The Top 5 Most Popular WWF Wrestlers of the 1980s
There was also a very clear line between good guy and bad guy in the 80s. If you rooted for the good guys, you were not rooting for the same wrestlers as the fans who rooted for the bad guys. Good guys were moral, honest, and fun to cheer for. Bad guys weren’t. The difference between Hulk Hogan and King Kong Bundy was as big as the difference between up and down. You knew where they stood. Today is completely different. Everybody wants to appear rough, tough, and edgy. Note to the WWE, this makes your talent appear unoriginal and lacking in personality.
With this in mind, I will talk about 5 of the, who I believe to be, most popular and greatest wrestlers of the 1980s. For ease, I will restrict this list to those who wrestled in the WWF so you won’t be seeing Dusty Rhodes, Tommy Rich, Rock and Roll Express or Magnum TA. I will offer another list regarding the NWA/AWA/WCW. (I know Dusty Rhodes wrestled in the WWF, but I’m talking about the heyday of the WWF; i.e. the Hogan Era). In the 1980s I was a kid. I grew up watching WWF every Saturday or Sunday morning, not to mention the tremendous Saturday Night Main Events that were on every so often. You always knew a belt change was going to happen then.
In the 1980s championships meant something to wrestling. You had the World Heavyweight Championship, the Intercontinental Champion, and the Tag Team Champions. That’s all. You didn’t need to have 99 different belts just to satisfy egos as large as Andre The Giant’s shoes. Another note to WWE, having hundreds of championship belts (and having them change hands so often) does nothing to build characters that anybody will care about in 5 years. It just makes you and your talent seem shallow.
In the 80s, being the champion meant something to the fans. When Hogan held the belt for all those years, we knew that a legend was in the making. When the Intercontinental Championship was a series of battles between Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, we loved it. We didn’t need to see the belt change hands each week. We didn’t want that. It is so much more enjoyable to let the tension build, let the rivalry develop, let the matches last. It was more real.
Speaking of the word ‘real’, it is a tricky word associated with pro wrestling. I consider what they do to be incredibly real. Just because the outcome is planned ahead of time doesn’t make it any less real. Just because the ‘feuds’ are usually not carried over outside of the ring, doesn’t make it any less real. People who complain about wrestling being fake need to have a more objective mind. Is what Tom Hanks does ‘real’? No, it is called acting. No difference. Acting is acting. Wrestlers also have talent.
Now, my Top 5 Most Popular WWF Wrestlers of the 1980s
#1 – HULK HOGAN – Do you even need an explanation as to why he is the best? He is wrestling, he defined it, he made it what is was then and what it should be today. He was the most popular god guy ever, (he was also the most hated bad guy ever; nWo era). He made fans want to be him. He made you tune in to watch his life. For me, he was as big a part of the 80s as just about anything. When he wrestled, you not only wanted him to win, you needed him to win. If he would have lost to King Kong Bundy, Paul Orndorff, Roddy Piper, or anybody (but Andre) it would have been a shame. Nothing against those wrestlers, but WWF was Hogan’s in the 80s, he had to be the champ. Forget Vince and Linda, Hulk ran the show back then.
Hulk had many rivalries that still inspire memories. Who could forget the legendary matches against King Kong Bundy around 1986? They headlined Wrestlemania 2, they were on Saturday Night’s Main Event, they were amazing. Hogan always won. It was understood. It was necessary. The rivalry would last for months, not weeks. They fought and fought and we loved every minute of it.
Then there was that fateful day when the Hulkster appeared on Piper’s Pit and Andre The Giant turned his back on his friend. Can’t you still see Andre ripping the cross necklace from around Hulk’s neck? I can still see the expression on Hogan’s face as Andre did it. “WHYYYYYYY?” he was saying on the inside. His pain was felt by all us little Hulkamaniacs. People in the crowd that day cried. That, my friends, is real.
The infamous Hogan vs Andre match at Wrestlemania 3 was one of the most popular sporting events ever witnessed. That was wrestling at its best. Every part of that match is legendary. When he slammed the Giant I thought the place was going to crumble to the ground. Also, have you ever seen so many flashbulbs going off? Unbelievable. It was larger than life.
That’s what Hulk Hogan was. He may not have been the greatest tactical wrestler, he only had good moves – first came the finger wave at the opponent and then came the leg drop, and then we got the hand on the ear for the audience, but it didn’t matter. He had it so finely tuned that it played as well as a B.B. King solo. Hogan was the best.
#2 – ANDRE THE GIANT – The man was…a…giant. He was a giant in every sense of the word. His physical stature had a gargantuan quality to it. He was over 7 feet tall. To further punctuate this point, early in his career he would stand on boxes and crates during interviews. This made him well over 8 feet tall. I remember one interview with Vince McMahon where the top of Vince’s head was at belly button level on Andre. That was genius.
No matter how tall Andre was, he was the gentlest of giants and men, in and out of the ring. He wouldn’t hurt a bug. He was the most mild mannered, softest spoken personality (which happened to be real) that wrestling has ever seen. He was a man’s man. He was respectful and feared for the same reasons. He knew that he could squash any opponent in one second flat but he could carry the match longer for the sake of the fans. He made it fun. Kids would love and fear him.
