Now that he was a Horseman, Windham found a lot more success coming his way since he could rely on Flair, Blanchard and Anderson to help him. In April of 1988 he won the US title in a tournament beating Nikita Koloff in the finals. Windham began to use his father's finisher, The Claw. He defended his title regularly and held many impressive victories over a lot of men including Luger, Sting, Rhodes, Koloff, Brad Armstrong, and Steve Williams. He showed a lot of improvement which led up to a match with Dusty Rhodes at July's great American Bash which Windham won thanks to help from Ronnie Garvin. In the match Windham took a cross body block off the top rope and kicked out most people would have died under all that weight. At Clash III: Fall Brawl Windham kept his title from Sting who was red hot at that point.

In late 1988 Blanchard and Anderson left the NWA and at Clash IV: Season's Beating's. Flair and Blanchard beat The Midnight Express who were one of the top teams of 1988. Windham went on to Starrcade to face Bam Bam Bigelow who he defeated by countout thanks to some unwise decisions by Bigelow. It seemed like Windham was in good shape, The Horsemen had reformed with Flair, Barry, Butch Reed, and Kendall Windham. Barry had one problem though, he forgot about Lex Luger. Lex spent most of 1988 trying to beat Flair for the NWA world title. At Chi-Town Rumble in February of 1989 Luger demanded a match with Windham. Windham said no at first but Luger said that over 1988 he had the best matches of his career with Flair and came closer to winning the title than Barry Windham ever could. Enraged, Barry accepted. The match was one of Luger's best and after some great action and intense brawling, Luger got his shoulder up on a bridge to get a 3 count for the title. The next day Barry Windham left the NWA.  

Barry went to the WWF but soon left after his gimmick "The Widowmaker" proved to not get over with fans. He came back in 1990 to re-join the four Horsemen with Flair, Arn Anderson, and Sid Vicious. Windham spent most of this time in tag team matches with Arn Anderson and wrestled The Road Warriors in their last match. At Halloween Havoc he dressed up like Sting to give an impression of Sid winning the world title. It didn't work and Sting retained. Windham and Anderson fought for the tag team titles at Starrcade 1990 but lost on a double pin. In 1991 Barry and Arn went to Japan for the WCW/Japan Supershow and were victorious over Masa Saito and Masahiro Chono.

In July 1991 Ric Flair left for the WWF and Windham was put in his place to face Lex Luger for the wold title. Luger won but the departure of Flair ended the Four Horsemen. Barry decided to go back to the rules and form a tag team with Dustin Rhodes. They hit their peak in August of 1992 when they won the world tag team titles. They lost them in late November to Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas. They lost them because Steamboat was hurt and Rhodes wouldn't go in for the kill and got rolled up and pinned instead of listening to Windham and winning the match. Windham proceeded to beat the tar out of Rhodes.

Windham left Starrcade 1992 as the last man eliminated from Battle Bowl by winner The Great Muta. At Superbrawl in 1993 he won the NWA world title from Muta and had the belt placed around his waist by Ric Flair himself. After all those years Barry Windham was the world champion. He was a fighting champion also as he defeated long time partner Arn Anderson at Slamboree in May of 1993 with his father in attendance. He lost the title to Flair in July of 1993 and took a long needed vacation from wrestling.

Ed. Note: This is Mike Campbell’s last piece for Kayfabe Memories. He has other things that are requiring more of his attention. KM would like to thank Mike for his hard work. Look for a new writer to debut on the NWA region very soon.