Big WWE News: First 2013 Hall of Fame Inductee Revealed!

With most fans anticipating the WWE to announce the first inductee into the 2013 Hall of Fame this Monday night on the 20th Anniversary of RAW celebration, WWE.com and the New York Times have caught everyone off-guard by announcing the first Hall of Fame inductee today. The first legend to enter this year’s WWE Hall of Fame will be none other than a three-time WWE Champion and the first Hardcore Champion in history as “The Hardcore Legend” Mick Foley will be officially inducted on April 6 in the arena that started it all for Foley, Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Returning to Madison Square Garden to be inducted into the 2013 Hall of Fame brings Mick Foley’s career full circle as, when Foley was a college student at the State University of New York at Cortland, Foley was famously seated in the audience at Madison Square Garden when Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka dove off the top of a steel cage onto Don Muraco. Being in attendance for this historic event inspired the career of Mick Foley.

After training with Dominic DeNucci, Foley would make his professional wrestling debut in 1983 and would wrestle on the independent circuit, most notably in WCCW, before his first big break in 1991 when Foley would debuted in WCW as Cactus Jack and would have notable feuds with the likes of Sting and Vader, but would depart the company in 1994. Foley then joined ECW and wrestled for ECW, as well as Smoky Mountain Wrestling and in Japan, twice winning the ECW World Tag Team Titles with Mikey Whipwreck during his ECW tenure.

In 1996, Foley would join the WWE and was re-branded as the demented Mankind and occasionally reprising his role as Cactus Jack, as well as bringing the character Dude Love to the mainstream (Dude Love was the gimmick that Foley gave himself as a teenager). As Mankind, Foley would win the WWE Title on three different occasions, as well as introducing the Hardcore Championship and holding the tag team titles eight times. Some would argue that Foley’s WWE career has not been defined by the championships, but rather the unforgettable moments that he has created over the years, including his famous fall from atop the Hell in a Cell structure in 1998, his Hell in a Cell Match against Triple H in 2000, getting speared through a flaming table by Edge at WrestleMania 22, and countless other moments, both inside and outside of the ring.

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