After delivering the goods in the opening segment of RAW, doubling down on The Rock's declaration of war against “Crybaby” Cody Rhodes and his legions of fans before booking Solo Sikoa to give Seth Rollins a taste of Bloodline Rules before WrestleMania 40, the leaders of The Bloodline, Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman, and Dwayne Johnson were hanging out in the WWE locker room, celebrating their accomplishments within the WWE Universe.
“I'm saying, he's ready. He's ready. We've got this in the box. I should get out of here. You good with that? Final boss?” Roman Reigns told The Rock, who asked where he was going. “I gotta write that speech. Somebody's gotta do it. Hall of Fame! You're lucky, ‘Wise Man.' Alright, hit me up if you need anything.”
Wait, what now? Well, if you missed out on picking up on what Reigns was putting down, Heyman made it really easy for the fans watching along in Brooklyn and beyond: he's found his inductor for the WWE Hall of Fame.
“Ladies and gentlemen, for those who don't understand, what you've just learned is that the ‘Tribal Chief' will induct the ‘Wise Man' into the Hall of Fame this Friday,” Paul Heyman declared.
Welp, there you go folks; the mystery has been solved, the question has been answered, and after some fans hypothesized that one of his former ECW guys, CM Punk, or even Heyman himself would make the induction speech to celebrate his incredible career, it would appear his most recent “guy” in the WWE Universe, the “Tribal Chief” to his “Wise Man,” will be doing the honors in Philadelphia and, all things considered, it's a safe but appropriate decision.
Booker T warns Paul Heyman against winging his Hall of Fame speech.
While Paul Heyman's inductor has been named for the WWE Hall of Fame ahead of WrestleMania 40 and the ceremony at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia after SmackDown, one question that remains up in the air is whether or not the “Wise Man” will come with a speech prepared, or if he will opt to “wing it” like he suggested on The Rich Eisen Show.
If anyone could just wing such an important speech that will live on forever on video, it's probably Heyman, but in Booker T's opinion, even Heyman should probably come prepared, as, again, it's a very important speech.
“I had my bullet points. Actually, I didn't do the [telepromter] or anything like that. I just went out and just felt the room, felt the vibe and tried to just deliver. Had really no real direction, other than my finish. And it's almost like a match. [laughs] You know, you start from the finish and work your way back. And so I pretty much kind of took that approach. I knew exactly my finish was gonna be all about Sharmell more than anything. And it was gonna be wrapped up after that. You know, we was gonna go home?” Booker T told his fans on the Hall of Fame podcast via EWrestling News.
“So no, a lot of guys go out and read that prompter and I feel like that's gotta be hard. Much harder than actually going out there and feeling it. I would imagine that it has to be much harder than going out there and just feeling it… I can read a ticker a whole lot better than a prompter. Going across the bottom, I mean, those are so easy for me compared to actually doing prompter. I can actually feel it a whole lot more on the ticker. So anytime I'm working, and if I can just like get — you know, WWE Biographies or something, if they a prompter, I was like, ‘Man, can you can you guys work the ticker? We can work that a whole lot better. [laughs]'”
With Heyman having already announced that he decided to accept the WWE Hall of Fame induction offer in large part because of his respect for Paul “Triple H” Levesque, it's safe to say this is an opportunity the ECW head honcho-turned-commentator-turned-creative-turned-manager-turned-GM-turned-“Wise Man” isn't taking for granted. Still, assuming he main events the show just like he's going to main event WrestleMania 40 on both Night 1 and Night 2, it would make sense for Heyman to go into the speech with a few ideas in mind and the order he wants to say it in, as there could be nothing worse than to forget to thank someone he cares about or spend too much time on one section of his career when he has so much ground he has to cover.