Barry Windham has long been a wrestling legend at the center of a massively talented family of crowd-pleasing athletes, and members of that family are coming together to support the Hall of Famer after he suffered a massive heart attack going into the weekend. It’s reported that he was hospitalized soon after, and is currently in ICU.
News of Barry Windham’s unfortunate health scare comes via a GoFundMe campaign that was created by his niece, Mika Rotunda, who said her uncle was traveling on Friday evening when he went into cardiac arrest while within an Atlanta airport. Thankfully, he was taken to the hospital and has already been through an emergency procedure that kept him alive. However, it’s currently still unclear what will happen next. According to Rotunda’s message:
As a family, we are impatiently waiting to hear that he will be okay. But as of now, the future is uncertain. As is the future for many in his position.
She went on to note that the decades of wrestling and entertaining fans in rings around the world have taken a taxing toll on Barry Windham’s body, and he’d undergone various surgeries over the years to combat injuries, with other health issues coming from those. Making things all the more difficult financially is the fact that his medical situation has made him unable to do much by way of wrestling since he retired in the early 2000s, which has left him without health insurance.
As such, Mike Rotunda is seeking out any help possible on the way to a $200,000 goal that would help to clear some existing medical expenses, with more likely on the way. So far, the campaign has brought in around $5,500 after just a few hours, and it'll likely bring in more as the news spreads. Currently, fellow all-stars Diamond Dallas Page and Cody Rhodes have donated $1,000 each.
Barry Windham was a huge name as both a heel and a babyface throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, whether he was part of the Four Horsemen alongside Ric Flair and Arn Anderson, or rocking a solo career under his Widowmaker moniker. His father was Robert Windham, better known to fans as Blackjack Mulligan, and his brother is fellow WCW and WWE vet Kendall Windham. Their sister Stephanie married the aforementioned Mike Rotunda, and the couple had two sons alongside Mika: Bo Dallas and Bray Wyatt, who were both notably released from the WWE in 2021, though the latter returned in recent months after a mysterious series of White Rabbit videos. Wyatt has brought Uncle characters into his gimmick, with Barry Windham thought to be an influence.
Here's hoping Barry Windham pulls through this medical scare even stronger than he was before, and that he'll be sharing more shoot videos like the interview he gave in September. In the meantime, fans can rewatch some of his highlights as part of the WWE programming available with a Peacock subscription.
