Formed in 1985, the Four Horsemen was a union of four of the most dominant heels in WCW: Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, and Ole Anderson. In the 15 years that followed, the Horsemen have worked as both babyfaces and heels, and experienced lineup changes that resulted in the addition of members like Barry Windham, Dean Malenko, Lex Luger, and even Sting at one point.
Over the years, the Horsemen have enjoyed a number of feuds, regardless of alignment, with singles wrestlers, tag teams, and even entire rival factions. Let’s take a look at all the Four Horsemen feuds worth talking about, starting with the worst one.
11 The Dungeon Of Doom
Initially, the Four Horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom were aligned, as both groups were determined to put an end to Hulk Hogan and Hulkamania at large. However, after Hogan beat both teams and moved on, the Horsemen and the Dungeon turned their attention to one another as the Dungeon’s Kevin Sullivan and the Horsemen’s Chris Benoit got into a feud over Sullivan’s real-life wife Nancy, a relationship that also took place behind the scenes. It’s a strange feud for the theatrical Dungeon of Doom to be involved in, even if one disregards the retroactive discomfort.
10 Jeff Jarrett
The year 1996 saw Jeff Jarrett jump from WWE to WCW, where he tried his hardest to ingratiate himself with the Four Horsemen. Ric Flair was amenable to bringing Double J into the group, but the rest of the Horsemen kind of hated his guts. Things only got worse as Jarrett began romancing Steve “Mongo” McMichael’s wife, Debra, which caused huge amounts of turmoil in the group. Rather than beat him up, the Ric Flair simply dismissed Jarrett from the group, though he ended up taking Debra and Mongo’s United States Heavyweight Championship in the process.
9 Ronnie Garvin
In the late 1980s, Ric Flair had the NWA World Championship, but wanted more — namely, Ronnie Garvin’s manager/wife, Precious. Flair at one point defeated Garvin to win a date with Precious, but their feud intensified as Garvin dethroned “The Nature Boy” as World Champion in September of 1987.
Ronnie Garvin’s unlikely World Title win forced the new champ to deal with the rest of the Four Horsemen, who sought retribution, but it was Flair who ended up successfully getting his retribution anyway. At Starrcade ‘87, Garvin’s brief world title run came to an end as Flair won the belt back, ending what would be a forgotten reign.
8 J-Tex Corporation
By 1988, the Four Horsemen lost members Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard to WWE, and a new (albeit short-lived) heel faction rose in its ashes: the J-Tex Corporation. Headed by underrated manager Gary Hart, the group combined Japanese and Texas wrestlers, with a spotlight on Terry Funk and The Great Muta. The Four Horsemen combated them as a babyface group, with its lineup featuring Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Ole Anderson, and Sting, with major clashes happening at Clash of the Champions 8 and Halloween Havoc ‘89.
7 The Road Warriors
One of the most dominant tag teams of the 1980s were Animal and Hawk, The Road Warriors — later known as The Legion of Doom — a duo of gigantic, intense men working a Mad Max-inspired gimmick. As staples of WCW’s tag team division, they of course had to feud with the Four Horsemen’s resident tag team, which at the time was Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. And, since multiple wrestlers were feuding with The Four Horsemen, it only made sense for the babyfaces to team up, leading to the landmark first WarGames match as Animal, Hawk, Dusty Rhodes, and Nikita Koloff took on the Horsemen in the violent cage match.
6 The Hollywood Blondes
In 1993, the Four Horsemen were a pale shade of what they once were. An attempted reunion resulted in a notably weak three-person Horsemen configuration that featured Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, and former WWE tag team specialist Paul Roma. But the group did have a solid feud with Steve Austin and Brian Pillman, The Hollywood Blondes. The younger tag team lampooned Flair and Anderson for being aging veterans, resulting in the Blondes defending the Tag Team Title against their elders in a fun match at Beach Blast ‘93.
5 The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express
The other big babyface tag team in the NWA in the 1980s was The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express — Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson — whose plucky good guy nature made them perfect foils for the Four Horsemen. When Morton scored a title shot at Ric Flair by scoring a roll-up victory over “the Nature Boy” in a non-title match, the Horsemen broke his nose as punishment. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express enjoyed several tag team matches against the Four Horsemen, defending the belts against Arn and Ole Anderson and later dropping the belts to the Arn/Tully duo.
4 The New World Order
For the most part, The Four Horsemen’s babyface runs are a matter of circumstance rather than anything necessarily heroic. In 1996, Hulk Hogan turned heel and formed the New World Order in an attempt to take WCW by force, so the Four Horsemen pretty much became a babyface resistance force by default.
In their attempt to defend WCW, the Horsemen had two WarGames matches with the nWo, both of which went poorly. In 1996, Sting walked out on the team and Lex Luger submitted to the impostor Sting to end the match. In 1997, Curt Hennig ended up betraying the Horsemen and defected to the nWo.
3 Magnum T.A.
Before his career was cut tragically short in 1986, Magnum T.A. had the momentum to be the top babyface in WCW and even a World Champion, and that upward trajectory was bolstered by his feud with the Four Horsemen. The signature rivalry for Magnum in this period was with Tully Blanchard, who ended up capturing Magnum’s United States Heavyweight Title, only for Magnum T.A. to win it back in their classic, violent I Quit match at Starrcade ‘85. In addition, Magnum T.A. also had a shot at Ric Flair’s World Title, albeit was unsuccessful in his efforts.
2 Sting
In the late 1980s, an up-and-coming Sting was flagged to be WCW’s next top babyface, and as part of that he got into a feud with the Four Horsemen, with Sting challenging Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Title in a star-making effort at the first Clash of the Champions. In the ensuing years, Sting was a constant target for the Horsemen, repeatedly being duped into trusting them only to be betrayed in the process. Even when Sting joined the group to help them battle the J-Tex Corporation, the group turned on him as soon as he made moves to challenge Ric Flair for the World Title.
1 Dusty Rhodes
While Sting was a major rival for the Horsemen, the group wouldn’t be what it became if it weren't for “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. The working class Dusty Rhodes and the wealth-obsessed Ric Flair were bitter rivals with diametrically opposed sensibilities, and their feud intensified once the Four Horsemen united. From there, the Horsemen committed some infamous acts against Dusty Rhodes, including a violent parking lot beatdown where they broke Dusty’s arm with a baseball bat.