MEETING YOUR HEROES CHAPTER TWO: BARRY WINDHAM
Welcome back to another edition of “Steve Makes An A$$ Out Of Himself”. Wait. I mean “Meeting Your Heroes”. Pour yourself a fresh cup of Squared Circle Café coffee and strap in for a good one. Today, we talk about one of my favorite pro-wrestlers of all time-Barry Windham.
My fandom of Barry Windham started early. Growing up outside of Philadelphia, I was limited to WWF on local television and Georgia
Championship Wrestling on Superstation 17 (Now TBS). So, like any obsessed fan in the early 80’s, I bought every “Apter Mag” that I could get my hands on. Every other Tuesday, the Trappe Deli would get either The Wrestler and Inside Wrestling in, or Pro-Wrestling Illustrated at the end of the month. Gosh, it seemed like it was an eternity between issues. I lived across the street and knew what the magazine delivery truck looked like. Imagine nine-year old Steve Corino literally standing next to the woman that had to put the magazines away, in the Deli by myself, so that I could read about wrestling. Imagine any nine-year old doing that today! Remind me to talk to my parents on their parental skills later.
Although I could not watch Barry Windham’s matches on TV, I was intrigued reading about him in the magazines. He was tall and thin like I was as a kid. But the words that Bill Apter wrote about him jumped off the page to me. I could be Barry Windham…or Blackjack Mulligan Jr.
To my delight, Barry Windham signed with the WWF in October of 1984 and I could see him on television every week. He was bigger than life to me as I would watch him put on good match after good match. His singles match with Dick Murdoch from the Philadelphia Spectrum is one that I could watch on loop. But it wasn’t until late 1986, when Barry Windham returned to the NWA, that I became Barry’s super fan.
The NWA in 1986 was amazing. As a 13-year-old, it was everything to me. Although I was watching the WWF and AWA (on ESPN at the time), Jim
Crockett Promotions was my Saturday. World Wide Wrestling in the morning and World Championship Wrestling at night. Barry Windham, whether as United States tag team champion with Ronnie Garvin or on his own, was my pick to be the World’s heavyweight champion one day. In 1987, Windham has these amazing matches with Ric Flair. In 1988, he joins the Four Horsemen, and becomes my favorite villain for the year. Oh, I’m a fan.
So, let’s fast forward to 2001. Or do the kids call it “skip to 2001”? Ah hell, I don’t know. With every paragraph I debate with myself to indent. Okay, I am getting off the subject. It’s 2001 and ECW has closed. I have started in Japan and doing the hustle on the Independents. Dusty Rhodes had started his Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling in Georgia and wanted to do Barry Windham vs. Steve Corino. For over a year, because of my hair, look, and cowboy wrestling boots, the Barry Windham comparisons were made. Mostly by Dream.
Dusty booked the match for Carrolton, GA. If you grew up a fan of Georgia Championship Wrestling, Carrolton was a regular stop and always drew well. I was pumped not only to wrestling in this venue, but here I am wrestling one of my biggest heroes.
Now I know this little subsection is known as “Meeting Your Heroes”, but I actually met Barry on two different occasions. Once while I was a job guy in the WWF in 1996, and then once on an Indy show in Pennsylvania. Both times, our interaction was nothing more than a run-away handshake. This would be the first time that we would actually get to talk and wrestle each other. I was pumped. He probably wasn’t.
Barry Windham couldn’t have been cooler right away. He shocked me by saying that he watched the program that Dream and I had and was looking forward to wrestling. This immediately knocked me off my game. And as soon as I’m knocked off my game, I go from Shy Steve to Awkward Steve. And once Awkward Steve appears, he doesn’t go away.
Carrolton had separate locker room rooms, so before the show started, I am sitting there with Barry, Erik Watts, and Dream. I’m just listening as the three talk. If your only impression of Erik Watts was his 1992-93 WCW run, I urge you to sit with him for five minutes. Legit one of the funniest people I have ever had the pleasure of being around.
Quick sidebar: When Erik had a brief run in ECW, he was with me and Jack Victory. I loved working with him so much that I actually went to Paul Heyman about making me and Erik a full-time team. Paul said he had other plans for me. I always worried that Paul would take out his frustrations with Cowboy Bill Watts on Erik, but Paul was very complimentary when speaking about Erik to me and Jacko.
Back to the story. The four of us are talking and telling stories. I have nothing. Barry and Erik grew up in the wrestling business. Dream is a legends legend. I’m me. Finally, Barry asks a question about calling the match because I’m the heel. Now I am awkward AND nervous. How am I supposed to call the match with BARRY FREAKING WINDHAM??? I feel like it would be rude not to follow up and ask him something….so, I do. And it goes horribly wrong.
“Barry, do you remember the night that you turned against Lex Luger and joined the Four Horsemen?”
Barry simply says “I do” as his waits for the follow up.
“Yeah, that was cool.” And then nothing.
I had nothing.
The room is silent.
Dream looks at me like I just had another inappropriate dream about him (oh, that’s a story for later). Barry is shell shocked and thinking “How the hell am I supposed to wrestle this guy?”. Erik Watts looks at me and says, “Did you just Chris Farley him?” I gather my thoughts and say “I’m so sorry. I meant to say I was 15 and all my friends were over. And I said to them ‘Barry looks like he is in a bad mood today’ and then BOOM, you join the Horsemen. Did you plan that?”
Again nothing.
Dream breaks the silence and says “Well, needless to say baby, Barry will catch the fall on you.”
I am very proud of the match. So proud that I’m putting the link in this blog. Barry Windham treated me like an equal that night and every time I was around him after. He even suggested to Dream of putting me, him, and CW Anderson. Dream had a different name in mind for us, but he eventually agreed to The Extreme Horsemen. CW and I being from the “Extreme” and Barry being a “Horsemen”. Do you know what the name Dusty picked out for us originally? Email me your guess at CorinoCafe@gmail.com. If you guess correctly, you will win a one-pound bag of Squared Circle Café brand coffee.
Thanks for reading. Do you have an embarrassing story about meeting a wrestler or any other entertainer? Feel free to share it in comments section or email me at CorinoCafe@gmail.com.
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