The Hulkster has endorsed The Rougeau Brothers for the WWE Hall of Fame 2023 Class.
WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan took to his YouTube channel this weekend and praised Rey Mysterio as the headliner for the 2023 WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony during WrestleMania 39 Weekend, and then endorsed Raymond Rougeau and Jacques Rougeau for the same class.
“You know, Maniacs, I was watching the WWE the other night and I was real curious who the first inductee to the 2023 Hall of Fame was,” Hogan said. “Oh my gosh, it’s Rey Mysterio. No one is more deserving – a champion, a great man, a great father, and a great husband, he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. For years and years and years he’s carried the torch. But then I thought, you know, who could be next? Who could be just as deserving, and then my first thought was one of the greatest tag teams of all-times, The Rougeau Brothers – Jacques Rougeau, brother, and his brother, Raymond Rougeau. Those two guys need to be in the Hall of Fame. I’m voting for them, hopefully they’ll be the next inductees in the Hall of Fame, man. Man, I just think it might happen, I got a really good feeling about that one, brother!”
Hogan spoke as if he may have some inside knowledge of an induction for The Rougeau Brothers, and that could be due to his longtime friendship with WWE Hall of Famer Jimmy Hart, who managed The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers for a time, then managed Jacques when he was known as The Mountie.
Hogan has another connection to Jacques after their infamous 1997 match. Jacques wrestled Hogan at the Bell Centre in Montreal, on a WCW live event, and became one of the few wrestlers to cleanly defeat Hogan, who was Hollywood Hogan and the WCW World Heavyweight Champion at the time. Jacques later noted in an interview that Hogan put him over in the match because of his respect for the Rougeau Family name and for keeping a clean wrestling image.
The Rougeau Brothers teamed together in WWE from 1986 – 1990. Jacques came back in 1991 as The Mountie, and held the WWE Intercontinental Title for two days after winning it from WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart shortly before the 1992 Royal Rumble, then losing it to WWE Hall of Famer Roddy Piper at the pay-per-view. Jacques left WWE in the fall of 1992, then returned in 1993 to team with PCO as The Quebecers. He ended up teaming with PCO in WCW as well. Raymond would go on to do French-language commentary for WWE at various points over the years. The two sides last parted ways in early 2021 as a new French commentary team was brought on for Peacock. Jacques currently trains wrestlers at his Lutte Academie wrestling school in Montreal, and he brought some of those students to work AEW tapings back in October. Kevin Owens was previously trained by Jacques.
The last standard tag team bout for The Rougeau Brothers was a loss to WWE Hall of Famers The Bushwhackers at the 1990 Royal Rumble. Raymond came out of retirement on March 30, 1998 to work a six-man dark match at the WWE Shotgun Saturday Night tapings, teaming with his brother and PCO for a win over Tom Brandi, Shawn Stasiak and a young WWE Hall of Famer Edge. Jacques wrestled a few more bouts after that, finishing up with the company at the August 2, 1998 live event in Montreal after teaming with PCO in Triple Threat that also included WWE Hall of Famers The New Age Outlaws, Mark Henry and The Godfather. The Outlaws picked up the win that night.
Jacques is a one-time WWE Intercontinental Champion and a three-time WWE World Tag Team Champion with PCO (fka Pierre Ouellet). The Rougeau Brothers officially never held gold together in WWE, but they did defeat WWE Hall of Famers The Hart Foundation for the WWE World Tag Team Titles on August 10, 1987 in Montreal. While the brothers were announced as the new champions, the decision was reversed due to a DQ because Jimmy Hart’s megaphone was used to get the win, and the titles were returned to The Harts. The title change was never officially recognized by WWE.
There’s no word yet on if WWE is planning to announce The Rougeau Brothers for the 2023 Class, but The Great Muta is believed to be one of the inductees this year.
You can see Hogan’s full video below:
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