The New Day inducting The Freebirds into the WWE Hall of Fame

The WWE announced today that The New Day would be inducting The Freebirds into the WWE Hall of Fame on 4/2 in Dallas.

The connection is that The New Day as a three-man tag team championship team, where any two men can defend the titles, was taken from The Freebirds, of Michael Hayes & Terry Gordy & Buddy Roberts, who may have been the first team to do so with their Freebird rules.

The Freebirds scheduled for induction are Hayes, currently a WWE producer, Jimmy Garvin, Gordy and Roberts.  The latter two, who have passed away, will be represented by their sons who became pro wrestlers, Ray Gordy, who worked for WWE as Jesse, and Buddy Roberts Jr., an independent wrestler in Illinois.

Yesterday the company announced that Vader would be inducting Stan Hansen.  Vader and Hansen had a memorable match at the Tokyo Dome in 1990 where Vader’s eye came out of its socket.  It was a dream match at the time, as Vader was the foreign monster for New Japan Pro Wrestling, while Hansen had a similar spot with All Japan.