WWE Hall of Fame 2009 Liveblog/Twitter!

Welcome to my liveblogging and Twittering of the WWE Hall of Fame 2009 webcast from wwe.com.

While we kill time, here's the link to last year's liveblog.

I've never Twittered and liveblogged at the same time, so this will be an interesting experiment.

• The Score is supposed to be showing the USA network portion of the show tomorrow (Sunday) at 5 eastern time, I think. Check local listings would be the suggestion (4:35 p.m.)
• Meanwhile, TSN is supposed to be showing the world men's curling championships, but it's delayed. (4:36 p.m.)
• Waiting ... (4:58 p.m.)
• Feed is buffering from WWE.com (5 p.m.)
• I'm getting great audio and not so great video. Which, I suppose, is fine, considering the HOF involves people standing in front of a microphone. (5:01)
• Love the "How on earth are you gonna stop this guy!" from Gorilla Monsoon in the Shawn-UT video. (5:03)
• Here we go! The HOF is on and live! (5:03)
• Opening with the Funks. This should be fun. (5:06)
• Holy crap, that NWA belt looked really beat up. (5:07)
• Dusty is inducting the Funks. Let's see if Big Dust can stick to the 3-minute limit on the inductions.
• Wow! Dusty just named dropped Lou Thesz!
• Pat Patterson is looking very old.
• Only Dusty can link Terry Funk to Tommy Dreamer and make it work.
• Man, the guys of today just can't deliver promos like Dusty can. He's got no notes, and he's delivering an entirely fluid and brilliant induction speech. (5:10)
• I think Dusty's already gone over the 3 minute limit.
• OK, not by much.
• ARGH! My feed keeps buffering. I might have to jack into the cable modem.(5:12)
• Dory gets a big pop for mentioning the Guerrero family. Slightly less of a pop for the Hart family. Well, they are in Texas, not Calgary.
• OK, after this, I'm jacking into into the cable modem. The buffering is getting ridiculous. (5:16)
• Dory just plugged his website for the remainder of his speech. That was kinda weird.
• Terry is YELLING HIS SPEECH!
• "THERE'S NO ROOM FOR DUMMIES IN THE WWE! YOU'VE GOTTA BE MULTIFACETED! SO KIDS OUT THERE, GET YOUR EDUCATION!"
• Dory's speech was understated and quiet. Terry's is so loud it's annoying. (5:19)
• Koko's next, so I'm gonna take a pause here and jack into my cable modem (5:21)
• I'm back, and the first thing I see is the Honky Tonk Man looking exactly like he did in 1990. Scary. (5:24)
• Gotta give HTM credit. He's actually making it sound like Koko deserves to be in the HOF.
• Noticed on the F4W messageboard that Bryan Danielson from ROH is sitting with some of he WWE wrestlers. Huh. That'll get the rumors started.
• Koko has a new Frankie. (5:28)
• Koko just thanked God that he's not dead (in so many words). Given the number of his former co-workers who are dead, I'm not sure if that's morbid or not.
• Frankie's gonna steal the show here. The closeup of the bird just got a pop. (5:30)
• Now Frankie is trying to eat Koko's speech. This is so funny!
• Perfectly acceptable speech from Koko, considering he should be nowhere near the WWE HOF. Seriously now.... (5:33)
• It was nice to see Bobby Heenan there, but boy did he look terrible.
• Von Erichs are next. Now this will be interesting. (5:34)
• I remember seeing that Kerry Von Erich-Ric Flair match on a VHS tape that Pro Wrestling Illustrated was selling back in the 1980s. I bet I still have that tape in a box somewhere in my basement.
• Michael Hayes doing the induction. Again ... this will be ... interesting ... (5:37)
• Hayes says no family had more influence tranforming wrestling into sports entertainment as the Von Erichs. Hmm ... I guess, considering the TV done by World Class was miles ahead of anyone else. And, I suppose if you look at all the early drug deaths ...
  
