Barry Windham

Blackjack Windham

Windham, along with his brother-in-law Mike Rotunda, was signed by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in October 1984. They debuted in WWF as babyfaces on the November 17, 1984 edition of *Maple Leaf Wrestling* defeating Mohammed Saad and Bobby Bass. Their tag team was named "The U.S. Express". They quickly made impact in WWF's tag team division as they beat The North-South Connection (Dick Murdoch and Adrian Adonis) for their first WWF Tag Team Championship on January 21, 1985, at a house show in Hartford, CT. At the first-ever WrestleMania, US Express dropped the titles to The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff. On the July 13 edition of *Championship Wrestling*, they beat Sheik and Volkoff for their second and final WWF Tag Team Championship, which they lost to Dream Team (Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake) in Philadelphia at The Spectrum on August 24.

After departing from the WWF, Windham and Rotunda wrestled at the WrestleRock 86 show in the American Wrestling Association (AWA) where they defeated The Fabulous Ones.

In the fall of 1986, he shifted to World Championship Wrestling as a babyface where he had many memorable matches with "Nature Boy" Ric Flair. These included matches going to 60 minute time limit draws and even some extending beyond an hour of action. He then shifted back to the tag team division, forming a successful pairing with Ron Garvin. On December 9, 1986, Windham and Garvin defeated Ivan Koloff and Khrusher Khruschev for the United States Tag Team Championship. Their biggest feud as a team was with The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane), managed by Jim Cornette.

The Midnight Express were never able to beat Windham and Garvin for the titles. Windham and Garvin eventually lost these titles to Ivan Koloff and Dick Murdoch in the spring of 1987, shortly before the annual Jim Crockett Memorial Tag Team Tournament (also known as the Crockett Cup). At this time, Windham also formed an alliance with Lex Luger, who would turn his back on Windham shortly afterward when Luger had aspirations of joining The Four Horsemen. Rather than enter the tournament as a team, Windham and Garvin were split up. Ronnie Garvin instead teamed up with his kayfabe brother Jimmy Garvin (Ronnie was Jimmy's legit stepfather). Rather than have Windham partner up with someone in the tournament, he was booked to face Ric Flair for the WCW World Championship in what would be another classic match between the two. Flair defeated Windham with a controversial pinfall after a little over 25 minutes of action.

Windham spent the rest of 1987 in mid-card status. On June 20, 1987, Windham defeated Black Bart in a tournament final to win the short-lived WCW Western States Heritage Championship, becoming first champion. He defended the title against the likes of Rick Steiner, Big Bubba Rogers and Incubus. At WCW's first pay-per-view Starrcade 1987: Chi-Town Heat, he lost to "Dr. Death" Steve Williams. In 1988, Windham began rising in the WCW ranks again. He started off by dropping the Western States Heritage Title to Larry Zbyszko at Bunkhouse Stampede.

In early 1988, Windham reunited with Luger and together they formed a tag team called "The Twin Towers". On March 27, 1988 edition of *Clash of the Champions*, they won the WCW World Tag Team Championship from Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. A few weeks later, on April 20, in Jacksonville, Florida, a swerve took place where Windham betrayed Luger causing the team to lose the titles back to Blanchard and Anderson. Windham turned heel and joined Ric Flair's stable, the Four Horsemen (which also consisted of Anderson and Blanchard) and his heel turn was considered shocking at the time. In addition, he began using a black glove as well as the clawhold as his finisher, which was a signature move of his father Blackjack Mulligan. He went back to singles competition and defeated Nikita Koloff in a tournament final to win the vacant WCW United States Heavyweight Championship after then-champion Dusty Rhodes was suspended. Windham was a dominant US Champion, who reigned for nine months. He defended the title against the likes of Brad Armstrong, Dusty Rhodes, Sting, and Bam Bam Bigelow before dropping it to Lex Luger at Chi-Town Rumble in February 1989. His contract expired in March 1989.

