Name: Wahoo McDaniel
Year Inducted: 2010

Wahoo McDaniel

Wahoo McDaniel was as unique as a snowflake, as unpredictable as the weather, and rained bloody murder on football fields and wrestling rings all his life. Growing up in the hardscrabble Texas oilfields, Edward Wahoo McDaniel was a catcher on a Little League team coached by future President George H.W. Bush, and parlayed his success onto the gridiron at the University of Oklahoma and the American Football League. "Tackle by who?" the New York Jets public address announcer asked fans in 1964 and 1965. "Wahoo!" the crowd responded. A fight with an off-duty policeman in 1968 ended his career, but he just focused his energies toward wrestling, an off-season hobby since January 1962. His early years were spent in Florida and Texas, where he and Johnny Valentine kicked off their legendary cross-country feud, battling for the Texas heavyweight title in 1969 and 1970. They'd reprise that in the Mid-Atlantic territory in 1974, where McDaniel ended up with the Mid-Atlantic title. As Sandy Scott once told journalist Mike Mooneyham: "All I would hear is Valentine saying 'Harder! Harder! Harder!' Wahoo would say, 'My hand's about busted!' John would say 'Harder!'" Throwing chop after chop - he trimmed one of his fingernails to a point for some added zing - McDaniel held just about every title imaginable during his time in the Mid-Atlantic. Though he was not a classic worker or a marvel on the microphone, he was packed with charisma and a personality that made fans believe. "Who was Wahoo McDaniel?" Florida sportswriter Dave Hyde asked after his death at age 63 in 2002. "Who wasn't he? An American Indian, an expansion Dolphin, a legendary wrestler, an old-time carouser, a full-time personality, an Oiler, a Bronco, a Jet, a guard, a linebacker, a kicker - he was the kind of figure we lost long ago on the sports pages: an original."

Name: Stan Hansen
Year Inducted: 2010

Stan Hansen

When you think of Stan Hansen, you keep coming back to three descriptions - devastating, indefatigable, and baseball dad. The first two are obvious to fans who followed his career in the United States and Japan. The third, perhaps not. Son Shaver was a sixth-round pick of the Seattle Mariners in 2009 and kid brother Sam plays baseball at the University of Texas at Arlington. It's a role reversal for the "Bad Man from Borger, Texas," since his sons couldn't watch him in action when he dominated wrestling in Japan. "The kids didn't have a chance to see me on television," Hansen said. "It wasn't like other wrestlers. Their kids could watch them on TV. It was like I was gone on business." Hansen's business was redefining wrestling in the Orient with a punishing, aggressive style that earned him four turns as All Japan Triple Crown titlist and status as a cultural icon in the country. "His was a truly unique talent," writer John Molinaro observed after Hansen announced his retirement in Japan in 2001. "The sophistication and elegance of the scripted sadism and chaos he created in the ring was breathtaking. He moved with such ferocity and fierceness, there was an understated grace to his style." Bullwhip cracking and tobacco juice streaming, Hansen also made a major impact in the United States as a tag team champion with Bruiser Brody and headlined Madison Square Garden against Bruno Sammartino just three years into his career. In December 1985, he won the Midwest-based American Wrestling Association World title from Rick Martel; he also held the U.S. belt from the National Wrestling Alliance/World Championship Wrestling in 1990. "He was like a machine," said an admiring Martel. "I remember coming back after the matches all blown up, like you had been in a gunfight. Stan, when he dropped those elbows, he was always really stiff and snug. You knew you'd been in the ring with that guy afterwards."

Name: Mil Mascaras
Year Inducted: 2010

Mil Mascaras

From his native Mexico to the rest of the world, the man of a thousand masks wielded an enormous influence. Mil Mascaras helped to popularize the lucha libre style in the United States and Japan, and spawned a generation of spinoffs from Jushin Liger to Ultimo Dragon and beyond. "When I was in eighth grade, I wore a mask that I designed for an event during a school festival. I designed it after Mascaras," Satoru Sayama, the original Tiger Mask, told Weekly Gong in 1995. "The reason I started wrestling was [Antonio] Inoki-san, but Mil Mascaras was always on my mind." Aaron Rodriguez Arellano, who grew up in Mexico idolizing El Santo, wrestled as an amateur before he became Mascaras in 1964 and emerged as a movie and cultural hero. In 1968, he ventured for the first time to Los Angeles, which became one of his strongest cities in North America. He also appeared regularly in Texas, where he had an enormous Latin fan base. "I could put Mil in the [Dallas] Sportatorium, or the Houston Coliseum, or the [Dallas] Reunion Arena, and put him with a top guy, and the Mexicans would turn out in droves, and the Anglos liked him too," said Gary Hart, who helped to book those cities for years. Among his top U.S. achievements were holding, and never losing, the International Wrestling Association world title, and working as the first fully masked man in Madison Square Garden. In Japan, the immortal Destroyer (Dick Beyer) was perhaps his greatest foe. "He was the best competitor that I ever wrestled," Beyer said when the Cauliflower Alley Club honored Mascaras in 2006. "He never gave you anything “it's true“ but I didn't give him anything either." Now 67, Mascaras has showed few signs of slowing down. He took on the Aztec Mummy in a 2007 movie, and a sequel is in the works.

