Forgotten WWE Champions From The 1980s: Where Are They Now?

For many, WWE‘s Golden Era was the company’s peak. While the Attitude Era provided myriad memories of potent steel chair blows to the skull and raunchier characters, and the Ruthless Aggression Era became WWE’s work-rate-heavy era, the Golden Era represented the necessities of professional wrestling: bombastic characters, simplistic storylines, and emotional attachment.

WWE also operated numerous championships during the eighties, with a menagerie of WWE Hall of Famers, legends, and forgotten heroes bestowed with such prizes. But for every Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, there’s a rotating cast of forgotten WWE champions surrounding them.

The Original Tiger Mask Held WWE’s Junior Heavyweight Championship

Length Of Reign(s): 110 Days, 312 Days, 60 Days

The inaugural Tiger Mask, portrayed by Satoru Sayama, enjoyed the second-most reigns with WWE’s defunct Junior Heavyweight Championship. His second of three reigns also stands as the belt’s third-longest overall, behind two of Tatsumi Fujinami’s runs at 789 and 617 days, respectively.

Sayama, despite a brief retirement, remained active in both the professional wrestling and shootfighting scenes in Japan post-WWE, though he hasn’t wrestled in almost a decade, his last bout coming in June 2016. In May of the prior year, he was forced to go under the knife for emergency heart surgery following taking a Splash from the late Akebono. A press conference held by the now-66-year-old explained all:

“The doctor told me that I could die suddenly at any time. It was pretty bad. All my numbers were bad. […] I’m not thinking about retiring. Once the catheter gets used to it, I don’t have to worry. There’s no timetable for when I’ll be able to resume training, but next time Tiger Mask comes out, I’ll be skinny.” (h/t Daily Sports)

Velvet McIntyre’s Women’s Championship Reign Wasn’t Recognized

Length Of Reign: 574 Days, 237 Days, 6 Days

The original (1956-2010) WWE Women’s Championship was a rollercoaster of a title, with frequent vacancies, nonsensical title changes, and a deactivation sitting among the slew of champions. In the title’s earlier history, though, there were a handful of unrecognized champions, of which Velvet McIntyre was technically one. Her six-day title reign was never acknowledged by WWE and instead, The Fabulous Moolah’s 220 and 380-day reigns, respectively, were viewed as a continuous run.

Retiring from professional wrestling in 1998 after falling pregnant with twins, the Irishwoman, who also twice held the original (1983-1989) Women’s Tag Team Championship, has stuck to her word, having not wrestled since a July 25, 1998 card in Cloverdale, British Columbia. As well as being a devoted mother, McIntyre also makes and sells crafts.

Riki Choshu Is A Forgotten Champion From WWE’s History

Length Of Reign: 123 Days

The championship may have been defended primarily in NJPW, but with its WWE prefix, the International Heavyweight Championship was an officially licensed WWE championship that adorned the waist of, among others, Riki Choshu, Choshu being the second-from-last recognized champion in WWE’s books.

Choshu, now 72, has retired from the ring at least twice, the latest coming in 2019. When he’s not debating giving up his pension for another crack at glory, the real-life Kwak Gwang-ung is a dab hand backstage, having been involved in the booking of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, while also having previously ran his own promotion, Fighting World of Japan Pro Wrestling.

Tatsumi Fujinami Held Multiple WWE Championships

Length Of Reign(s): 617 Days, 789 Days, 216 Days, 715 Days, 379 Days, 159 Days

Another ex-WWE titleholder whose record for the promotion is barely enough to fill a Royal Rumble match, Tatsumi Fujinami was obsessed with WWE’s International-branded titles, holding the International Heavyweight Championship thrice for a combined 1,310 days, and the International Tag Team Championship once for 159 days; doubtlessly, Fujinami was also the final holder of both titles.

Despite nearing his 71st birthday, Fujinami still wrestles, and actually picked up another set of doubles titles, in Niigata Pro Wrestling in October 2024. When he’s not setting records for eldest champion or running his Dradition Pro-Wrestling promotion, Tatsumi serves as WWE’s solitary Japanese ambassador,

a deal that stemmed from his surprise 2015 WWE Hall of Fame induction
.

