Dennis Rodman is heading to the WWE Hall of Fame. According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, the five-time NBA champion will be inducted as part of the Class of 2026, joining AJ Styles, Demolition, and Stephanie McMahon. The ceremony takes place on Friday, April 17 at Dolby Live at Park MGM in Las Vegas, the night before WrestleMania 42 gets underway.
The 2026 Hall of Fame class was first announced on March 2, with McMahon, Styles, and Demolition confirmed as the initial inductees, with additional names to be revealed in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania 42. Rodman’s addition brings the celebrity wing back into focus, a category that has included the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Trump in previous years.
Rodman’s connection to professional wrestling runs deeper than most celebrity participants. He first appeared in WCW in 1997 as a member of the New World Order alongside Hollywood Hulk Hogan, using his peak fame as one of the most recognizable athletes in the world to draw mainstream attention to wrestling at one of the hottest periods in the industry’s history.
He made his in-ring debut at Bash at the Beach in July 1997, teaming with Hogan in a loss to Lex Luger and The Giant. He returned to the same event the following summer, this time with Hogan against Karl Malone and Diamond Dallas Page in a celebrity tag match that drew widespread media coverage. Rodman and Hogan won that encounter.
He also appeared at Road Wild 1997 in disguise as Impostor Sting, attacking Lex Luger with a baseball bat to help Hogan capture the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. A 1999 feud with Randy Savage culminated in a Road Wild match that Rodman lost. His most recent professional wrestling appearance came in September 2023, when he showed up on an episode of AEW Collision in Chicago, aligning himself with The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn ahead of All Out.
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Outside of wrestling, Rodman’s basketball legacy is well established. He won back-to-back NBA championships with the Detroit Pistons in 1989 and 1990 and added three more titles with the Chicago Bulls alongside Michael Jordan in 1996, 1997, and 1998. He led the NBA in rebounds per game for seven consecutive seasons and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.
AJ Styles was confirmed as a Hall of Fame inductee when The Undertaker made a surprise appearance at Styles’ retirement ceremony on the February 23 episode of Raw in Atlanta. Demolition, the three-time WWF Tag Team Champions whose record-setting 478-day first reign began at WrestleMania IV, were also announced by The Undertaker. Stephanie McMahon, who served as an on-screen authority figure for over two decades and is a former WWF Women’s Champion, was the first inductee revealed back in September 2025 at Wrestlepalooza.
WrestleMania 42 takes place April 18-19 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
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