Barry Windham

Roster
 3-Winning the first Royal Rumble

## US Express(1985-1987)

Barry Windham's first canon match was teaming up with Mike Rotundo as US Express losing to King Kong Bundy and Big John Studd at the first Superstars. US Express were involved in SNME May tag title match but also lost to Bundy and Studd, they didn't do a lot throught the year as they were used as a midcard team.

Barry Windham got an intercontinental title shot at SNME June but lost against Jake Roberts, he started being used more in singles action than in tag team as he was close to getting as many points as Savage so he can enter the G1, because of this Windham started attacking Savage and taking his spot in matches to get more points. This culminated at Summerslam 1985 where Barry Windham defeated Randy Savage to enter the G1, Savage shook hands with him afterwards turning face. Windham did better than expected in the G1 but ended up being eliminated by Randy Savage.

US Express got a world tag team championship shot at Royal Rumble and they managed to defeat Aerial Barbers and Dream Team to become champions, a couple of weeks later in a house show they would lose the titles to Paul Orndorff and Kamala.

In the Royal Rumble match, Barry Windham entered at number 21 and picked up one of the biggest upsets in rumble history as he last eliminated Paul Orndorff to get the win, Windham wanted Hogan to show some respect and not use underhanded tactics like he has used for the past year, Hogan agreed to that and at Wrestlemania 2 Hogan defeated Windham to retain the title. During this match, Windham tried to do some spots that Hogan no sold as he didn't wanna look like a weak wrestler, the match ended up as a mess and Windham got backstage heat due to it.

Hogan put US Express in Heenan Family to the disdain of everyone inside Heenan Family as they were babyfaces although all US Express want is to get on their side, specifically their main team Orndorff and Kamala who say they'll only respect them once they win the tag titles. At Summerslam 1986 US Express become 2 time champions beating British Bulldogs and Orndorff and Kamala ambush them kicking them out of Heenan Family, they retained the titles against them at G1 Finals. US Express had a long reign showing no signs of ever stopping, they were on top of the tag team division until Royal Rumble 1987 where Barry Windham eliminated Mike Rotundo needing to win the rumble a second time, Rotundo was pissed at this saying Windham would just lose yet again and threw him onto the barricade and after 200 days they vacated the tag titles due to breaking up

Barry Windham said that Rotundo only did what he did to get a meaningful moment in his awful career, at Wrestlemania 2 they were scheduled to have a 3 minute match as both men would be released from their contracts afterwards, they went ahead and had an 8 minute match with Windham beating Rotundo just to spite Vince and Hogan.

## Four Horsemen(1989-1990)

Barry Windham was one of the first people signed for the new company WCW, he had his first match at Saturday Night 1 losing against Sting. The next week, after Brian Pillman defeated Ole Anderson, Windham showed up and aligned himself with Ole as both men attacked Pillman. At Wrestlewar, Ole Anderson, Barry Windham, Ric Flair and Sting formed Four Horsemen after Flair had won the WCW Heaviweight Championship. At Great American Bash, him and Ole won the WCW tag titles and he served as the special guest referee for Ric Flair vs Sting.

Barry Windham won a battle royal becoming TV Champion in july as he defended every single week, during that time Steamboat was having weekly matches where he had to defeat 5 men to get a WCW Heaviweight Championship shot, that ended with Barry Windham defeating Steamboat, Windham lost the TV title to Lex Luger after 6 successful defenses. He was involved in 1989 WCW's MOTY as he and Four Horsemen were defeated by Ricky Steamboat, Terry Funk, Junkyard Dog and Warrior in a wargames match at Halloween Havoc, on that week's Saturday Night Ole and Windham lost the tag titles to Road Warriors.

Barry Windham failed to win the United States title at Starrcade 1989 in a fatal 4 way with The Great Muta, Sting and Ricky Steamboat, he failed again at Wrestlewar 1990. At Capital Combat, Windham started showing signs of turning face as he did not want Ole Anderson and Sting using chairs on their match against Samoan Swat Team and it almost led to their loss, he oficially turned face later on the night as Four Horsemen kicked him out and replaced him with Arn Anderson.

## Championship pursuits and various feuds(1990-1992)

Windham teamed up with former rival Ricky Steamboat to defeat Arn Anderson and Sting at Great American Bash, he also got a WCW Heaviweight Championship shot later on the week but lost to Ric Flair.

