All of this talk about the Four Horsemen getting the nod for the 2012 WWE Hall of Fame class has resulted in plenty of folks remembering the great moments that the various incarnations of the Horsemen brought.
To me, the period the Horsemen were active in the 1980s personifies the days of NWA wrestling on Superstation TBS, before Nitro debuted and the Monday Night Wars tore up television.
[ad 6]So I couldn’t help but dig into my nostalgic bag of tricks and find some highlights and low moments for true fans of the NWA, Crocket Promotions, and WCW from 1980 to 1989. Here are 21 reasons you are an old-school supporter of the 1980s TBS wrestling scene:
21. Ric Flair’s promos were always better when his hair was long and he wore sunglasses.
20. Nearly 25 years on, it’s still not exactly clear to you why Ronnie Garvin got to hold the NWA World Title.
19. You have a soft spot for jobbers Lee Peek, George South, and the Mulkey Brothers.
18. You remember Dusty Rhodes bleeding from his head, eye, and arm.
17. The Road Warriors’ one-minute squash matches got the point across.
16. You still cringe thinking about when Kevin Sullivan broke the cinder block on Jimmy Garvin’s leg.
15. You preferred a sports-oriented product to one based on cartoonish characters.
14. You can’t forget when Flair tried to hit Dick Slater with a baseball bat.
13. For you, the short-lived team of The Skyscrapers, Sid Vicious and Dan Spivey, was
awesome.
12. You couldn’t help but think the late, great Eddie Gilbert was a stud when he came out with Missy Hyatt.
11. It was often amazing when the Midnight Express (the Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane version) stepped in the ring.
10. Meanwhile, Jim Cornette made you laugh and want to beat the tar out of him every time he opened his mouth.
9. Magnum T.A.’s career-ending auto wreck made things a little too real for a while.
[adinserter block=”1″]8. You saw Flair carry Sting to superstardom at the first Clash of Champions in 1988 when it went head-to-head with WrestleMania IV.
7. You still remember how big the blow-off was for Sgt. Slaughter and Don Kernodle’s feud with Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood.
6. Nikita Koloff’s “How do you say in this country?” promos were stuff of legend.
5. The War Games may still be the top gimmick match ever.
4. You recall when the NWA actually used Jim Ross as an announcer.
3. The Great Muta and Scott Steiner showed you moves you had never seen before.
2. You will forever always hang your head at any mention of the Ding Dongs.
1. Three words: Flair vs. Steamboat
Scott Wallask has followed wrestling for 31 years and writes about growing up watching the WWF in the 1980s on his blog, Boston Garden Balcony.
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22. You still lament the premature ending to the potentially epic Horsemen vs. Midnight Express feud. Tully and Arn left for the WWF a few weeks after it began; they quickly dropped the NWA Tag Titles to the Midnights at a non-televised event.