The Expendables 2 opened recently, featuring a lineup of action stars that would have made your face melt into a puddle of your own molten tears of joy if they had all been together in a movie in 1989, including Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme (who is the villain of the movie, and is named… Vilain…), Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris and Dolph Lundgren. Why didn’t they do a movie like this back then? Wouldn’t it have been the highest-grossing movie of the decade? I suppose the egos of these guys just wouldn’t have allowed it, and we’ll never know how awesome that would have been. Now that it’s 2012, it’s cool to see these guys together in a movie, but instead of it being a fun nostalgia trip, it just feels kind of sad that they’re getting old and are way past their primes. Sylvester Stallone looks like one of the plastic knock-off Rambo action figures your grandmother would buy you at a dollar store for Christmas 1987.

So while The Expendables 2 could possibly be an entertaining flick (I’ll find out next year when my wife dozes off and it comes on Cinemax), it’s not going to be the showdown for the title of top action star that we all wanted 20 years ago. All we can do know is look back, overanalyze things and reach a sketchy conclusion. Let’s take a look at the top action stars from 1980, dawn of the decade of the high-octane action film, to 2000, when it seems like we weren’t really making these kinds of movies anymore (and remember, we’re only talking about the high-octane-high-body-count-blood-and-guts-ridiculously-big-explosions variety here, so guys like Harrison Ford and Jackie Chan are out). We’ll do this super-scientifically through a sophisticated points system to determine the overall winner!:

SCORING SYSTEM

Defining action movies 1980-2000: (Classic movies that made his career what it is) 5 points each

Not great but watchable action movies: (Maybe not classics but they have good action so they’re worth a watch) 1 point each

Just plain bad action movies: (Tried to go back to the well and missed the mark) -1 point each

WHAT WAS HE THINKING??!: (Horrible crap and/or something outside of his action wheelhouse that shouldn’t have been attempted and just brings down his other accomplishments) -2 points each

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Defining action movies 1980-2000: Conan the Barbarian; The Terminator; Commando; Predator; The Running Man; Total Recall; Kindergarten Cop; Terminator 2; True Lies

Not great but watchable action movies: Conan the Destroyer; Raw Deal; Red Heat; Last Action Hero; Eraser

Just plain bad action movies: Red Sonja; End of Days; The 6th Day

WHAT WAS HE THINKING??!: Junior; Jingle All the Way; Batman & Robin

Score: 41

Well here you go, the clear winner by a mile. It wasn’t even close. Arnold just had a charisma and style that nobody else could touch. His best action movies are classics. It’s basically unimaginable now to picture anyone else in the role of The Terminator. Even a movie with a premise as dumb as Kindergarten Cop he made into an enjoyable action/comedy. Simply put, there’s never been anyone like Arnold, and it doesn’t seem like there ever will be again.

Sylvester Stallone

Defining action movies 1980-2000: Rocky III; First Blood; Rambo: First Blood Part II; Rocky IV; Tango & Cash

Not great but watchable action movies: Nighthawks; Cobra; Cliffhanger; Demolition Man; The Specialist; Assassins

Just plain bad action movies: Over the Top; Rambo III; Lock Up; Rocky V; Judge Dredd; Daylight; Get Carter

WHAT WAS HE THINKING??!: Rhinestone; Oscar; Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

Score: 18

A surprisingly low score for Sly, I thought it would have been a little closer between him and Arnold. But Sly just didn’t have as many gems as you’d think. I think I’m actually being generous with Rocky III, The Specialist, Assassins, Nighthawks and Cobra. And while Rocky IV is an iconic ’80s action movie, it’s really not as good as people think (training montage, “I’m having doubts!”, training montage, “No, Rocky, seriously, you can do it!”, training montage, “I have confidence!”, fight). Rocky and Rambo were just the tentpoles of his career, and everything else pretty much sagged from them.

