DCP116 Blackjack Mulligan with The NWA US Championship Belt “Big Red”

Blackjack Mulligan

NWA United States Heavyweight Champion — Original Charlotte Coliseum, 1976–77

The Bio

Blackjack Mulligan — born Robert Deroy Windham on November 25, 1942, in Sweetwater, Texas — was one of the most imposing figures the National Wrestling Alliance ever produced. Billed at 6'9" and over 300 pounds, Mulligan was a raw-boned Texas cowboy who built his legend across nearly every major territory in professional wrestling. Before the ring, he played football at Texas Western College (now UTEP), served a tour of duty in the U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Guam, and earned a 1966 pre-season spot with the New York Jets along with tryouts for the New Orleans Saints and Denver Broncos. At the urging of his friend Wahoo McDaniel, Windham trained with Joe Blanchard in Corpus Christi and later under Verne Gagne, breaking into the business in the American Wrestling Association.

In 1971, Windham joined the World Wide Wrestling Federation and was transformed into Blackjack Mulligan — black hat, black trunks, black fingerless glove, and the dreaded iron claw submission hold. Teaming with Blackjack Lanza as The Blackjacks under the management of Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, Mulligan captured the WWWF World Tag Team Championship in August 1975. He moved on to Jim Crockett Promotions in the NWA Mid-Atlantic territory, where he became a four-time NWA United States Heavyweight Champion between 1976 and 1978 — a defining run that established him as one of the most feared singles competitors in the business. He also captured the Mid-Atlantic version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship alongside a young Ric Flair, and his epic series with Andre the Giant produced some of the most talked-about main events of the era.

Mulligan returned to the WWF in 1984, hosting the interview segment "Blackjack's Barbecue" on WWF All-Star Wrestling, and in 1986 famously donned a mask as "Big Machine" alongside "Giant Machine" (Andre the Giant) and "Super Machine" (Bill Eadie) in the masked team known as The Machines. After retiring from the ring, he worked as a booker and promoter throughout the South, co-owning the Amarillo, Texas promotion with Dick Murdoch. Mulligan was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006 as one half of The Blackjacks — inducted, fittingly, by Bobby Heenan himself — and into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2016. He published his memoir, True Lies and Alibis, in 2007, and was ordained a minister in 2012.

Mulligan was also the patriarch of one of wrestling's most enduring families: father of wrestlers Barry and Kendall Windham, father-in-law of Mike Rotunda, and maternal grandfather of Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas. He passed away on April 7, 2016, at the age of 73.

This photograph — captured by Ditch-Cat Photo at the original Charlotte Coliseum in 1976 or 1977, backstage outside Dressing Room 7B with the United States Heavyweight title in hand — preserves one of the territory era's most dominant champions at the peak of his Mid-Atlantic run, inside the building that served as the beating heart of Jim Crockett Promotions.

About "Big Red"

Introduced on January 1, 1975, the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship was created by Jim Crockett Jr. and served as the top singles title in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling. Harley Race was the inaugural champion. Its original belt — a deep red crocodile-grain leather strap with a gold eagle-and-crown centerpiece and U.S. flag side panels — became known throughout the territory simply as "Big Red," the strap carried by a generation of Mid-Atlantic legends including Mulligan, Race, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Wahoo McDaniel, Greg Valentine, and Roddy Piper. The title remained the centerpiece of the Mid-Atlantic territory until 1986, was rebranded as the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship in 1991, and survives today as the WWE United States Championship — the only currently active WWE title that did not originate within the company.