falls king of the ring semifinal against Chad Gable. God. Yeah. God. Like and I remember that being like God that like that was 2019 and obviously New Japan and Ring of Honor ran Madison Square Garden and Visit Man was very angry about it and got the bottom lip out and then gets the building back and books his son against the best wrestler on the show and like I’ve got you Chad. I’ve got you, Chad. Like, last time we saw Shane, of course, uh was Wrestlemania 39. One of your favorite Wrestlemania moments. Yeah, Shane still got it. I’m glad he’s happy and and and walking around again, obviously. No, don’t wish an injury on anyone, but it was How long you were in the building for that? A How long was it before you realized, “Oh god, something’s gone terribly wrong.” And B, how long before you’d seen the footage with the commentary to realize, oh, pretty quickly. You remember you remember you tell me the story about you and Sid being at uh all out and that punk’s backstage fight as it’s all going on. Basically, that happens. Why is he not moving? Like Snoop. Snoop steps in, saves the day, obviously. I was Miz there. Yeah. Oh, mommy. risky as well because that man has done the worst frog splash I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Oh, he’s the Jeffy Swanon of moves. Like you’re taking it like Yeah. But yeah, and then like obviously don’t like oh shouldn’t be injured. But then also I didn’t want him like there’s other guys like LA Knight could have been in that basically I think was that the year that Bobby Lashley should say I won the Andre. Is that any? Yeah. Like it’s anything. And he had like Steve Kettle or whatever it was the night before, wasn’t it? Yes. Oh, it’s like here he is. It’s Steve Kettle. It’s It’s the big man himself. Yeah. Or whatever. So, yeah. But yes, uh happy that Shane had a good time and and obviously he’s got a great relationship with Cena. Yeah. Um yeah, as you mentioned, not don’t need to see him step back in the ring ever again, though. Not featured on camera, which was perhaps pointed. Stephanie McMahon is currently, you know, they say that, you know, the McMahon’s by name. Triple H is obviously in there, but my mom’s by name. Just big fans be these days, but obviously they’ve always got she’s always got podcast and stuff to promote and it’s going in the Hall of Fame. Not so much for JO. Who is that guy with like the grill who got into it with Dominic Mysterio? Oh yeah. I can’t football player I think. So like the thing about the Garden fans is that they kind of booed all of them because obviously New York’s a bit like probably Manchester over here where you got a bunch of divided loyalties and the boos allowed in the Eagles guy there, didn’t they? Yeah. Yeah. And then they had Andrew Schultz and he was desperately trying to grab like a New York Giants thing to be like, “Don’t boo me. I’ve got a New York Giants belt.” It’s hard for us Mr. Bean looking asses to discern who the goodies and the baddies are of American sports. So yeah. Um I’ll tell you who’s been both a goodie and a baddie in American sports coverage is Ariel Helwani. And this is a juicy one. Wednesday, Wednesday this week, uh, so about sort of 24 hoursish from now, Ariel Helwani will sit down in studio and interview Tony Khan. Now, why is this significant, you may ask? Not just because Tony Khan is obviously the president, owner, and everything else of All Elite Wrestling. And it’s obviously rare that you get such an opportunity and a platform to speak at length and in detail with these figures of sort of, you know, high renowned in pro wrestling. But Tony Card and Ariel Helwani go back a bit shall we say. Um Helwani has spoken on this saying quotes. I’ve no doubt it’s going to be great. Myself and the founder of All Elite Wrestling in Studio 101. It’s finally happening. It’s our first in studio chat and our first conversation since several years ago back in 2022 and he just kind of like lets that one breathe. What happened in 2022? We will remind you. So the two of them were on a a Zoom chat and it was in the wake of uh Brawl Out and everything that happened with CM Punk in the summer and Tony Khan like understandably especially in light of what came out with after that was evasive with his answers and was kind of you know doing what like anyone in his position would do is when he can speak about something he does but when he can’t he won’t or doesn’t want to you know it’s his prerogative ultimately and I do remember this causing quite a debate at the time between like what you should give as an interviewee versus what you can expect as an interviewer. Naturally everything got very tribal and it all kind of booted off and whatnot. Um but Ariel Hawaii was quite outspoken about Tony Khan not really giving much at the time and he kind of went on his own show to make a point about this. He says you’re going to come on and promote X Y and Zed. Great. I’ll play that dance and I did at the beginning but you got to give us something to not even tell me how you were feeling. Just give