Bob Backlund is another on this list who may not be rightly thought of by some younger readers. If you're only familiar with Backlund from 2000 or so onwards, you'd only be aware of him as some crazed old guy who would pop up here and there and who at one point took a foray into politics. Others may remember Backlund as the guy who made a WWF comeback in the early '90s, built up some steam during a lengthy Royal Rumble stay in 1993, went on to defeat Bret Hart for the WWF Championship, and was then squashed in a matter of seconds by Diesel. In his prime, Bob Backlund was a staple of the Madison Square Garden-centric WWWF and many think of his name as being synonymous with that boom period of wrestling. To many fans of a certain age, Backlund is one of the very best wrestlers of all time, helped largely by a Heavyweight Championship reign that, despite an unrecognised loss and win back, is recognised as being a mammoth 2,135 days, which is more than enough to justify the icon tag bestowed upon him.