• Kerry Von Erich did not set any kind of world discuss record.
• I've kinda tuned out of Hayes's speech. I just don't like the man. He's such a worker, and I don't mean that as a compliment. He strikes me as a guy who would say anything to get the audience to pop, regardless of whether it was true or he believed it or whatever. (5:42)
• And the last Von Erich is up. Kevin immediately says, "I don't regret a thing." That's a kinda cold thing to say when you lost all of your brothers to this business.
• Kevin says Michael Hayes can talk. Yup. Ask Mark Henry about that.
• "I wish my brothers could be here with me. But, gosh, darnit..." Yeah, that's kind of an understatement. "Gosh, darnit."
• Kevin notes that his sons are in the building. Nice looking kids. "The Von Erichs still live," says Kevin. Great. Just keep them out of the business, OK?
• Impressed that Kevin has been married 31 years.
• OK, I'm not deliberately trying to be heartless about Kevin's speech. It was very good. But the tip-toeing around the deaths got to be a bit much. I know he can't dwell on them ... (5:47)
• Yay! Howard Finkel is next! I hope he gets the biggest standing ovation. (5:48)
• Mean Gene inducting Howard Finkel. That's entirely appropriate.
• Yeah, who didn't see that "Enough about me" comment coming?
• Howard credited with coming up with the term Wrestlemania. I actually believe that's true. And if it's not true, then it's been said often enough that everyone believes it's true.
• Howard's put on some weight.
• I think outside of Mae Young, I've never seen anyone so genuinely happy to be in the Hall of Fame.
• Howard is talking very, very fast. He needs to slow down.
• Howard just broke the volume knob in the control both.
• Chris Jericho has the world's orangest tan.
• Loved Howard's "NEW inductee!" bit. That was hysterical! (5:59)
• Bill Watts is next.
• Jim Ross inducting Watts will at least give it the context his induction deserves ... in three minutes or less.
• Ross just turned himself heel. And then he redeemed himself by making fun of Michael Hayes' hair.
• Ross just sent a message to the young talent with the "Watts was in the business for just 3 years before was main eventing the Garden."
• I think Ross is going over the 3 minute limit on the induction speeches. (6:05)
• Bill Watts can take off that goofy hat now.
• Anytime now, Bill.
• Um ... Bill ... you're wearing a giant green hat.
• OK, Bill Watts just made everything great by using the word "noogie" during his speech. (6:09)
• Erik Watts just introduced on camera. Hey, they should put him in Legacy!
• ... OK, maybe not.
• Boy, Bill Watts is sure putting himself over in a rather arrogant way. "What took you so long to put me in the Hall of Fame!?"
• I have no idea what Bill's talking about anymore. Someone yank him, please. This is why they put the time limits in. If he didn't have a 10 minute limit, he'd be talking for six hours. (6:13)
• Bill talks about Bruno Sammartino, saying "he was the strongest man in the world at the time, and we didn't even have steroids back then!" Wow ... got some guts to say that given the audience.
  
• Speaking of Bruno ... what a complete joke that he's not in the HOF. I mean, I know he's on the outs with WWE, but induct him whether he shows up to accept or not.
• Bill's been talking for 8 minutes now, and he's up to, like 1965.
• OK, so in the end, Watts's speech was somewhere between rambling and awesome. Kinda depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, it was utterly rambling at times. On the other hand, he talked about steroids and talked about dead wrestlers, which probably drove Vince McMahon insane.
• Watts, a WWE Hall of Famer, admits he's going to his first Wrestlemania tomorrow. Vince just popped another vein.
• Watts talks about going to heaven. I'm sure that raised a few eyebrows in the audience. (6:21)
• OK, apparently that's it for the web portion of the broadcast. Unfortunately, I'm not able to watch the USA version of the live broadcast with Rick Steamboat and Steve Austion, so thanks for joining me here.