Dennis Rodman To Be Inducted Into WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2026

Side quest king Dennis Rodman is getting a pretty high honor that has nothing to do with his five championships with the Chicago Bulls.

Already a member of the Naismith Hall of Fame, Rodman has been confirmed as the latest member of the 2026 WWE Hall of Fame class, initially reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania. The Hall of Fame ceremony will be held on April 17 in Las Vegas as part of WrestleMania weekend.

The Chicago Bulls Twitter account later confirmed it with a post of a mockup with Rodman wearing a black Bulls jersey with a wrestling belt thrown over his shoulder as he sits in the center of a ring.

Rodman’s wrestling lore begins in 1997 (yes, smack in the middle of a Bulls championship run) when he joined the WCW’s (World Championship Wrestling) nWo crew, wrestling’s version of the Detroit Pistons “Bad Boys.”

He played up the villain role as only he can; at one point, he even skipped a 1998 Finals practice because when Hulk Hogan wants you as his partner, you’ve got to go.

“I’ve been known Hulk Hogan for a long time,” Rodman recalled on the Got Sole podcast in 2024. “One day, he came at me, and he said, ‘Dennis, you been my tag team partner in Detroit.’ I said, ‘All right, Hulk, I can do that because I can wrestle.’ I used to do it with him back in the day. He said, ‘Dennis, what you doin’? It’s gonna be tomorrow.’ I said, ‘Tomorrow? I got a damn game, man.’ He said, ‘I don’t give a damn. I’ll send you a private plane. You just fly down for an hour. I’ll fly you right back.’“

According to the Los Angeles Times, he was fined $20,000 by the league, but made $250,000 from the wrestling match.

Rodman would indeed fly back and, alongside the Jordan-led Bulls, beat the Utah Jazz to win the NBA Finals. And in the offseason, he’d see Karl Malone again at 1998’s Bash at the Beach wrestling event when teaming with Hulk Hogan again, while Malone partnered with Diamond Dallas Page. 

He’d leave the ring until 2008, when he briefly came out of retirement to compete and win Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling reality show.

Rodman’s known for side quests, and another one from the same era is even making its way to the big screen. Previously played by Jonathan Majors and now Lakeith Stanfield, 48 Hours in Vegas is set to document the two-day vacation Bulls head coach Phil Jackson granted him to blow off some steam in the middle of the 1998 Finals.  

See social media’s reaction to Rodman now becoming a two-time Hall of Famer.