Tony Garea Was WWE’s First Oceanic Champion

Length Of Reign(s): 129 Days, 84 Days

Modernistic WWE is partial to the pushing of an Oceanic athlete, with Rhea Ripley, Grayson Waller, and Dakota Kai among those on the current roster to have tasted WWE gold – but Tony Garea trumped them all. The New Zealander was a five-time World Tag Team Champion in the then-(W)WWF, with two of those reigns coming during the 1980s. There, he tagged with a pre-‘Model’ Rick Martel.

Garea, who last competed in 1989 on an Indianapolis WWE house show, would work as a road agent/producer for WWE following his retirement, though he departed the role in 2014. Little is known of his life in 2024, but he remains active in wrestling circles, having appeared on the podcast of JBL and Gerald Brisco.

Tony Atlas Was Part Of WWE’s First Black Champions

Length Of Reign: 154 Days

It should not have taken twenty years after the launch of WWE to crown the first black champion in company history. Alas, a November-taped, December-aired 1983 broadcast of WWE Championship Wrestling saw black World Tag Team Champions crowned when Soul Patrol (Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas) toppled The Wild Samoans.

While ‘Soulman’ Rocky Johnson passed away in January 2020 following deep vein thrombosis complications, Tony Atlas remains active in the wrestling scene,

having been a bizarre talking head on Netflix’s Mr McMahon documentary
. He hasn’t, though, been signed to a contract since exiting WWE in 2010.

Akira Maeda’s Reign In WWE Wasn’t Wholly Acknowledged

Length Of Reign: 120 Days

The WWE and NJPW working relationship of the eighties was a bizarre, pointless experiment, with a cataclysmic catalog of overlooked title changes, such as Antonio Inoki’s unacknowledged WWE Championship win. Akira Maeda, too, had a WWE title reign that went unmentioned, being the penultimate International Heavyweight Champion – but it was NJPW who refused to recognize the title change.

Maeda, a renowned shoot fighter and mixed martial artist who has been at the epicenter of numerous controversies in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, hasn’t wrestled since February 1999. He is still active in the MMA world, and resurrected the Fighting Network RINGS group in January 2012.

Rockin’ Robin Was WWE’s Final Women’s Champion Pre-Deactivation

Length Of Reign: 502 Days

The pre-1993 history of WWE’s original Women’s Championship makes for intriguing reading as, bar the historic reign of the disgraced Fabulous Moolah, the belt’s history is rarely discussed at arm’s length. Rockin’ Robin,

the half-sister of Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts
, has the official honor, though, of being the final holder of the original championship, toppling Moolah in late 1988.

Retiring in 1992, the real-life Robin Denise Smith, who has historically been described as a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of her father, Grizzly Smith, endured further struggles in post-WWE life. Now back on her feet, Robin operates a real estate appraisal business in Hammond, Louisiana.

Hiro Saito Became The Penultimate WWE Junior Heavyweight Champion

Length Of Reign: 69 Days

A world-class junior heavyweight, Hiro Saito held three Junior Heavyweight Championships; AJPW’s, NWA’s, and WWE’s. It was the latter that would be his first, dethroning the masked Cobra for a 69-day reign during the summer of 1985, though he never officially wrestled for the company, instead lifting and dropping the title on NJPW events.

Last wrestling in a pre-pandemic February 2020, the 63-year-old Hiroyuki Saito’s most recent claim to fame came during NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom 11 celebrations in 2017. Entering as a surprise New Japan Rumble entrant, he notched a victory over a Kenny Omega-led Bullet Club the following evening.

Ken Patera Is An Intercontinental Champion Lost To Time

Length Of Reign: 231 Days

The early history of the WWE Intercontinental Championship is rarely discussed
, with anything pre-Randy Savage acting as nothing more than fantasy booking at times. ‘The Macho Man’ was the tenth champion, though, with a slew of WWE greats preceding him; among them, as the second champion, was the oft-forgotten Ken Patera. The 322-pound Oregonian dethroned the inaugural champion, Pat Patterson.

Patera wrestled off-and-on during his three WWE tenures, his final appearance coming at 1988’s Survivor Series. He wrestled, briefly, on the independent scene following this before seemingly calling it a day in 1998, but he returned for a one-off match at JCW’s disastrous Legends & Icons pay-per-view in 2011, falling to Bob Backlund. The match boasts a 0.32 rating on Cagematch.net.