Cyndi Lauper Is A Rare Celebrity Who Belongs In The WWE Hall Of Fame
The celebrity wing of The WWE Hall Of Fame features some very famous names, but very few of them are synonymous with the world of wrestling. Each year the company inducts a new celebrity, and each year fans are reminded that the barrier for entry is rather low. There a couple of no-brainer inclusions like Mike Tyson, who played a role in "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's slingshot to megastardom, and Mr. T, who actually wrestled in the main event of the first ever WrestleMania. And then there are some baffling inclusions like Drew Carey and Ozzy Osbourne. The baffling inclusions might not be so baffling if WWE has exhausted it's "Celebrities With Literally Any Connection To Wrestling No Matter How Tenuous" list, but they haven't. In fact, there are a few celebrities with strong, non-tenuous connections to WWE that have yet to be inducted. Arguably the most glaring celerity omission is the iconic Cyndi Lauper.
Lauper was pivotal to the success of the first ever WrestleMania, and helped WWE go mainstream by including wrestlers like Lou Albano, Roddy Piper, and The Iron Sheik in her videos. Cyndi Lauper is one of a few celebrities who truly deserves to be in the WWE Hall Of Fame ... but for some reason, she isn't!
Cyndi Lauper Meets Captain Lou
Cydni Lauper's involvement in WWE began after a chance airplane encounter with the legendary Captain Lou Albano.
"We were on a plane ride coming back from Puerto Rico," Lauper wrote in her autobiography. "Originally they wanted the wrestler Gorgeous George to be in the ['Girls Just Want to Have Fun'] video, but I said, 'No, Captain Lou's the one.' I had kept in touch with him and had his number, so [Lauper's manager at the time] Dave [Wolff] called him and he signed up immediately."
Albano portrayed Lauper's father in the 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' video, but the pop-sensation's association with WWE didn't end there.
On an episode of Championship Wrestling, which aired on June 16th 1984, Lauper appeared as a guest on Roddy Piper's Piper's Pit mock-talk show segment. Albano appeared, and insulted Lauper. Playing the heel, Albano claimed credit for Lauper's success, much to her chagrin. The climax of the segment came when Lauper attacked Albano with her purse. Albano recalled this segment in a 2001 interview, "She whacked me, hit me over the head with her pocketbook. I didn’t realize that she had a bottle of perfume in there — she almost killed me."
The Piper's Pit altercation set up a match at the The Brawl to End It All in which The Fabulous Moolah, managed by Albano, took on Lauper's in-ring representative Wendy Richter in a WWF Women's Championship match. With Lauper's help, Richter won the match. the event was a huge success, thanks in no small part to Lauper's involvement.
WrestleMania 1
Cyndi Lauper would appear on WWE programming a few more times in the wake of The Brawl to End It All, but it was her involvement in the inaugural WrestleMania that sealed her legacy as a sure-fire WWE Hall Of Fame inductee.
At WrestleMania, Cyndi Lauper would once again provide moral support from ringside for Wendi Richter, who was looking to win the WWF Women's Championship back from Leilani Kai. When Kai's accomplice, The Fabulous Moolah, attempted to interfere, Lauper leaped in to save the day and help Richter win her title back.
Thanks to the involvement of celebrities like Cyndi Lauper, WrestleMania was a huge success.
Lauper Brings The WWE To Her World
Following the runaway success of WrestleMania, Lauper invited several WWE wrestlers to appear in the video for her song "The Goonies 'r' Good Enough" from the soundtrack to The Goonies.
In 1985, Lauper helped the WWE get into the music game with their first The Wrestling Album, on which she provided backing vocals for Roddy Piper's track For Everybody.
"We did a lot of really fun stuff that left its mark on wrestling," Lauper recalled in her autobiography. And she was right. The first WrestleMania was a huge financial risk for Vince McMahon and WWE. Without the involvement of the celebrities involved, the wrestling business could look very different today.
Cyndi Lauper played a huge role in getting the spectacle known as WrestleMania off the ground, and her absence from the WWE Hall Of Fame makes absolutely no sense. She should have been one of the first celebrities inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame, and yet Donald Trump and William Shatner got in before her. And it's not like she doesn't want to be inducted. In 2018, Lauper responded to a tweet from former WWE Superstar Lance Storm in which he claimed that she had turned down an offer to be inducted.
"Not that I remember," Lauper replied.
It's time to ramp up the campaign to get Cyndi Lauper into the WWE Hall Of Fame. She's one of the few celebrities who actually deserves to be there.
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