1980s: The Golden Age Of Wrestling

Jake “The Snake” Roberts.

Often a bad guy, at least once a good guy, this one-time crack addict was interesting because of the python named Damien that he carried around.

Honky Tonk Man

The Honky Tonk man began as a goofy gimmick that, had you presented this guy to me as a great superstar, I would have thought that you were joking with me. The fact is that The Honky Tonk Man is one of the most underrated men in wrestling history simply for his gimmick. He was never world title worthy, but he had the longest reign ever with the Intercontinental Championshipq

Andre the Giant

Forget about Hulk Hogan for a minute. It was Andre The Giant that became a household name and put the WWF on the map. He helped to start Hulkamania. He was one of the first wrestlers to be a successful actor in Hollywood. His size and stature put butts in the seats in a way that nobody since has been able to duplicate. Andre The Giant is not only one of the 20 best of the 1980s, but is also one of the 20 best of all-time, easily.

"Macho Man" Randy Savage

Savage has inspired every single man in professional wrestling today, and his spirit will live on in the squared circle forever. Who can forget his mainstream success with commercials and appearances across the world? Savage was just as great backstage talking to Gene Okerlund as he was in the ring with Hulk Hogan or Ricky Steamboat.

Ravishing Rick Rude

"Ravishing" Rick Rude is one of those guys that you can see and realize that he oozes charisma. He wouldn't grow into his own until the early 1990s, but Rude was still a cocky and arrogant heel that anyone could hate. He made the women in the crowd swoon and get angry at him, which probably made them swoon even more. At WrestleMania V, Rude became Intercontinental Champion by defeating The Ultimate Warrior.

Rude would later go on to be one of the top heels in the early 1990s, as well as one of the original members of D-Generation X.

Ric Flair

Ric Flair was wrestling in the 1980s. He had the moves, the talking ability, the style and the ability to have you love or loathe him whenever he wanted you to. Flair never needed to hold all of the world championships that he did in his career, but the fact that he did is a testament to how great he really is. Without him, there is no World Championship Wrestling, no Monday Night Wars, no Four Horsemen and no Evolution. That's just scratching the surface.

"Rowdy" Roddy Piper

One of the greatest wrestlers to ever hold a microphone, Roddy Piper is more known to wrestling fans as a non-WWE Champion than he ever would have been as a one-time or even a two-time champion. It speaks to Piper's legacy that he was never on top of the company because he never wanted to be. Piper made everyone around him better, and that was what he did best. I would sign a guy like Roddy Piper immediately and build a promotion around him because the things he knew and could do for other people's careers made him invaluable.

"The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase

Everybody had a price for Ted DiBiase, who was one of the great heels that I have ever seen. It was impossible to hate this guy, who would throw around money like it was nothing. Alongside Virgil, DiBiase would try to be a WWE Champion, but could never do so. That was when he created The Million Dollar Championship, which has taken on a life of its own as one of the most popular gimmick belts in wrestling history. It has never been an officially sanctioned belt in WWE, so his title reigns with it never really counted for anything. Even if the belt does not look as impressive all these years later, it is still one of the most prestigious belts in WWE history.

Hulk Hogan

Call it a cop out if you must, but Hulk Hogan is one of the most famous wrestlers of all-time for what he was in pop culture in the 1980s. Ask your grandmother to name a professional wrestler, and Hulk Hogan is probably the person that she says.

Hogan took wrestling and made it much more than that. WrestleMania does not get sold to the masses without a guy like Hulk Hogan. Vince McMahon needed a guy to spearhead this growth of the WWF and handpicked Hogan from AWA to do so.

The Ultimate Warrior

One of the most excited men in wrestling history was The Ultimate Warrior. The crowd could immediately feed off of his energy, which helped in him being so successful as a pro wrestler. While already holding onto the Intercontinental Championship, Warrior became WWF Champion, forcing him to vacate the previous title. Had he been able to hold both at the same time, Warrior could have had a chance to be one of the most dominant champions of all-time. Even if you didn't grow up watching him, you can still watch promos of him and wish that you were him for a few minutes.

King Kong Bundy

King Kong Bundy seemed like nothing more than a sideshow act brought in to get people over. In a way, that's all he was. Bundy did it better than anyone else, though, still remembered as one of the best big men in WWE history.

Bundy won the second shortest match in WrestleMania history, a nine-second defeat of S.D. Jones. It was then that Bundy demanded having to win with five-counts instead of three-counts. Bundy got Hogan over to a rocking crowd at WrestleMania 2, falling to the Hulkster in a steel cage. Every big man nowadays should take a page out of King Kong Bundy's book in order to be a better superstar.

Harley Race

One of only six men in the WWE, WCW, Professional Wrestling and Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fames, Harley Race is one of the all-time greats. His match with Ric Flair at Starrcade 1983 is still one of the greatest matches in wrestling history. Harley Race was a champion pretty much anywhere he went, including the honor of being WWE's King of the Ring in 1986. There isn't enough time in the day to say how great Harley Race is and how important he is to the history of this business.

Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka

For as popular as Jimmy Snuka has been in his career, it is hard to believe that he was never WWE Champion. Snuka is right up on top of that list of great men to never climb to the top of the mountain. What Snuka did climb to instead was the top of a steel cage.

In one of his most memorable moments and one of the greatest era-defining moments, Snuka climbed 20 feet to the top of the cage and tried to splash on then-WWE Champion Bob Backlund in Madison Square Garden. Snuka missed, and Backlund escaped from the cage to retain his title.

Snuka was the first real high-flier in WWE history, even if he never actually won anything in the promotion. Snuka is one of the most respected Hall of Famers for that very reason.

"Hacksaw" Jim Duggan

There were three things that "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan loved more than anything else: America, the fans and his trust piece of wood. Duggan is one of the only men in WWE history to have been a Royal Rumble winner and a King of the Ring. Duggan won the first-ever Royal Rumble, which was only a 20-man match at that time. As for the crown, Duggan won that in a match, never actually winning the tournament that many others have had to win for it.

Duggan is still one of the most popular superstars today and can instantly get a pop with an American flag, his 2x4 or simply by yelling "Hooo!"

Tito Santana

Tito Santana also entered the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004. Santana became a huge name in the WWF after winning the Intercontinental Championship from Muraco in 1984. What would follow is one of the great rivalries in the history of the Intercontinental title against Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. Valentine would eventually take the belt from Santana, who would go on to be the first-ever winner of a match at WrestleMania.

Tito would become King of the Ring in 1989, but would never win the big one, failing to be a world champion in his career. Santana did just about everything else in his career, as he has one of the most overlooked lists of credentials from wrestlers in the 1980s.