Whenever conversations turn to bad WWF gimmicks,
one is almost sure to hear the name "Widowmaker" pop up. And
that's wrong...
See, despite the dumb name, there wasn't really much of a gimmick behind the wrestler, who was none other than Barry Windham. He wasn't a race car driver, or a clown or an Internal Revenue Service agent. He was, for all intents and purposes, just regular old Barry Windham with a less-than-desirable new moniker. At most, they may have been going for a cowboy gimmick, as Widowmaker is the name of legendary Pecos Bill's horse, and Windham/Widowmaker wore a leather vest to the ring. But that's about as far as it went.
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Sure, the WWF totally whitewashed the fact that he'd already been in the company, and not only had he been there, he'd been a WWF Tag Team champion (with Mike Rotundo in the U.S. Express). But that was commonplace during that period of time.
Anyway, Widowmaker didn't last very long. He entered the federation for a short time, left, came back briefly, then left again. Probably his biggest claim to fame was getting replaced by Canadian Earthquake (later just Earthquake) on Randy Savage's team at Survivor Series 1989. |
After this, Windham returned to the NWA (later WCW) where he won a few more belts. He would return to the WWF yet again years later, where he went through a number of gimmicks, including The Stalker, Blackjack Windham and as an NWA invader. He's currently one of the top stars in Dusty Rhodes's Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling.