8 Wrestlers Who Performed Into Their 50s

Wrestling is a young man's game. It doesn't matter how big a star you were in your hey-day: once you get a little long in the tooth, you can swiftly expect to be given your marching orders, replaced by some enthusiastic whippersnapper fresh out of wrestling school.

You don't get to hang around for what seems like an age, inexplicably mopping up world title wins while the weary audience who once cheered your name become increasingly hostile to your very presence on screen. That just doesn't happen. Never has.

OK, so maybe the world of professional wrestling isn't totally meritocratic 100% of the time. But that doesn't mean every performer still pulling on the knee-pads in their 50s was living off their former glory. Some of them really could - and did - still go in the ring (although, obviously, some couldn't).

This then is a celebration of wrestlers who maintained a regular in-ring schedule beyond the age of 49, discounting those who were nominally on-screen authority or ambassadorial figures and occasionally competed (e.g. Hulk Hogan) and those who retired before their 50th but returned for a late Indian Summer (e.g. Ricky Steamboat).

Caveats aside, here are 10 wrestlers who performed into their 50s.

Everyone's favourite Belfast bruiser has been in his 50s for about twenty years now, but that didn't stop him from competing right up until 2012, when he finally hung up his shillelagh at the age of 54.

His first brush with the mainstream came in WCW, but younger fans will recognise Finlay for his WWE run towards the late 2000s, where he fought King Booker's royal corner, and repeatedly put himself in harm's way to keep his pint-sized sidekick Hornswoggle out of trouble.

While he was never a headline name, the Northern Irishman became one of the company's most reliable performers, and only a handful of his contemporaries kept up such an intense schedule at the same age.