1986: A Year of What Could've Beens in Professional Wrestling

1986: A Year of What Could've Beens in Professional Wrestling
December 18, 2016
By Ryan Porzl

1986 was a big year in American Wrestling. The WWF was skyrocketing to the top with PPVs, Saturday Night's Main Event specials on NBC, and shows on The USA Network along with Syndication. The NWA had shows on TBS and The AWA along with World Class had shows on ESPN. That same year, many historical moments occurred including the legendary feud between Hulk Hogan and "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff as well as the formation of the legendary Four Horsemen. 1986 would also be legends like Sting, The Ultimate Warrior, and Lex Luger's first full year in the business while other legends like Scott Steiner and Jeff Jarrett made their debuts. Unfortunately, not everyone had a great 1986 as that year saw many promising careers come to an end for one reason or another while others saw the beginning of the end. We'll take a look at five wrestlers who had the wrestling world in their hands only for their careers to end while others saw the beginning of the end.

007 HD Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd - Diamonds are Forever

Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd were awesome Bond villains.

Diamonds Are Forever Intro

Happy 45th Anniversary to Diamonds Are Forever which had it's first premiere today. DAF was the seventh James Bond film and saw the return of Sean Connery to the role after he originally left following 1967's You Only Live Twice and was replaced by George Lazenby for 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This was Connery's sixth Bond and his final "official" one with Eon Productions though he did a seventh Bond with the "unofficial" (not done by Eon Productions) 1983 Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again. The movie saw Shirley Bassey return to sing the theme song making her he first singer to do more than one theme (she previously did 1964's Goldfinger and would return for Moonraker in 1979) and she's the only one to do so as of 2016. The movie was also the final official time Bond's nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his group S.P.E.C.T.R.E. appeared in a Bond movie until last years Spectre (The Wheelchair Villain at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only was clearly supposed to be Blofeld but not named due to legal reasons).

Almost forgot but today is what would've been the 60th birthday of the great Randy Rhoads. Rhoads, of course, was a founder of Quiet Riot and performed on their first two albums that were only released in Japan as well as the original guitarist for Ozzy Osborne. Rhoads played on the first two Ozzy albums and co-wrote many of the songs. Sadly, we lost Rhoads to a plane crash on March 19, 1982 at only 25 years old. Hard to believe Rhoads would've been sixty. Makes you continue to wonder what else he could've achieved.

Mega Man 4 (NES) Music - Wily Fortress 2

Mega Man 4 (NES) Music - Wily Fortress Intro

Mega Man 4 (NES) Music - Select Screen

Mega Man 4's robot bosses included Skull Man, Dive Man, Bright Man, Ring Man, Pharaoh Man, Dust Man, Drill Man, and...Toad Man. I think this was a time when Capcom was beginning to have a hard time creating new robot bosses though there were plenty of cool robot bosses throughout the years.