Name: Larry Zbyszko
Year Inducted: 2010

Larry Zbyszko

Larry Zbyszko trained under Bruno Sammartino and debuted in 1973, with his name a tribute to 1920s Polish American wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko. He initially wrestled in the Pittsburgh area, appearing on the local wrestling program Studio Wrestling, before receiving bookings in Vancouver.  He spent three years in the World Wide Wrestling Federation before travelling to California in 1975. Zbyszko returned to the WWWF in 1976. At the end of the decade, Zbyszko became frustrated with his inability to shed his label as Bruno Sammartino's protégé. He challenged Sammartino to an exhibition match, claiming this was the only way he could step out of Sammartino's shadow. Zbyszko began referring to himself as "The New Living Legend" (a reference to Sammartino, who was often addressed as "The Living Legend"). The feud culminated in a steel cage match at Showdown at Shea at Shea Stadium in Flushing, New York on August 9, 1980 that saw Sammartino defeat Zbyszko in front of an audience of 36,295. Zbyszko left the WWWF in 1981 and eventually joined the Georgia Championship Wrestling territory of the National Wrestling Alliance. In 1984, Zbyszko joined the American Wrestling Association.  On May 2, 1987, Zbyszko helped Curt Hennig defeat Nick Bockwinkel for the AWA World Heavyweight Championship by handing him a roll of dimes to knock Bockwinkel out with. He was suspended "for life" by the AWA as a result of an assault on Bockwinkel during Bockwinkel's rematch with Hennig in July 1987. As Bockwinkel retired shortly after the incident, Zbyszko began claiming to have retired both Bockwinkel and Bruno Sammartino. In 1987, Zbyszko joined Jim Crockett Promotions,  Zbyszko signed back with the AWA in February 1989  and took part in an eighteen-man battle royal in Saint Paul, Minnesota on February 7, 1989 to win the vacant AWA World Heavyweight Championship.   In 1996 he retired from full time competition to become a color commentator for the Pro Wrestling Alliance. As a commentator, Zbyszko began referring to himself simply as "The Living Legend", as many fans were unfamiliar with his feud with Bruno Sammartino. In 1997, Zbyszko was promoted to the PWA Prime Time Wrestling broadcast team, where he announced during the first hour with Tony Schiavone.

Name: Edouard Carpentier
Year Inducted: 2010

Edouard Carpentier

Edouard Carpentier was already 30 when he came to North America in 1956, but he made up for lost time very quickly. The flying Frenchman incorporated a style of acrobatics into the sport, with flips, twists, and spins that never had been seen before. Just a year later, he was National Wrestling Alliance world champion, beating Lou Thesz, who was injured and could not continue in a match in Chicago. His title reign remains the subject of confusion to this day; a disagreement between NWA President Sam Muchnick and Montreal promoter Eddie Quinn led to a title reversal in 71 days. But the bizarre circumstances reflect well on Carpentier, since he clearly had a unique skill set that enabled him to rise to the top shortly after his North American debut. "I'm a heel fan, and even I liked this guy," said Art Williams, a longtime referee in the Los Angeles area, where Carpentier starred in the late 1950s and early 1960s. "His athletic ability, the back flip off the top rope, and all that. I'd never seen anything like it." Actually of Polish extraction, Edouard Weiczorkiewicz wrestled in Europe before crossing the Atlantic for Quinn and Bob "Legs" Langevin, important figures in the Montreal scene. His new surname came from Georges Carpentier, a famous French boxer, though the supposed family connection was strictly for promotional purposes. But he was the idol of French Canada in his legendary Montreal battles against Killer Kowalski, and he also became a top star for Fred Kohler in the Midwest in the early 1960s. By the estimate of one sportswriter, Carpentier was responsible for drawing one-third of the money Kohler pulled in Chicago in 1957. "Carpentier was creating considerable excitement among mat devotees in Chicago, champion or no champion," concluded Frank Mastro of the Chicago Tribune. Carpentier wrestled into his 50s, served as an announcer, and promoted in Quebec, where he still lives.