Pistons great Dennis Rodman to be inducted into WWE Hall of Fame: report

"The Worm" is getting his flowers one more time. Dennis Rodman, the former Pistons great who had a secondary career has a celebrity professional wrestler, will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame at WrestleMania in April, according to a report Friday by ESPN. WWE hasn't made the announcement, but it did share the post on X from ESPN.

Rodman, 64, burst onto the wrestling scene in the 1990s, at the height of the white-hot wrestling wars, while he still was playing and winning championships in the NBA. He was a part-time player for World Championship Wrestling (then the chief rival to WWE), where he ran with "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan as a member for the wildly popular gang of villains, the New World Order. The WWE will induct its Class of 2026 on April 17 in Las Vegas, the night before WrestleMania 42.

WWE, which purchased Ted Turner's WCW in 2021 and eventually put it out of business, has inducted some of the biggest stars from the rival wrestling outfit. Rodman made his WCW debut in March 1997, during a taping of "Monday Nitro," appearing alongside Hogan. He competed in his first match in July 1997, at "Bash at the Beach," as a tag team with Hogan against Lex Luger and The Giant (Rodman and Hogan lost).

Rodman also feuded with Randy "Macho Man" Savage, and played a bit as an imposter of popular wrestler Sting. In July 1998, he was back at "Bash at the Beach," wrestling with Hogan in a tag-team match against Karl Malone of the Utah Jazz and Diamond Dallas Page, just weeks after Rodman and his Chicago Bulls beat Malone and the Jazz in the NBA Finals (Rodman and Hogan won). During the 1998 NBA Finals, Rodman famously missed a practice so he could wrestle a match with Hogan.