Windham's next feud was only in 1991 as Sting had left Four Horsemen as well, they teamed up but lost against The Enforcers at Superbrawl 1, Windham was not done screwing up with Four Horsemen though as he, Sting, Lex Luger, Dusty Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes formed a short lived alliance against them that led to a wargames match at Great American Bash which Sting's Crew won, after that Four Horsemen left Flair alone in the ring signaling the end of Four Horsemen just like Windham wanted, during the match Windham climbed the cage as he tried to do a bump but The Enforcers started pushing the cell which led to Windham falling off it onto outside and he got DQ'd because people can't leave the cage, due to this Dusty Rhodes got massacred 3 on 1.

When Windham returned, Dustin Rhodes blamed Windham's stupidity for injuring his father, at Halloween Havoc they had a match where Dusty returned and announced that he now owned WCW, he made the match a DQ and both men beat up Windham with chairshots, Dustin won and Dusty fired Windham from WCW, Ron Simmons and Butch Reed saved Windham as they challenged The Rhodes to a match where if they won, Windham would be resigned. At Starrcade 1991, Doom defeated The Rhodes and Windham was resigned

A vignette was held hyping up the "New Doom" which was Barry Windham and Ron Simmons, they had 1 match and the team was scrapped. Windham started feuding with Rude because Rude randomly chairshotted him but it went nowhere as they didn't have 1 match with each other. Windham introduced Paul Orndorff into WCW but it also went nowhere as Orndorff started teaming up with Paul Roma shortly after.

Windham entered Battlebowl at Starrcade 1992, he teamed up with former rival Dusty Rhodes to win the tag team match and enter the battle royal, he eliminated Arn Anderson and got to the final 2 with Sting but in the end Sting eliminated him to win it, Windham went back into the ring and hit him with a knee turning heel.

## Heel Turn(1993-1995)

Sting won the WCW Heaviweight Championship at Starrcade 1992 and immediatly wanted Windham as his first challenger, Windham did an amazing promo leading up to this that caught a lot of eyes as he talked about having the exact same career trajetory that Sting had but yet no one said he was deserving of anything and that he's always been the best Four Horsemen member, at Superbrawl 3 Sting defeated Windham, after the match Larry Zbyszko and Arn Anderson came out to stop Windham from further attack but Zbyszko turned on Arn. This started a Four Horsemen battle as Sting decided he wanted all 3 men in a fatal 4 way match, at Slamboree Sting defeated Zbyszko, Arn and Windham to retain the title.

Windham won the TV title a second time in august defeating Larry Zbyzsko, he ended up losing it to Arn Anderson in october.

At the second Nitro, Windham reignited his feud with Dustin Rhodes attacking him during a TV title match to make sure he wouldn't win the title, he felt jealous that Dustin was getting all the support from the fans and he wants to derail everything that Dustin has, at Slamboree he managed to defeat Dustin. He attacked Brian Pillman who was a triple champion at the time as he continued to be jealous of other rookie's spots,  Windham defeated Brian Pillman at Fall Brawl to become a 3 time TV champion.

He tried to go back to the main event scene attacking WCW Heaviweight champion Hulk Hogan with a chair, he said that Hogan immediatly used backstage politics to get to where he is, just like he did in WWF which led to Windham's firing, Windham lost the TV title to Steven Regal due to Hogan interfering and at Halloween Havoc Hogan easily defeated Windham to retain the WCW Heaviweight title.

In 1995, Four Horsemen had returned now with Lex Luger as one of the members but  Ric Flair was disappointed by him and wanted him to fight for his spot against someone who also wanted to join Four Horsemen, Barry Windham himself. At Bash at the Beach, Luger destroyed Windham but Windham rolled up Luger to get the win and join Four Horsemen but Ric Flair neglected that low blowing Windham as he didn't accept cheap wins

## Feud with Ric Flair and departure(1995-1996)

Windham had his last feud on WCW with Ric Flair in his greatest feud ever, at Fall Brawl Windham returned beating up Ric Flair in a match against The Barbarian to end it in a DQ and he just kept beating him up at any chance he got while also being ambushed by Four Horsemen most of the times. Windham didn't wanna wait until halloween to face Ric Flair so they had a match at Nitro where it was basically a 30 minute PPV match for free and Flair made Windham tap out. Windham needed one more match against Flair and Flair says the only way he'd want Windham in another match is if his career was on the line, Windham took that bet and at Halloween Havoc he put his career on the line against Ric Flair. In a high stakes match, Barry Windham managed to finally defeat Ric Flair and keep his career intact.

