Shawn Stasiak on How He Was Hurt by WWE’s Handling of His Father’s Hall of Fame Induction

– During a recent interview with PWMania.com, former WCW and WWE talent Shawn Stasiak discussed being disappointed with WWE’s handling of his father’s [Stan Stasiak] WWE Hall of Fame induction in 2018. Stasiak revealed that he learned about the news through social media. Stasiak is the fifth WWE Champion in history, winning the belt from Pedro Morales and losing it to Bruno Sammartino nine days later. Below are some highlights:

Shawn Stasiak on how he learned about his father’s Hall of Fame induction: “I learned about my Dad get inducted the Hall of Fame through fans on Twitter. And I realized that I went, ‘oh my god,’ the things tomorrow night or the next day. And I knew right away what they were doing. You know, they were gonna put him in some video package. I had seen this legends wing for a couple years. And I used to get nervous watching because I think ‘oh, man, don’t put him in there.’ Don’t let him show up in that, you know, nothing, no offense or no disrespect to the other legends. I just think my dad deserved a little bit more acknowledgement man. And to do it right. I would think some of the people that have been inducted in this Hall of Fame, you would think that Stan Stasiiak, one of the original WWE champions would have would have been done right and called upon that his only son, you know, at least that I know of, his only son to induct his father into the WWE Hall of Fame. And I think we made history. I think he’s the first WWE champion that never got a real induction. It was just, here’s a video package. And here’s 20 whatever seconds. And that’s it.”

On attempting to reach out to Vince McMahon: “I was heartbroken. I was p*ssed off. I called Vince McMahon, I dialed the digits, man. I knew he wouldn’t pick up, it was WrestleMania. We’ve had a couple conversations over, you know, over the years. But I text him I said, ‘Please don’t Don’t do this. Don’t put him in like this. Let’s wait till next year,’ I would encourage that you’re going to be in the New York New Jersey area, that MetLife Stadium and that was the next year’s WrestleMania he was kind of known to be in the East Coast anyway. And I thought it’d be more appropriate to just give me five minutes to just do it right. But I wasn’t I was even invited to the arena, which is a New Orleans I’m in Dallas as a short flight, you would think I did at least invite me to the show my respects to be there in the building. So there’s, there’s something going on. I must be hated so bad, so much and so disregarded that you’re gonna you know, I don’t know. And so it hurt me, man. It really did.”