10 Original Failed WWE Pushes You Completely Forgot About

7. Barry Windham - The Widowmaker

Barry Windham
WWE

Vince McMahon's failure to bring Ric Flair into the fold in 1988 ultimately robbed the company of a dream match with Hulk Hogan years before The Chairman simply didn't see the appeal for WrestleMania several years later. More's the pity too - he had every other Horseman on the books a year later.

Just months removed from Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard's arrival, JJ Dillon took a front office job with the company, and just a short time after that, Barry Windham was also on board.

A beloved babyface and hated heel for years in the NWA, Windham's character was watered down to being neither one nor the other as the barely villainous Widowmaker in mid-1989. His aesthetic shared that of his most recent run with the opposition, but a series of televised squash didn't come with any of the heat big Baz should have brought along with him.

A heel by default, the closest he came to an actual angle was working that year's Survivor Series before he left the company ahead of the show. His latter spells as The Stalker and member of The New Blackjacks didn't move many needles, but at least left a deeper footprint in company history than the flawed first attempt.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say. With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.