Jean-Claude Van Damme

Defining action movies 1980-2000: Bloodsport; Kickboxer

Not great but watchable action movies: No Retreat, No Surrender; Cyborg; Lionheart; Death Warrant; Double Impact; Universal Soldier; Nowhere to Run; Hard Target; Sudden Death; Legionnaire

Just plain bad action movies: Timecop; The Quest; Maximum Risk; Double Team; Knock Off; Universal Soldier: The Return

WHAT WAS HE THINKING??!: Street Fighter

Score: 12

JCVD, as his friends call him, but he’s got no friends, was seemingly poised to run with the muscular-foreigner-with-a-funny-accent flag planted by Arnold (plus martial arts skills, dance moves and splits galore!), but he never achieved anywhere near the same level of success. Maybe it was because his acting wasn’t as good and his accent was harder to understand. While Arnold took a dumb premise like Kindergarten Cop and made it decent, Van Damme couldn’t do the same with something like Timecop, which probably would have been cool if Arnold was the star. And the rest of Van Damme’s movies are all kind of rinse-and-repeat. For example, if you can spot the difference between Nowhere to Run and Hard Target at first glance then you’re probably one of the cyborgs from Cyborg.

Bruce Willis

Defining action movies 1980-2000: Die Hard; The Fifth Element

Not great but watchable action movies: Die Hard 2; The Last Boy Scout; Striking Distance; Last Man Standing; Die Hard With a Vengeance

Just plain bad action movies: Color of Night

WHAT WAS HE THINKING??!: Hudson Hawk

Score: 12

In a bit of an eyebrow-raiser, Willis scores the same score as Van Damme. He’s definitely not your typical action star, but his quality trumps Van Damme’s quantity. Plus, he can act his way out of a paper bag. Willis should probably be graded on a curve over Van Damme, since Die Hard is probably the best action movie in this 20-year span among these guys (yes, I’d watch Die Hard over Terminator 2 any day, especially on Judgment Day). Even Die Hard 2, which really isn’t that great, is like, well, Die Hard compared to 90% of Van Damme’s flicks.

Chuck Norris

Defining action movies 1980-2000: Missing in Action; The Delta Force

Not great but watchable action movies: The Octagon; Lone Wolf McQuade

Just plain bad action movies: Eye for an Eye; Silent Rage; Forced Vengeance; Missing in Action 2: The Beginning; Code of Silence; Invasion USA; Firewalker; Braddock: Missing in Action III; Hero and the Terror; Delta Force 2; The Hitman; Hellbound

WHAT WAS HE THINKING??!: Sidekicks; Top Dog; Forest Warrior

Score: -6

Chuck Norris sucks. Many of his movie titles sound like hardcore gay pornos (Forced Vengeance; Invasion USA; Top Dog; etc.). I’m not sure why he ever got work. Just because he was Bruce Lee’s punching bag at one point? He brings virtually nothing to the table. Any other action guy of the era could have stepped into these roles and done a better job.

Dolph Lundgren

Defining action movies 1980-2000: Rocky IV

Not great but watchable action movies: Showdown in Little Tokyo; Universal Soldier

Just plain bad action movies: Red Scorpion; Dark Angel; Cover Up; Army of One; Pentathlon; Men of War; Johnny Mnemonic; Hidden Assassin; Silent Trigger; The Peacekeeper; The Minion; Sweepers; Bridge of Dragons; Stormcatcher

WHAT WAS HE THINKING??!: Masters of the Universe; The Punisher

Score: -11

Wow, Dolph Lundgren is terrible. He should have never not played a mysterious Russian. He can barely talk. I don’t think he was doing a bad foreign accent in Rocky IV, he just sounds that way. This also helped him in the role of a reanimated corpse/cyborg in Universal Soldier. It just goes to show that just because you’re a big dude who looks intimidating doesn’t mean you can be a movie star (see also: Stone Cold Steve Austin).

BONUS: Steven Seagal

Defining action movies 1980-2000: Above the Law; Under Siege

Not great but watchable action movies: Hard to Kill; Marked for Death; Out for Justice

Just plain bad action movies: On Deadly Ground; Under Siege 2: Dark Territory; The Glimmer Man; Fire Down Below

WHAT WAS HE THINKING??!: The Patriot

Score: 7

Even though he was in no way associated with The Expendables movies (probably because those guys hate him), I felt like Seagal deserved mention on this list as another guy firmly in the action movie spotlight in the ’80s and ’90s. Seagal’s kind of a different beast because his movies were less about explosions and more about philosophy and that slapping-the-bad-guy’s-hands-away-a-lot-type of martial arts he does. His flicks are pretty entertaining, although pretty similar. Unfortunately, when he got popular enough he started to really crowbar in his odd environmental and spiritual message schtick (On Deadly Ground and Fire Down Below, in particular). He just got too preachy for his own good. And too fat.