Windham returned to the WWF in June 1989 as **The Widowmaker**. Despite the nickname, Windham did not change his image much, portraying a heel cowboy type character. He went undefeated for four months and was to have been on Randy Savage's Survivor Series team, but was replaced by the Earthquake as Windham left the company in October.

In May 1990, Windham rejoined World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and re-united with the Four Horsemen which at that point consisted of Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Sid Vicious, and Ole Anderson. At the time, Ole Anderson was only semi-active and permanently became their manager once Windham joined. He defeated Doug Furnas on June 13, 1990 edition of *Clash of the Champions*. He spent most of the time that year in tag team matches with the other Horsemen as partners. At Halloween Havoc 1990, Windham was involved in a controversial match between Sid Vicious and then WCW World Heavyweight Champion Sting. Vicious appeared to pin Sting and win the championship, but it was actually Windham who was dressed like Sting. Once the hoax was noticed, the match was restarted and the real Sting defeated Sid Vicious. Windham spent the rest of the year teaming with Arn Anderson in the continuation of a feud between the Four Horsemen and then WCW World Tag Team Champions Doom. At Starrcade 1990: Collision Course, Windham and Anderson wrestled Doom to a no contest in a Street Fight when a member of each team was pinned.

In 1991, Windham continued teaming with Arn Anderson and Sid Vicious. Windham feuded with Brian Pillman in the spring of 1991, culminating in a taped fist match at SuperBrawl I: Return of the Rising Sun, which Windham won. As the middle of the year approached, controversy erupted in the WCW when WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair was fired by the company, causing the title to be vacant. Windham was then elevated to the number 2 contender spot and faced Lex Luger in a steel cage match to declare the new champion. At The Great American Bash 1991, Windham lost the match to Luger in a double turn as Luger became the top bad guy of WCW and Windham becoming one of the most popular, due to Luger's cheating tactics and his involvement with heel manager Harley Race. This, and Windham's dogged determination to win the belt after years as a perennial upper-mid carder got Windham over in terms of popularity with the fans again despite still not winning the world championship.

In October 1991, Windham formed a tag team with Dustin Rhodes and feuded with WCW World Tag Team Champions The Enforcers (Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko). At Halloween Havoc 1991: Chamber of Horrors, Anderson and Zbyszko slammed a car door on Windham's hand, breaking it, and putting him out of action for a while (including that night's Chamber of Horrors match, where he was replaced by El Gigante). That also led to Ricky Steamboat stepping in as the mystery partner for Rhodes at the Clash of the Champions that November. Steamboat and Rhodes won the titles. Windham, meanwhile, would come back a couple of months later to feud with Anderson, Zbyszko, and the rest of what was now the Dangerous Alliance. Windham would feud with WCW TV Champion "Stunning" Steve Austin in the spring of 1992. On the May 9, 1992 edition of *Saturday Night*, he defeated Austin in a two out of three falls match to win the WCW World Television Championship. He dropped the title to Austin on the June 13 edition of *WorldWide*.

On a taped edition of *Saturday Night* on September 2, Windham teamed with Dustin Rhodes to defeat Steve Williams and Terry Gordy for the WCW World Tag Team Championship; the match would air on October 3. They held the belts for about two months before losing them to Steamboat and Shane Douglas in a memorable match on November 18 edition of *Clash of the Champions*. Windham turned heel on Rhodes after the match when Rhodes refused to pin Steamboat after an accidental low blow.

At the end of the year, Windham teamed with Brian Pillman, who had also turned heel, to pursue the titles he and Rhodes lost, but ended up losing to Steamboat and Douglas at Starrcade 1992: Battlebowl/The Lethal Lottery II.

