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Post by Crazy Diamond on Sept 18, 2008 22:18:33 GMT -5
Kanyon. That guy was awesome and I don't know what happened to him after he came out. Al Snow
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Sept 19, 2008 4:39:03 GMT -5
Barry Windham (saw him mentioned) is my choice. That guy had it all...and a great worker, very charismatic without being a great talker...he just made very questionable career choices at pivotal moments in the 1980s wrestling business, like...
1. Leaving NWA/Jim Crockett Promotions in 1984 shortly after Dusty Rhodes (his practical godfather) got the book...and did a free-agent angle where they signed him to Wrestling's first "$1,000,000 contract"...basically setting him up to take the belt off Flair...but Windham jetted from JCP with Mike Rotunda one month later, hot on the heels of Piper, Valentine, etc...right after StarrCade '83 and Dusty Rhodes taking the JCP book/Vince's "1984 WWF National Expansion!" 2. Leaving WWF after WrestleMania I. Another dumb decision. Was WWF Tag-Team champ immediately with Rotunda, but went splitsky and back to wrestling with his dad, Blackjack Mulligan, against Kevin Sullivan in Florida. 3. Was supposedly given Magnum T.A.'s "spot" (by Dusty, after the T.A.'s car accident) to take the NWA World Title belt off Flair...but THEN, Jim Crockett's NWA bought UWF AND Florida...so the famous and popular Windham was sent on the UWF tours (Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas), and the state of Florida...so Windham wound up with the Florida Tag Titles ("The NWA U.S. Tag Team Titles") and the newly-invented "NWA Western States Heritage Title" (aka: "The Thanks Barry! Sincerely, Dusty & Crockett!" Title) 4. (Not his fault...but booking wise) Turning heel and joining the Four Horsemen at the APEX of his face career in 1988. It made for a good heel run as U.S. Champ w/J.J. Dillon...but BEFORE he turned heel, Windham was bigger/more over than Sting, Luger, Koloff, Dusty, Road Warriors...every single NWA babyface when he turned. 5. Leaving NWA/WCW in 1989 for WWF (RIGHT before a very hot WCW year with Flair/Steamboat/Funk/Muta/Steiners) to become "The Widowmaker", who was barely on WWF TV. 6. Leaving WWF right before he got his first push as "The Widowmaker" at Survivor Series 1989 to go back to WCW...or get the hell out of the business and quit...which I think he did until late-1990 or 1991-ish.
Plus, Windham always had a supposedly, hot & rich girlfriend so he "allegedly" didn't really feel like he ever needed the business, plus had to leave WCW in the early 1990s to bail his brother and dad out of a felony U.S. counterfeiting trial. He still had a decent WCW run in the early-1990s, and a low-card WWF run as "Blackjack" & "NWA Champ", before "Rap is Crap" with Curt Hennig. And he got really, really fat by 1991...but that probably ties in with him not caring too much about wrestling because he always had something going on. Either that, or it was metabolism, because his dad was pretty fat.
Windham was money in his prime. One of the best matches you'll ever see is Barry Windham vs. Ric Flair from 1984-88...any of them. If "1984-88 Barry Windham" could be cloned, Vince McMahon would have 3,000 of them in FCW with different haircuts/dumb fake names. Good thing Windham works for WWE. I always put Barry Windham in the category of Ted DiBiase, Curt Hennig...but he was better. Not as good of an interview as DiBiase or Hennig, but just as good of a worker, bumper, and great in-ring charisma. People got behind Windham in a way that they never did with DiBiase or Hennig as babyfaces.
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