It was in the late 1980s that Sting rose to stardom in North American professional wrestling as a bleach blonde heroic babyface taking on the nefarious bad guys of the time. He was young, he was energetic, and he wowed crowds by continually battling Ric Flair to a number of time-limit draws. Pro wrestling was different in the 1980s of course. Babyfaces were babyfaces and heels were heels, no grey areas, no blurred lines. There was also a fair amount of xenophobia built into the lining of professional wrestling, and anyone who wasn't North American was almost guaranteed to be booked in a dastardly heel fashion. It is this that adds a certain element of regret to the fact that Rusev exists in the modern age. Rusev would have been a mega star in the late 80s, the evil foreigner who also had all the athleticism in the world. A modern day battle between Sting and Rusev would have brought memories flooding back of such a time, and possibly even given Rusev a career revival.
Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.