Windham became a full-time singles wrestler in January 1993 and pursued the WCW World Championship held by The Great Muta. He defeated Muta for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at SuperBrawl III. Ric Flair, who returned to WCW that night, tried to present Windham with the belt, but when Windham saw it was Flair trying to put the belt around his waist, he took the belt and walked away. Flair and Anderson tried to recruit Windham to join the Horsemen again, but Windham declined and became the "Lone Wolf," feuding with Flair and Anderson. He successfully defended the title against Anderson at Slamboree 1993: A Legend's Reunion. After a successful title defense against 2 Cold Scorpio, Windham dropped the WCW belt to Flair at Beach Blast, while injuring his knees and then disappeared from wrestling for almost a year, where he took on Flair again at Slamboree 1994: A Legend's Reunion for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. For weeks leading up to the match, WCW led fans to believe it would be Hulk Hogan coming to challenge Flair, saying a 6'7", 300 pound blond haired former World Champion was the masked man that Col. Robert Parker's Stud Stable was bringing in to challenge Flair as his "Stable Stud." It was revealed to be Barry Windham. Flair won again and Windham, reinjuring one of the knees that he had surgery on, dropped out of sight for over two years.

Windham would again return to the WWF, making his first appearance in a vignette on the August 10th, 1996 edition of *WWF Superstars*. His first match back came nine days later, when he defeated Justin Bradshaw in a dark match at a *Monday Night Raw* taping in Wheeling, WV.  Windham was then given as a deranged and dangerous former military gimmick of "**The Stalker**," wearing camouflage face paint as well as being billed from "The Environment," however the announcers acknowledged that he was Barry Windham. Stalker was introduced with little fanfare as a babyface. For a short time, he renewed his feud with Dustin Rhodes (known by that time as Goldust). In Windham's only pay-per-view appearance with this gimmick, he was eliminated from a Survivor Series match at Survivor Series 1996 by Goldust.

Windham later turned heel and formed The New Blackjacks with Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw in December 1996. Windham dyed his hair and moustache black. The tag team was a tribute to the original Blackjacks (Windham's father, Mulligan, and Bradshaw's uncle, Lanza). The team had opportunities for the World Tag Titles but no success. That team didn't last long, as Windham turned on Bradshaw to join Jim Cornette's faction in January 1998. The angle was scrapped months later, and after losing to Bradshaw on May 16, 1998, Windham left for WCW again.

In his last World Championship Wrestling run, Barry Windham was originally brought back to WCW by Eric Bischoff who had him turn on Ric Flair. Barry was then loosely associated with Bischoff's nWo Hollywood for a while before forming a tag team with Curt Hennig. At SuperBrawl IX, Hennig and Windham defeated Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko in the finals of a tag team tournament to win the vacant WCW World Tag Team Championship.

Barry reinjured his knee during this period but would return as part of "The West Texas Rednecks" in mid-1999. They were supposed to be a heel group to feud with rapper Master P's "No Limit Soldiers" but the southern fans of WCW cheered the Rednecks, going against what WCW management and booking had hoped for, and the angle was eventually dropped. The group consisted of his brother Kendall Windham, Curt Hennig, and Bobby Duncum Jr.; Duncum was replaced by Curly Bill after he was injured and shortly before the group was disbanded and the Rednecks storyline was dropped. On the August 23, 1999 edition of *Nitro*, the Windham brothers defeated Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray) to win their final WCW World Tag Team Championship, before losing the titles back to Harlem Heat at Fall Brawl 1999. Both Barry and Kendall were shortly after released by WCW.

Barry was seen during the 2007 WWE Hall of Fame broadcast, sitting next to former partner John "Bradshaw" Layfield. On the "WrestleMania Rewind" episode of *WWE Monday Night Raw* on March 10th, 2008, Windham appeared with Rotunda to reform the U.S. Express one final time against The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff in a rematch from WrestleMania I, although the match never commenced.

Barry appeared at the 2012 WWE Hall of Fame with Ric Flair, J.J. Dillon, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard as The Four Horsemen were inducted that year.