Winona Barkley (September 5, 1955 - May 10, 2020) was professional wrestler better known by the ring names Winona Littleheart (sometimes billed as Wenona Littleheart and The Lock).
Career[]
Barkley was the daughter of the daughter of wrestler/booker/promoter "Dirty" Dick Barkley and older sister of fellow wrestler Peggy Lee.
Early Years[]
Barkley started wrestling in the Southeastern territories as Winona Littleheart, wearing traditional Navajo attire, making her debut in a 10 Woman Battle Royal on a Georgia Championship Wrestling card at The Omni, January 1st, 1976. Littleheart would become a regular in the Georgia territory and became involved in hard fought matches with The Fabulous Moolah and Toni Rose.
Littleheart continued on to Paul Boesch's Houston territory, where she won the NWA United States Women's Championship via forfeit on the 5th of October 1980, and would go on to defended it against Judy Martin, Leilani Kai, Suzette Ferreira, Wendi Richter (whom she co-trained) and others.
World Wrestling Federation[]
Littleheart made frequent appearances in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Often wrestling against the likes of The Fabulous Moolah, Leilani Kai and Judy Martin. She also formed a tag team with fellow "Giant killer" Susan Starr and they wrestled the team of Leilani Kai and Peggy Lee Leather in the US and on Asian and Middle-Eastern tours.
She was a challenger to WWF Women's Champion Leilani Kai and The Fabulous Moolah.
Championship Wrestling from Florida[]
In 1985, Winona Littleheart, Peggy Lee Leather, Lady Maxine split with The Fabulous Moolah and the WWE and became part of the regular roster for Championship Wrestling from Florida, where Barkley was initially billed as the Windham's childhood friend Cindy Lou, but wound up as a member of Kevin Sullivan's "Army of Darkness", who renamed her The Lock and along with Fallen Angel would often interfere on behalf of Sullivan.
The Daughters of Darkness[]
Upon Luna Vachon joining the Army of Darkness she and The Lock formed a tag team known as The Daughters Of Darkness. They were managed at different times by Oliver Humperdink and Nasty Ronnie from the Nasty Savage band. Lock and Luna both provided back-up vocals for a track on Nasty Savage's 1987 album "Indulgence".
They eventually moved on to Women's Championship Wrestling (Tor Berg's precursor to the Ladies Professional Wrestling Association, where they won the tag team championship. They would go on to defend that championship in the Continental Wrestling Association, Florida independent scene and Japanese Women Pro-Wrestling Project in Japan under the management of Paul Vachon.
Independents and Retirement[]
The Lock joined the upstart Delta Tiger Lillies promotion out of San Francisco, California, there she feuded with Kat LeRoux and her manager "Spike".
Winnie went into retirement in 1992 after a run in the Georgia independent scene wrestling for Georgia All-Star Wrestling, North Georgia Wrestling Alliance, Deep South Wrestling and others. Winnie would come out of retirement in the mid nineties to wrestle Leilani Kai on NWA Mid-Atlantic shows promoted by Rikki Nelson.
Winona Barkley passed away after a long battle with kidney disease on May 10th, 2020 at the age of 64.
Championships and accomplishments[]
- Girl's Wrestling Magazine
- 1976 Rookie Of The Year
- National Wrestling Alliance
- NWA United States Women's Championship (1 time)
- Women's Championship Wrestling
- WCW World Women's Tag Team Championship (1 time) with Luna Vachon
