To a lot of people the Powers of Pain represent what was wrong with the 1980's wrestling product. I am not one of those people. As someone who was a child growing up during the Powers of Pain's initial WWE push I found them to be terrifying and intimidating. The Powers of Pain, the Warlord and Barbarian began teaming in the NWA and were brought in to be a legitimate threat to, you guessed it, The Road Warriors. The Powers of Pain won the 'World 6 man tag team championships' with Ivan Koloff from the Warriors and Dustry Rhodes, then promptly left for greener pastures (the WWE) with the belts. While in the WWE the Powers of Pain acted as the top heel team in an absolutely stacked tag team division and feuded with the WWE Tag Team Champions the Demolition losing them to at Wrestlemania V. All in all the Powers of Pain lasted 3 years (1987-1990) and were oft criticized for a lack of charisma and stiff work but at the same time they drew money feuding with the best of the best in both the WWE and NWA. They were extremely effective heels relying on a managers to do their talking and in an era with an emphasis on size and strength, they stood out from the crowd in both of those departments. The Powers of Pain would go on to have long careers as singles wrestlers and members of other teams, in fact they were even brought back to life in 1996 as the Super Assassins and fought Lex Luger and Sting on the main event of Monday Night Nitro.
