{"id":87237,"date":"2021-03-20T18:39:47","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T22:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=87237"},"modified":"2021-03-22T10:07:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T14:07:53","slug":"barry-o-passes-away-62","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/03\/20\/barry-o-passes-away-62\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NWA and WWF Star Barry O (Barry Orton) Passes Away at 62"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was announced on Saturday that <strong>Barry Orton<\/strong> &#8211; best remembered as WWF enhancement talent <strong>Barry O<\/strong> &#8211; had passed away. He was 62 years old. Barry Orton is the younger brother of WWE Hall of Famer <strong>&#8220;Cowboy&#8221; Bob &#8220;Ace&#8221; Orton Jr.<\/strong>, son of <strong>Bob Orton Sr.<\/strong>, and uncle of current WWE Superstar <strong>Randy Orton<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We send our heartfelt condolences from us here in the UK to the Orton family.  Rest in Power <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BarryOrton?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BarryOrton<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BarryO?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BarryO<\/a> brother Of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BobOrtonJR?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@BobOrtonJR<\/a> and uncle to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RandyOrton?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@RandyOrton<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TGMqKNwLWc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/TGMqKNwLWc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Wrestling Travel (@WrestlingTravel) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WrestlingTravel\/status\/1373390271463981060?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 20, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Barry&#8217;s father, &#8220;The Big O&#8221; Bob Orton Sr., was a wrestling star in the 1950s and 1960s, working for multiple territories of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), as well as Capitol Sports (the pre-cursor to WWE) and American Wrestling Association (AWA), where he was a 2x AWA World Heavyweight Champion. In 1972, his eldest son, Bob Orton Jr., became a pro wrestler, and in 1976, the younger Barry would also enter the family business. As Barry Orton, he began working in his home state of Missouri, competing for <strong>NWA Central States<\/strong>. Over the next few years, he would work multiple NWA territories, including <strong>Big Time Wrestling<\/strong> in California, <strong>Big Time Wrestling<\/strong> in Dallas (later to become WCCW), <strong>NWA Pacific Northwest<\/strong> in Portland, and <strong>Georgia Championship Wrestling<\/strong>. He also appeared for <strong>Angelo Poffo<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;outlaw&#8221; promotion, <strong>International Championship Wrestling (ICW), <\/strong>in 1979, and that same year won the NWA Americas Tag Team titles alongside <strong>Hector Guerrero<\/strong> in <strong>NWA Hollywood<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kevin Sullivan &amp; Barry Orton vs. Karl &amp; Kurt Von Steiger\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1WXVGcTFsNE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>He joined <strong>Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling<\/strong> (Jim Crockett&#8217;s promotion in the Carolinas) in 1983, but by 1985, he had joined his big brother in the WWF. But while Bob Orton Jr. was in the main event as the bodyguard of <strong>Rowdy Roddy Piper<\/strong> against <strong>Hulk Hogan<\/strong>, Barry Orton &#8211; renamed to simply Barry O &#8211; became one of the WWF&#8217;s most famous enhancement talents for WWF&#8217;s Rock N&#8217; Wrestling Era of the 1980s. In 1987, he briefly competed for <strong>Stampede Wrestling<\/strong> in Canada as the masked <strong>Zodiac<\/strong>, the wrestling manager of <strong>Jason The Terrible<\/strong>, but continued to work as Barry O until 1991. His last WWF appearance was (shockingly) a loss to <strong>Jake &#8220;The Snake&#8221; Roberts<\/strong> on a March 1991 episode of <em><strong>WWF Wrestling Challenge<\/strong><\/em>. Orton would retire from pro wrestling altogether in 1992. In 2011, he would make a brief return to the ring as part of a Legends Battle Royal with <strong>Pro Wrestling Guerrilla<\/strong> at <em><strong>PWG Kurt Russellreunion 2<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bret Hart vs. Barry O (WWF 1991)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3XerhYGVMPI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>LWOPW sends its condolences to the Orton family as well as Barry\u2019s friends, peers, and fans around the world.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was announced on Saturday that Barry Orton &#8211; best remembered as WWF enhancement talent Barry O &#8211; had passed away. He was 62 years old. Barry Orton is the younger brother of WWE Hall of Famer &#8220;Cowboy&#8221; Bob &#8220;Ace&#8221; Orton Jr., son of Bob Orton Sr., and uncle of current WWE Superstar Randy Orton. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":87242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,547,3],"tags":[771,540],"class_list":["post-87237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-memorium","category-wwe-universe","tag-nwa","tag-wwf"],"modified_by":"Marilee Gallagher, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}