Flair. Hogan. Steamboat. Funk. Race. Von Erich. The mere mention of these legendary last names conjures up images of some of the greatest moments in wrestling history. Mention the last name of this week’s Jobber Of The Week, and well, I can’t help but think he should’ve had a blond manager named Ken and a Mattel Toys logo stitched to his trunks. His name was Barbie. Dave Barbie.
Despite possessing one of the least manly names in wrestling history, Barbie was definitely not effeminate in the ring. To enjoy a wrestling match, sometimes it requires the viewer to suspend disbelief. For viewers watching the average pasty and flabby job guys go down in defeat to the main eventers, that was not a problem. But to see the massive Dave Barbie get beaten in a match, well, it required you to not only suspend disbelief, but murder it, chop up it’s corpse, cremate it, and blast the remains into outer space. You see, Barbie was a huge guy. I repeat, HUUUUGE.
Here’s Barbie squaring off against former world record-holding power-lifter Ted Arcidi, one of the most massive guys to ever step into the ring. As you can see Dave was definitely not on the Mulkey Brothers diet / weight regimen, as he physically matched up equally or better than anyone he faced in his tenure in the mid-80’s WWF. He looked like he could literally beat the crap out of anyone in his path. Sadly, despite being jakked and one hell of a scary looking dude, that only amounted to a handful of wins and a ton of defeats in his WWF career, as he spent most of his time faithfully putting over the stars on the WWF’s syndicated programs of the time. His imposing size did do one thing for him, though. It earned him a gig being a bodyguard for Andre The Giant. I think Andre didn’t have to think too hard when choosing between Barbie or Jose Luis Rivera as the man for the job. We were even able to dig up a picture from one of those days long gone by.
As the 80’s drew to a close, Dave disappeared from the wrestling scene, and has not been heard from since. He may not have won any titles in the WWF, but he definitely earned the title of being the biggest and baddest enhancement talent of all-time. One can only hope that Barbie was able to save enough money from all his time spent in the WWF, and he retired to that dream house he always wanted.
