Blackjack Mulligan 1942-2016

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• published: 08 Apr 2016
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Robert Jack Windham (November 26, 1942 – April 7, 2016), better known by his ring name Blackjack Mulligan was a former professional wrestler, author and former American football player. He is the father of wrestlers Barry and Kendall Windham, father-in-law of Mike Rotunda, and the grandfather of Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas. As a young man, Windham played football at Texas Western College, now known as the University of Texas at El Paso. He then went on to play for the New York Jets during the 1966 pre-season and received tryouts with the New Orleans Saints and Denver Broncos. After football, at the urging of Wahoo McDaniel, Windham trained with Joe Blanchard in Corpus Christi, Texas and later with Verne Gagne and became a professional wrestler in the American Wrestling Association. Billed as being 6' 9" and over 300 pounds, Windham was a rawboned cowboy in the vein of Bobby Duncum or Stan Hansen. His training complete, he prepared to move on to the World Wide Wrestling Federation and was transformed into the villain Blackjack Mulligan. Mulligan, donning black trunks, black hat, black fingerless glove, and using the iron claw submission hold, was a carbon copy of AWA wrestler Blackjack Lanza. In fact, when he asked Lanza's permission to copy the gimmick. Lanza replied "you took my look and you took my finishing hold - you wanna take him, too?" (gesturing towards his then manager Bobby "The Brain" Heenan). Before he left to recover from his wound, Mulligan participated in a memorable Madison Square Garden match against Bruno Sammartino, who was making his first appearance at the arena since the end of his nearly 8 year championship reign. Mulligan attacked Sammartino before the bell. Bruno quickly recovered, slammed Mulligan twice and pinned him in 64 seconds as the building exploded in cheers. In wrestling terms, everybody "got over" - the building was sold out to the delight of promoter Vince McMahon the elder, Sammartino made a strong return to New York and Mulligan, who was in no condition to work an actual match, received a large pay-off to aid his recovery and recuperation. Once he healed, Mulligan returned to the Midwest and tagged with Lanza to form The Blackjacks. The duo went on to capture numerous tag team championships in various NWA affiliated promotions as well as the WWWF World Tag Team Championship in August 1975. Blackjack returned to singles wrestling in the Jim Crockett Promotions where he would go onto hold the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship and the Mid-Atlantic's version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship with Ric Flair. Mulligan often battled André the Giant, feuding in many different regions in the early 1980s. When they brought their feud to the WWF in 1982, Windham was noted as saying Andre had no limit to his strength. Mulligan would go onto wrestle in Florida as a face. He often teamed with West Texas stars Dusty Rhodes, Dick Murdoch, and his son Barry Windham. Mulligan would return to the WWF as a full-time performer in 1984, working as a face who also hosted an interview segment titled Blackjack's Barbecue on WWF All-Star Wrestling, the face counterpart to Roddy Piper's Piper's Pit. In 1986, Mulligan wrestled under a mask as "Big Machine," part of a team known as The Machines. After that angle ended, Mulligan wrestled for the WWF as himself, until he finally left in 1987. Later on, Jack traveled to Dallas and competed in World Class Championship Wrestling, as a heel, wrestling against Bruiser Brody, Chris Adams and Kevin and Lance Von Erich. Mulligan and his Blackjacks partner, Jack Lanza were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on April 1, 2006 by their manager, Bobby Heenan. Mulligan passed away on April 7, 2016 at the age of 73 due to health problems.