The Hall of Fame section of WWE.com is promoting “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as the first inductee into the 2009 WWE Hall of Fame with the title: “HALL (yes, spell HALL instead of HELL) YEAH, HE’S IN: “Stone Cold” Steve Austin leads the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2009.”
The graphic can be viewed at this link.
There is speculation that with many of the layoffs taking place today within WWE that a possible disgruntled former employee may have gone into business for themselves and added the graphic before the company had wanted to make the announcement. Of course, there was speculation of an Austin induction with WrestleMania 25 taking place in Houston this year. Either way, the graphic and announcement is up for now. It is possible the company didn’t have any plans to induct Austin this year and it was simply a stunt by someone with access to WWE.com that may be on the outs. No official announcement was made on the main page of the website or the “WWE News” area furthering this speculation.
Update: WWE.com has removed the graphic as of this evening.