Michael Hayes spoke about the WWE Hall of Fame induction of The Fabulous Freebirds and more during his appearance on WOOOOO! Nation, which is hosted by Ric Flair. Here are the highlights.
On being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame:
“It’s awesome. I’m so happy for Terry [Gordy] and Buddy [Roberts], you know how I feel about those guys, and Jimmy [Garvin] too, don’t get me wrong, those guys are so deserving. They did so much. A lot of the time, people tend to look at a lead singer of the band, if you will, and not realize he is only as good as the band is. And that was the case with me and The Freebirds. I’m happy for them [and] their families. Terry’s son is going to speak about [Terry Ray Gordy]. Buddy Roberts, Jr. is going to be talking about his dad. Yeah, that’s going to be super emotional, as you can imagine.” Hayes added, “I wished Terry and Buddy would be there and I know they will be there and playing ribs on me all night long, but the recognition, it’s cool.”
On fans criticizing WWE:
“When you’re the big dog, which, obviously, WWE is, then, you’re on the pedestal, so people just want to knock you off. And, quite frankly, a lot of the criticism people have for us, some of it’s valid. I’m not going to lie and say it’s not, but what makes me so proud every day to get up and work for WWE is everybody that works for WWE, and I’m talking about everybody, from the guy in the mailroom, everybody from everywhere, everybody’s goal, and it sounds like such a cliché term, is to put smiles on people’s faces all across the world. That is what we do! There are so many things that we do as a company for people that nobody knows about. There are so many things the McMahon family does to help people, on a personal level, that nobody knows about because we don’t toot our horn on that. But there is this overwhelming swell of pride for the things that we do do. And, no, we don’t get everything right. And, no, guess what? No, we are not always going to get everything right. We have a pretty good batting average and that batting average is going to hit the ceiling again the first weekend of April.”