After the World War 3 match was announced to be for the vacant WCW Heaviweight Championship, Ric Flair ambushed Windham trying to keep him out of the match, it failed as  Windham won the third battle royal and the match within ended with Ric Flair vs Barry Windham but Flair defeated him to become WCW Heaviweight champion once again. Eric Bischoff decided to punish Flair for interfering in matches just to annoy people as he made Windham vs Flair in a no DQ match for the WCW Heaviweight Championship on a Nitro, this was WCW's 1995 MOTY but Four Horsemen member and US champion Brian Pillman made sure Ric Flair retained.

At Starrcade 1995, Barry Windham finally managed to win an important singles title as he defeated Brian Pillman to win the US title, he'd lose it just 5 days later in a house show to Jeff Jarrett.

After Four Horsemen's face turn and Sting joining them, Barry Windham called out Sting on this decision refusing to believe that 4HM would ever be good guys, over the weeks Windham learned to respect Four Horsemen and more specifically Ric Flair, it culminated in a big 5 vs 5 match with Windham teaming up with Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger and Sting defeating Dungeon of Doom and Windham finally shook hands with his biggest rival. At Superbrawl 6, Windham got his last WCW Heaviweight Championship match losing to Sting.

Windham announced during an episode of Nitro that if he can't win the WCW Heaviweight title then he feels like he has done everything he can for this company and he announces his final match will take place at Uncensored 1996 and he chooses Ric Flair as his last opponent, Windham has his farewell tour where he defeats Muta and Arn but gets defeated by Luger, Dean Malenko, DDP, Fit Finlay and Madusa on his last Nitro match. At Uncensored, it's a match full of emotional storytelling as Flair doesn't wanna do this and refuses to cause any more pain to Windham but Windham keeps firing up Flair to not be a coward and do this and in the end Flair defeats Windham on his last match and they embrace in the ring before Kevin Nash and Scott Hall invade and beat up both men

## Return to WWF and DX(1996-1998)

After weeks of buildup, DX announced their new member in the main event of Summerslam 1996 which was Barry Windham, Windham failed to defeat Vader for the WWF championship though. Windham says that only 1 thing has remained from the era he was first in and that is The Harts and he has always hated The Harts, at IYH 21 Barry Windham defeated Jim Neidhart and at G1 Finals Shawn Michaels, Windham and Billy Gunn defeated Neidhart, Owen Hart and British Bulldog. At Survivor Series, the rookie Rocky Maivia defeated Barry Windham.

Leading up to Wrestlemania, Windham started feuding with Hart Foundation's Brian Pillman as they mentioned their former history together down in WCW. US Express were inducted into the Hall of Fame Class of 1997 and DX and Hart Foundation brawled on the stage after their speech, Brian Pillman ended up defeating Barry Windham at Wrestlemania 13. At Canadian Stampede, DX and Stone Cold were defeated by Hart Foundation in a winner takes all match.

Windham entered the G1 but didn't do much during it, he got another WWF championship match this time against partner Shawn Michaels but lost, after this he continued to team with DX but not doing much. At Royal Rumble 1998, Shawn Michaels and DX turned heel and joined Vince, Barry Windham was the only one who didn't know this was happening and was kicked out of the group, Windham feuded with Shawn for a while being part of important matches such as the big RAW main event of Mike Tyson and DX vs Barry Windham, Ken Shamrock, Bret Hart, Mankind and Stone Cold. At Wrestlemania 14, Windham was involved in the european title elimination match and was eliminated by Jeff Jarrett, he left the company after this.

## Career history

### Companies/Promotions

 WCW
 WWF

### Face/heel turns

 Heel
 Face
 Heel
 Face

## Championships and Accomplishments

* World Wrestling Federation
* World Tag Team Championships(2 times) - with Mike Rotunda
* Royal Rumble(1986)
* Hall of Fame(Class of 1997) - as a member of US Express
* Shocking Moment of the Year(1986) winning the Royal Rumble
* Tag Team of the Year(1986) with Mike Rotunda

* World Championship Wrestling
* United States Championship(1 time)
* WCW Tag Team Championships(1 time) with Ole Anderson
* TV Championship(3 times)
* Match of the Year(1989) with Ric Flair, Sting and Ole Anderson vs Warrior, Ricky Steamboat, Junkyard Dog and Terry Funk at Halloween Havoc
* Match of the Year(1995) vs Ric Flair at Nitro