Konnan reveals he initially had three minutes for WWE HOF speech, Rey Mysterio told him to take all the time he needed

At the 2023 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, Konnan inducted Rey Mysterio and initially, Konnan had three minutes to give his speech

Photo Courtesy: WWE

Konnan also weighed in on Chavo Guerrero’s comments about Rey.

To kick off WWE’s WrestleMania weekend, the company hosted their 2023 Hall of Fame ceremony. The headliner of this year’s class was Rey Mysterio, who was inducted by Konnan. 

Konnan was the focus of a Captain’s Corner virtual signing and shared that initially, he was given three minutes for his induction speech. Rey told Konnan to take all the time needs. 

He went on to share that he did not know talents would be seated on the stage so when Konnan came out, he began to get nervous when he saw all his peers. Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque and Cody Rhodes praised him for his speech. Konnan added that initially, he did not think it was anything special and recalled having a conversation with Damian Priest who said he wanted to applaud Konnan but had to stay in character. 

So in the (WWE) Hall of Fame speech, they were like, ‘Oh yeah, you only have three minutes.’ I go, ‘Bro, how am I supposed to put over a guy who had a 35, 30-year career in three minutes?’ So I went and I told Rey (Mysterio), I go, ‘Bro, they’re only giving me three minutes.’ He goes, ‘F*ck that. Take all the time you need.’ Rey’s awesome. 

And they can’t complain because from what everybody says, it was a really good speech. When I came out, I didn’t know that all the wrestlers were on stage. So I first come out and the first guy I see which I didn’t even know was gonna be there and he’s my brother just like Ron Killings is, X-Pac. So I see X-Pac and I’m like, ‘What the f*ck is this?’ And then I go, ‘Alright.’ I start seeing all these wrestlers and then at the end of the stage is Hunter with Cody (Rhodes) and I kind of got nervous and I was like, f*ck man. Here are all my peers, you know, and what if I f*ck up in front of them? And so I got a little bit nervous and so I went up and I did my sh*t. Then when I went up, the very first guy that stopped me was Hunter and he was, ‘Oh man, that was incredible’ and Cody came over to me, he goes, ‘Bro, that was really touching’ and I was like, ‘Wow. Really?’ I didn’t think it was anything special. I just thought it was good and then the whole weekend, L.A. Knight stopped me, Sheamus stopped me and Nattie Neidhart… Kevin Kross and, ‘Bro, that was incredible. I had goosebumps’ and Damian Priest told me that — this cracked me up — he goes, ‘I was so excited, I wanted to stand up and applaud but I’m a heel.’ That was funny. Good guy, very respectful. 

Chavo Guerrero Jr. made comments about Rey Mysterio and how Mysterio is no longer needed to keep Eddie Guerrero’s name live. Guerrero Jr. got on Twitter and noted that if Rey is mentioning Eddie’s name only in tribute, he should donate the money to charity or to Eddie’s daughters. 

Chavo followed up by noting, ‘This is how a heel should tweet.’ Konnan stated that both him and Rey loved Eddie. He added that Rey mentions him because of the friendship they had and only that. He’s not sure where Guerrero Jr.’s remarks spawned from but said him and Rey love Chavo. 

Well, that’s very confusing (Konnan said about Chavo’s comments about Rey). I love Chavo, Chavito to death. Always have, always will… I just think that that’s Rey, the respect and the love that they (Rey & Eddie Guerrero) had for each other which was incredible. They loved each other. They loved working with each other. Rey was like a little brother to Eddie and I think it’s just his way of always showing love which Rey doesn’t have to mention him. On the other token, it isn’t like Rey needs to mention Eddie to get over. He gets over because he’s a guy who revolutionized this business. He’s a legend, he’s in the Hall of Fame and I think he does it because he loves him. I was gonna say Eddie’s name in the Hall of Fame thing. But I knew everybody was gonna start going, ‘Eddie, Eddie, Eddie’ and there’s a good chance Rey was gonna say it in his speech so I left it for Rey. But we love Eddie, we’ll always love Eddie and we’ll bring up his name because we love him. I know it gets applause, I know people chant ‘Eddie’ but we don’t do it for that. Chavito knows more than anybody how much me and Rey loved Eddie and how much he loved us and how much we love Chavito so, I’m not sure where that came from.

POST Wrestling’s John Pollock and Wai Ting touched on Chavo Guerrero’s comments about Rey on the newest edition of Rewind-A-Raw.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Captain’s Corner with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions. 

About Andrew Thompson 7996 Articles
A Washington D.C. native and graduate of Norfolk State University, Andrew Thompson has been covering wrestling since 2017.