10 80s Wrestlers Who Would Be Awesome In Today's WWE
Sometimes the past fits right into the present.
Looking back at the old WWE (then WWF) of the 80s is always fun, especially if you were a child of the 70s or 80s and grew up with what some consider to be the golden era of professional wrestling. The names at the top then are the ones of legend today: Hogan, Piper, Savage, Warrior, Andre, Snuka, Slaughter, Sammartino, and a little later, the likes of Hart and Michaels.
Yet for as entertaining as pro-wrestling was back in the 80s, the superstars of the era were very much a product of their time. Aside from a nostalgia pop today, most of the gimmicks from back then would fall flat in today's WWE. Hulk Hogan is very much immortal, of course (even if the WWE has removed him from the Hall of Fame), but would Brutus the Barber Beefcake, with his ridiculously one-note gimmick, or the likes of The Natural Disasters (Typhoon and Earthquake, both of whom joined the promotion in the late 80s), have any hope of succeeding with the promotion if joining it today?
No, and for good reason. While gimmicks aren't dead, they're modernized, thanks very much people such as Stone Cold Steve Austin and the influence of the Attitude Era.
With all that in mind, how about the wrestlers that would fit right in with today's WWE? There are some - here are ten of the best options.
10. The Road Warriors
Before you claim that The Road Warriors had a tired gimmick that would look dated today, look no further than The Ascension. While their run on RAW has stalled, they were popular enough on NXT to get promoted to the big show.
So there's no question that a team in the style of The Road Warriors could succeed today, with the right mic skills and in-ring style. The sort of goth/metal look they sport never really goes out of fashion, which is why The Hardy Boyz, The Ministry of Darkness, and even The Undertaker himself have all found success over the years with similar (though not exactly clone) gimmicks.
The attitude, the look, the ring work - there's no way The Road Warriors wouldn't be just as big today as they were back in the eighties.