Barry Windham
He was blessed with good looks and great size- going about 6’ 5” and 250 pounds, and had wrestling in his genes as the son of Blackjack Mulligan. He was very agile for his size, but also wrestled with a lot of power and high impact moves like the bulldog, lariat and superplex among others.
Most of his early success came as part of tag team with Mike Rotunda. They came together to the WWF (now WWE) in late 1984 billed as the U.S. Express. They won the Tag Team title in January of 1985, but proceeded to lose it to Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik at the very first Wrestlemania after Windham was hit in the head with Classy Freddie Blassie’s cane. The U.S. Express won the titles back briefly, but dropped them to Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine before departing for the NWA.
He enjoyed some more tag team success as well as some singles success particularly in some battles with Ric Flair which included several well-regarded 60-minute time limit draw matches. In 1988, Windham turned heel and joined the legendary Four Horsemen and enjoyed a 9-month dominant run as the NWA United States Champion.
He returned to the WWF in 1989 as the Widowmaker, but before he could get a big push he left the company due to personal reasons which turned out to be his father and brother facing jail time for counterfeiting. He returned to WCW in 1990 as part of the Four Horsemen and had his share of big matches and lesser titles over the years, but never became the solo superstar that he could’ve been and probably should’ve been.
Good post, I love old school wrestling memories and thoughts
I wouldnt consider Steamboat, Perfect, Rude, Snake, or The Von Erich’s underrated they are loved by all (and I think most were brought up during the USF Fantasy Wrestling Draft .. not sure though)
Underrated for me are really good wrestlers who people wouldn’t immediately come up with when a wrestling fan named their favorites or ones they remember
Give me:
Magnum TA
Paul Orndorff
Nikita Koloff
Greg Valentine
Shane Douglass
Lance Storm
Super Calo and The Yeti lol
I actually considered including the first 3 guys you mentioned who were all personal favorites of mine: MagnumTA, Mr. Wonderful and the Russian Nightmare. They probably should have at least all been on the honorable mention list.
I was not implying that these wrestlers were never adored by fans, it was more that they never received the big time push that they probably deserved. Thanks for reading and commenting.
I was raised on AWA so I would have like to see The High Flyer, Greg Gagne and Jim Brunsel go further than they did. Greg’s father Verne was also a favorite.
Like I mentioned, I started off on AWA as well. The High Flyers are another example of a strong tag team that never really received the opportunity for individual glory.
The AWA was the first live wrestling match I was able to attend as a kid. Had front row seats and it hooked me in to wrestling even more at a young age. Baron Von Raschke, The Crusher, Mad Dog Vachon, Rock n Roll Buck Zumhoff, Sgt. Slaughter, Hulk Hogan, The Road Warriors, Jerry Blackwell, Nick Bockwinkle, Shiek Adnan El Kasey, the list goes on and on (and so do the great memories!)
good list, at first I thought no way Ricky is underrated, and then the Von Erichs, but I see what you mean. They were so talented they should have been as big as Hogan but weren’t.
Yes, that is the angle I tried to use. Who deserved a much bigger push than they ever received. There are certainly different ways to go at it and underrated is very subjective to begin with. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Where’s CoCo B. Ware or Jimmy “Superfly” Snukka?