me something. Don’t just say not going to talk about it. Not going to talk about it. It doesn’t serve me. It doesn’t serve me. So Hani kind of made no secret of his frustrations with it. that created a bit of a boot off. And then going into 2023, Ariel Helwani was on one of the WWE post show panels where the the journalists and in some cases in inverted commas journalists would sit down in that mixed room, shall we say, to ask questions of Triple H and uh Tony Khan was none too pleased with that. In one of his best tweets, and it’s a long list of Tony Khan tweets when he is on one, just the most Tony Khan set of characters in a row, he tweeted, “You’re a fraud at Ariel Hawani. you’re as legitimate as a reporter as Tony Shiovani # Aw Rampage. So he got the plug in knowing how much that tweet would be shared. Kind of brilliant, but like outright just calling him on it, sort of like calling him on his biases. At this point, Halwani’s coverage subjectively had lent a bit WWE. So Tony Khan was maybe kind of like lashing out, getting his point across being like, “Funny that you flagged this up with me and now you’re getting nothing from Triple H with his jeters on and his pen and his everything’s fine. Thanks for the invite and all that.” Whatever. Bit of bad blood stem from that. And then of course uh we’d be kind of remiss if we did not mention in early 2024 when CM Punk arm brace and all went on Ariel Hwani’s show went long. It was the first time them two had met up for several years. He always would do these long form chats with Ariel and it had been years since he done it. He went in like pretty much every Grizzly detail not just about Brawl Out but more specifically about Brawl In the fight that took place with Jack Perry at Wembley. the uh ripple effect of that was AW screening the security camera footage on Dynamite in that that went well. Oh boy. Um and kind of just like showing the footage that illustrated that what Punk said was mostly true, but completely vindicated. Yeah. Nobody comes out with that very well. Truthfully, AW was going through a little bit. Joe does. Yeah. Yeah. True. Blood on the tail goes out and has a five three and a half star match at Wembley immediately after this. So, uh, all of that might just be nonsense, gossip, whatever to you, but, uh, if you’re anything like us, it’s pretty juicy and pretty exciting what’s going to happen. Presumably, you know, these things don’t happen without lots of conversations taking place before foreign in the background. Whether or not it’s people contacting people or Helwani and Tony Khn, I feel like in our little bubble here in the wrestling community, this is like eyes of the world stuff. Everybody will be glued to this. What’s the, you know, he’s in the studio, he’s in the building with him. This is not a Zoom call. Like there will be body language cues. There’ll be all sorts. I don’t imagine this is going to like get out of hand and anyone’s going to flip a table. But I will be fascinated to see if they address some of this little icky business that has gone on with them over the years. If if Tony Khan is simply at his promotional best and he’s excited to talk about the success of Blood and Guts and what’s coming up in AW’s future, plug in whatever he wants to plug that evening’s Dynamite. Uh will there be mentions of CM Punk? Will there be mentions of WWE? Tony Khan is rarely moved to speak about, you know, the Coca-Cola reserved now, hasn’t he? Yeah, it’s fascinating. And like I say, lots of water under the bridge, but like how choppy is that water? Oh, exactly. This is the thing. You can agree to all that stuff, but when that red light goes on, it’s go time. Would it be really funny if they only talk about Fulham and Nottingham Forest, though? It could happen. Honestly, it could happen, you know, cuz like Sunland are playing F at the weekend. They’ve already beaten Nottingham Forest. So, they’re we’re kind of we’re kind of the ghost of the easy games. This is it. like you’re kind of brushing aside your Chelsea and your Arsenals and it’s like we’re not playing any proper team yet. So Brford and West Ham. So do you reckon I was going to say do you reckon TK might be out the game on Saturday and I remembered it’s full gear this weekend. So yes, you’re just going to jet back and forth between them. I’m I’m going to have my eyes peeled for Shad. I saw Shad for Bindor and I was like that man has got all the A’s there is somebody that walks in a room and everybody just stops and stares. Shad’s here. I can’t remember what match was happening but I couldn’t like Sha Sha seen it. Yeah. Very very excited for that. Uh Wednesday you say. Yes for that one. Uh and keep an eye out for our amazing podcast. Of course they’ll be on the way a little bit later on today. But let us know your thoughts on anything we’ve discussed in the comments section below. Don’t forget to like, share, subscribe. Um and for the time being, why not entertain yourself with this video right here. I have no idea what it is, but I’m sure it’s bloody great.