WWE Fact: Mark Henry Deserves to Be in the WWE Hall of Fame

Yes, I used the word "fact" for an opinion piece, and yes, I am going on the basis of the WWE Hall of Fame being worth a darn here.

I have touched on this a few times, but I will go into more detail here, as we are right before Summerslam and in the middle of a big Henry career spotlight.

The hate this man gets just baffles my mind. I know wrestling forums online it is not exactly the most positive place on earth, but come on!

I am all for respecting someone's opinion, but if someone's opinion is Stone Cold does not deserve to be in the WWE Hall of Fame or Kung Fu Naki should have beaten The Rock for the WWF title back in 2000, I am fine with that, I am going to question your logic/sanity though, even if you are right in your opinion.

That brings us back to Mark Henry. He is a sure fire Hall of Famer. Has he struggled in his early years (1996 and on)? Yes. Have I always enjoyed his angles? No, not at all.

I do still laugh at his "hand" with Mae Young...good ol' Attitude Era (overrated time, by the way). That is a different topic for a different day, though.

For me, his early years were nothing. We can skip right over that because it is not really fair to be judging a man based on his early time (Die, Rocky, Die....yeah, that turned out to be The Rock).

When he was green-lighted a push on the Smackdown brand in 2002, I was not against it, but it never went anywhere, so I never got a grasp on him. His 2003 push on Raw though? Good move!

He was in the ring with some greats (HBK, Booker, Goldberg) and improved a great deal...until he got hurt in 2004 (again). He has had the injury bug a few times, not going to sugar coat it.

By the time he returned to Smackdown in late 2005, he was ready. Feuding with Batista, feuding with Taker, feuding with Angle...all good segments of the show.

Of course, another serious injury took him out, but he bounced back yet again.

My favorite time period for him was in 2007-2008 playing a dominant heel on their ECW program every Tuesday on Sy-Fy. It was clear that he had "surpassed" that show and needed to be back on a much larger scale...Raw or Smackdown.

Him playing a face on the Raw brand and CLEANLY beating WWE champion Randy Orton on a Raw show was more proof the man was ready to break out. Sadly, it did not quite happen that way.

He was thrown in a tag team with MVP for months on end...yawn! The crowd was ready for him to do something, yet midcard become his home.

Finally, a heel turn was in the works for Mark Henry, and it worked out wonders for him (and WWE!). Since that fateful night in April, he has been on a tear and is not stopping anytime soon.

Whether he wins or loses on Sunday is not the topic...the topic is his entire career and how underrated a lot of folk like to talk about him.

A big man that can play a face and a (much better) heel does not come easy and certainly not one for about 15 years straight.

Definitely a WWE Hall of Famer, and yes, it is just an opinion, but it's one that I feel strongly about and quite frankly would love to hear/read any argument against it...