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Barry Windham PROFILE |
Barry Windham profile written by Wayne K.
Wilkins
Barry Windham is one of the most recognized
professional wrestlers of the televised era of
the sport as well as being one of the most
decorated athletes of all time, being a former
NWA World Heavyweight Champion as well as United
States Champion, World Tag Team Champion and
television champion.
Barry Windham was no
stranger to the sport of professional wrestling;
his father is the legendary Blackjack Mulligan,
a WWE Hall of Famer and one of the most rugged
wrestlers to ever lace up a pair of boots. It
was no secret that Barry would take after his
father, and in 1980 at the age of 19, Windham
donned his first set of wrestling boots and
entered the squared circle for the National
Wrestling Alliance.
Windham went on to
have major success in the NWA and in general
seemed to get better and better with his age; he
soon became of "veteran quality" during his
first few years in the sport, something which is
very rarely seen, and this of course led to him
winning several major championships including
the most prestigious belt of all time, the NWA
World Heavyweight Championship.
While in
the NWA, he had breathtaking matches with the
likes of Ric Flair, one of their most notable
was at Battle of the Belts 2, in which they went
for nearly 50 minutes straight in the main event
in a grueling match. Windham failed to capture
the world title that night, but this match
sealed his future as one of the greatest
wrestlers to ever step foot in the ring, yet
sadly, as time went on, one of the most
overlooked.
After the NWA was purchased
by Turner Entertainment and became WCW, Windham
had a successful run in the early 1990's, but as
the mid 90's rolled in, Windham was generally
phased out and replaced by younger talent and
talent coming over from the rival WWF.
Unfortunately, Windhams classic NWA Wrestling
Style was seen as a thing of the past, and he
and those like him, the likes of Larry Zbyszko,
Ole Anderson and others from the NWA era were
phased out, with the exception of Ric Flair and
Arn Anderson who had creative control with the
company.
Windham later resurfaced in the
late 1990's in the short-lived NWA angle in the
WWF before returning to the WCW as a tag-team
wrestler, winning the tag-team championship with
Curt Hennig, another veteran wrestler, and they
eventually went on to form a faction called "The
West Texas Rednecks", a faction dedicated to the
classic roots of country music and professional
wrestling. They even reached the American
country music charts with their hit single, "Rap
is Crap", but the faction was short lived and
they eventually disbanded, leaving Windham to
gradually fade out of the spotlight once again
after minor success with his brother Kendall
Windham on the tag-team scene in 1999.
Barry Windham left WCW after that, much like
other wrestlers were doing at the time, citing
the backstage politics becoming to overwhelming
to bare, although he did become a road agent for
the company for a while before returning to his
wrestling roots on the Independent scene and
various new-school promotions under the NWA
banner.
Barry Windham is in fact one of
the reasons I am a fan of professional
wrestling. Just like his father, he possesses an
"outlaw" style of wrestling, a unique style of
powerhouse, technicality and uncanny agility
which he uses to overwhelm opponents of all
ability. From his early matches, he wrestled
like a veteran, so it was only natural that he
would become one of the biggest names of the
80's and the 90's. It is just a shame that when
the "nu-school" came to the spotlight, that
Windham was left out in the gutter.
Truly
one of the biggest and best names in wrestling
history, and one that every true wrestling fan
should do their history homework on. You can
still find Windham wrestling around America on a
sparing basis. If he ever pops up on a poster in
your local area, be sure to go and pay homage to
this true wrestling icon, and one of the
greatest to ever lace up a pair of boots and
step foot inside the squared circle.
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