Top 5 Wrestlers of the 80s

The 80's were the glory days of wrestling. The best matches, the best drama, and there was still a bit of innocence to it. There were also some of the goofiest and creative characters - George The Animal Steele, Ko Ko B-Ware, and the Killer Bees. Here, two writers rank their Top 5 Wrestlers of the 80s.

-- By Sweet Lew

5. Rowdy Roddy Piper: I used to love when the bagpipes would start, the entire arena would turn around, and old Roddy would come strutting out through the curtains on his way to the ring. You loved him, you hated him, sometimes both. He smashed Jimmy Snuka over the head with coconuts and fought Hulk Hogan in the biggest wrestling match ever, at Wrestlemania I. That’s good enough for this list.

4. Greg “The Hammer” Valentine: Wildly underrated in my opinion, Valentine was vicious but effective. He was awesome in tag team action with Brutus Beefcake (the “Dream Team”), and he was a fantastic technical wrestler as well. Plus he had great “bad guy” mannerisms.

3. Bret Hart: What else can you say about a man who had an amazing career, despite never being the biggest, fastest, or smoothest? Hart, who gave me the phase “excellence of execution,” as well as many others, kicked butt as part of the Hart Foundation, then was terrific in WCW and the WWE on his own.

2. Randy “Macho Man’ Savage: There may not have been a cooler wrestler, ever. He had the shades, he had the flowing robes fit for some king from the 1600s, and of course he had the ultimate wrestling hottie, Miss Elizabeth. The flying elbow off the top rope was practiced by me and thousands of others in rec rooms across America in the 1980s. Plus, no one ever spit more when they were cutting a promo than Macho Man.

1. Ric Flair: There’s no debate about this, just like there’s no debate about who the greatest NBA player ever is. For four decades the “Nature Boy” has been spectacular. He takes a beating, he bleeds like a champ, he’s the best interview I’ve ever seen in wrestling, and he got up and did it every damn day. Go back and watch his old matches with Kerry Von Erich and tell me he’s not the best, ever.

(Note, Hulk Hogan was not on this list because he was a truly horrible wrestler)

-- By Iowa Love

I currently own the DVD set of the first five Wrestlemanias, purchased mainly for Wrestlemania I, in which the coolest guy on the planet wrestled in the headline match. Of course, I'm talking about Mr. T. This was also the Wrestlemania that my father and the 6-year-old me saw via closed circuit TV at our local arena and the one where I still own the commemorative program. So, anyway this list is based largely on the first three Wrestlemanias, which I have recently reviewed, because, well, the first three are really all you need.
The other two DVDs this list is based off of are The Princess Bride, which I have previously owned, and The Goonies. The Princess Bride is included because my wife insists upon it. She watched some wrestling in the 1980s, but knows Andre the Giant best for his role in this film. The Goonies is included because of The Goonies-based Cyndi Lauper video on the disc as an extra. Lauper, as some may recall, was a guest manager at Wrestlemania I, and included several wrestling notables in a sometimes inexplicable mini Goonies video remake.

5. Nikolai Volkoff
What better villan could there be in the mid-1980s than a Russian who sings the Russian national antham before matches? Nicolai Volkoff was
that guy, enduring taunts of every spectator in the house to honor his mother country. Then he would take every opportunity his
tag-team partner would offer, smashing his opponent's face into the pointed shoes of the Iron Shiek. Volkoff also knew how to milk a fake cow, donning overalls to milk the cow in the bed of a pickup truck in the Goonies video. Don't worry, it makes perfect sense.
4. Randy "Macho Man" Savage
OOOhhh, yeahhh. The Macho Man was cool in the look-at-me-I'm-so-cool sort of way. I wish I was that cool, sequined cool. Everyone, including George "The Animal" Steele, always fawned over Miss Elizabeth. I didn't really see it, though. The Macho Man used Steele's distraction for Miss Elizabeth to defeat the turn-buckle champing Steele at Wrestlemania II. Savage's Wrestlemania III match with Ricky Steamboat was a classic, with The Animal helping out The Dragon in a bid to woo Miss Elizabeth. I would also like to suggest here to Snap into a Slim Jim, but there is no reference to Slim Jims in the DVD collection, so I won't.
3. Mr. T
I originally had Mr. T higher on this list. But after reviewing his performance in Wrestlemanias I and II, I had to drop him down. I was solely going on my memory of his performance in my initial calculation. But I really didn't have a memory. I don't actually remember much from watching it when I was 6. I do vividly remember accepting gum, apparently for the first time, and learning gum was for chewing, not eating. Anyway, after watching it again, Mr. T's performance was rather pedestrian, with tag-team partner Hulk Hogan doing the heavy lifting. But, seriously, he's Mr. T.
2. Andre the Giant
1. Rowdy Roddy Piper
It's Andre the Giant and Rowdy Roddy Piper in that order. My wife strenuously argued for Andre over Rowdy based solely on their 1980s movie careers, Andre in Princess Bride and Rowdy in "Hell comes to Frogtown." Somehow she believes staring in a movie opposite mutant frogs is a negative. As I had never heard of this movie, and it is a movie I do not and have not owned, it, of course, cannot be considered here. Besides, starring opposite mutant frogs doesn't have to be a negative.
It is close. Both faced Hogan in Wrestlemania main events, Piper losing and knocking out a referee, Andre losing after being body slammed by a Hulk who moments before appeared to need back surgery. I was never a fan of Hogan's, or taking my vitamins, for that matter.
But Piper had the range. He could not only wrestle, but he could box, taking on Mr. T at Wrestlemania II. And by boxing, I mean being disqualified for bodyslamming Mr. T when the match wasn't going his way. Then he also knocked out the referee after the title match of the first Wrestlemania when that match didn't go his way. I do find it odd that my parents refused to let me get a Mohawk, but they never told me I couldn't wear a kilt. Maybe it's because I didn't ask.
Both Andre and Rowdy were also in the aforementioned Lauper video. Clinching it for Rowdy was his performance here as a level-headed businessman in suit and kilt, simply trying to get what's owed to him from the "lovely peasants." Of course Andre shows up at the end, but in an odd get-up to chase away Piper, a development that Piper complains about as he's running. It wasn't supposed to end like that. Andre's appearance, in my view, is not adequately explained. Of course random Hibachi chefs aren't explained, either. But this is a plot hole I cannot overlook and one that helped cost Andre the Top 5 title.