When he turned ‘bad’ and challenged Hogan, people were heartbroken. How could he do such a thing? It wasn’t Andre. He was always alright with not being in the spotlight, that was Hulk’s role. Andre didn’t wrestle every week. We understood. In fact, I don’t remember any wrestler in the 80s who wrestled as infrequently as the Giant. It just made us appreciate him even more. He was a legend. He will be missed.
#3 – RANDY ‘MACHO MAN’ SAVAGE – Controversial choice here no doubt.. He began his WWF career as one of the most hated, least respectful wrestlers around. He would treat manager Miss Elizabeth as a piece of meat. He would even use her as a shield against other wrestlers. He stooped to every level, he was rude, he was deplorable. But he was popular as hell. Fans loved to hate him. Some fans loved to love him. He made each match something different and spectacular to watch. You never knew what he would do next. He was as likely to use the ring’s bell off the top rope as he was to use his elbow. That flying elbow was one of the most recognized moves of all time. When he climbed to the top, you knew it was over.
He participated in my all-time favorite match. Wrestlemania III, Macho Man vs Ricky Steamboat. Fans, it does not get any better than that. It is the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle of matches, the Boba Fett of the squared circle, the best. (The only match that even comes close is a legendary bout between Bret Hart and Chris Benoit, in WCW, shortly after Owen Hart died tragically in the ring.) Can’t you just see the two guys battling forever in that match? They gave everything they had. Every wrestler since then should have to view that match as an instruction manual on how to succeed at wrestling.
The Macho Man was perhaps the most popular bad guy that wrestling has ever seen. When he went ‘good’ later on, it just didn’t work as well. Macho is the originator of all the Stone Cold Steve Austins that we have today, especially Stone Cold Steve Austin. Macho was real, he was a jerk, he was his character. He wasn’t acting or pretending, he wasn’t a persona, he was the Macho Man, like it or not.
#4 – ROWDY RODDY PIPER – Here is another wrestler who spent much of the 80s as a bad guy. Doesn’t matter, fans still loved him. His Piper’s Pit segment was the greatest thing on TV, from the instant we heard YES’ Owner of a Lonely Heart intro, to when he walked out, to the guests, it rocked. But what really made Piper so popular was his energy. Honestly, can you name another wrestler who was as hyper, all out, pure adrenaline laced as the Rowdy one? You didn’t know whether he was going to wrestle or be put in a straight jacket and taken off to the loony bin at any given moment. He had that energy.
Another reason that he was so popular was that he was original. He was a normal guy. He wasn’t much bigger than your average man in the audience but he put all he had into each match, no matter who he faced. His approach to wrestling Andre The Giant was the same way he would approach wrestling The Haiti Kid. He didn’t discriminate. He never shied away from a fight. He wanted to fight more that he wanted to win. It was the enjoyment of the experience that mattered to him. He couldn’t care less about having a championship belt around his waist. He just wanted to kick some ass and chew bubble gum and he was always out of bubble gum. Roddy was the Chuck Norris of wrestling. He wasn’t the biggest, he wasn’t the strongest, but for some reason you feared and respected him the most. Maybe it was his unpredictable nature? Who knows? The wrestling world had never seen anybody like him when he came along, and sadly we still haven’t seen somebody like him since. He was one-of-a-kind.
#5 – THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR – The Warrior is the only wrestler of the 80s who could have challenged Hogan’s reign as the best of the decade. I’m not saying that he did challenge, I’m saying that he had the potential. Unfortunately with the Warrior, it was too much too soon. He suffered from the Bill Goldberg syndrome. When he first hit, he was the biggest thing the sport had ever seen. He was cheered more loudly than even the Hulkster. Fans went ape when he sprinted to the ring. He was all about satisfying the fan. He had his craft so finely tuned that even Hogan had to be in awe and shaking in his boots. The Warrior could have been the one to carry the torch through the 90s and into today. He was that charismatic, that appreciated, that good. Too bad he faded as fast as he lit.
Maybe the world wasn’t ready for 2 wrestlers of equal popularity. Maybe deep down we still needed Hulk Hogan to be our hero. Maybe it was something else. The world will never know. Whatever it was, that time is passed. We all just need to be thankful for the few moments that we had with the Warrior. He forever changed wrestling by giving any wrestler the hope that they, too, could rule the wrestling world, with the right mix of the right ingredients. Goldberg knew this and followed in his footsteps and he had his time to rule the world. It can still be done. His way is the surest way to make a name for yourself in the business.
Unfortunately, it was his high-paced and quick rise to the top that made his fall not only painful to watch but inevitable. We knew that he couldn’t last on pure sugar. As I sit here typing this, some 20 years later, I wonder just what if? What if the world never had Hulk Hogan? How popular would the Warrior have been? Would he be the one we now consider the best ever? Another question that can’t be answered. So wherever you are Warrior, know that it probably wasn’t your fault. It may have been just bad timing. Regardless, you are still on the Mount Rushmore of wrestlers, nobody can take that away from you.
There they are. My picks for the Top 5 of the decade. I bet many people may disagree with me but I doubt that anybody would place any of these guys out of their own Top 10. Legends are usually unanimously agreed upon. I think that I have chosen wisely. If not them, then who?
