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| Why aren't there TWO members of the Hall of Fame in this photo? Photo Credit: BookerTea.com |
Of course Andy Kaufman belongs in the Hall of Fame. I'm frankly kinda stunned that this is even a debatable thing.
The short answer is since there actually isn't a physical HOF and WWE would own it lock, stock, and barrel at this point, you cease playing by the rules of a slanted democracy (as you do when other sports decide inductees) and are playing by the rules of a wholly slanted dictatorship (it's a Vincetatorship, not a Vinceocracy, and he will make the Vinceisions or YER FAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDD).
The long answer is that Andy deserves to be in because it's been three decades since he made himself a presence inside the squared circle and some of the best and brightest are ripping him off at least in spirit to this day, and will be as long as certain guys have the Chicago flag woven into their trunks.
Kaufman took wrestling to places it'd never been; the comfortable couches of Late Night with David Letterman and the same stony New York streets riddled with hipsters that would soon help explode the Rock N' Wrestling Connection. If you're one of those folks tired of seeing WWE stars going straight to DVD and not hitting finishing moves, part of it lies with Andy. He, after all, played a lovable foreign loser in an epochal TV show but it took him mocking the denizens of Mamphas, Tennuhsee durrrrrrrrrrr for another aspect of his personality to shine, the sheen off this oily slick Hollywood star running into the river of pro graps. Not many heroes riding high off of beloved shows would opt to branch out into wrestling by being irredeemable chickenshit sexist douches, but Kaufman went for it full throttle and did so with gusto. Imagine the guys from It's Always Sunny being the Shield, or Aces and Eights consisting of the guys from Community. That sentence is ridiculous. And yet, Kaufman did just that to the point where back around Hollywood, he caused concern amongst his industry friends and castmates by continuing to wear his Intergender Title under clothing far from the wrestling ring.
He didn't just show up for a check once and flee, either; his angle with Lawler slow roasted over the better part of two years. And Sandow-before-Sandow received check after check from Jerry Jarrett but never cashed a one of them in.
The spate of celebrity GMs, King Mo, Floyd Mayweather, Raven DDTing DDP through a table on TRL, LT, Liberace, Dennis Rodman, Mike Tyson, the bloviating hairdo going in before him somehow, hell, even Snooki - especially Snooki - should tithe 10% to the church of Kaufman. He used his celebrity to not only break open the doors of wrestling, but to break the fourth wall of wrestling. A generation later, when legendary WWErs would be at death's door or go through to the other side, a certain Second City Saint would be there to milk the crowd's ardor and use their well-meaning hearts to tap into the darker side of love, which is vengeance and retribution, put in Memphisese, to make sure they paid to see him get his ass kicked, every 18 inches apart.
It is said that only a thousand people bought the inaugural album from the Velvet Underground but all that did ended up forming bands; Kaufman is the Warhol banana of wrestling. He defined the genre of celebrity wrestling in the big time still in use to this day (a style aped by many and touched by virtually none) while at the same time slipping into, out of, and through persona like it was a fixed point and a television show all at once, as if a man who just passed would get his real and stage name put on the Tron one right on top of the other as if there was barely a line or it never existed in the first place.
So it comes down to the legendary question he inspired out of the mouth of Michael Stipe: are you having fun? And he did: acting like a jerk to women and getting fireballed in the face and wearing a neck brace for months while still pissing off the crowd enough to pay to see him again and again didn't just make Kaufman a great performer, it made him a great wrestler. He had no finisher, he never won an official championship, and his matches were more angle than Best of the American Dragon fodder.
But if you can't see Andy Kaufman's impact on the world we love enough to let him into an imaginary place celebrating real performance art dismissed as a fake sport that celebrates a cult of personality around which pipebombs are currency, then Michael was right.
Nothing is cool.