Andrew Lutzke
In the wake of a sudden and unexpected death, often the reality of the deceased life becomes mired in hyperbolic sanctity as human nature overtakes the true tale. I will attempt to leave emotions aside and offer a look at The Ultimate Warrior’s life through his actions and my personal reflections.
Your opinion on the Warrior probably depends on when you became a fan, or if you personally knew him. The Warrior’s prominent spot in this weekend’s Wrestlemania festivities allowed for a cross section of the Internet wrestling community to reveal their thoughts on the Warrior.
His wrestling trainer, Rick Bassman, took to Facebook on Sunday and bashed Warrior for ignoring his contribution to Warrior’s career during the Warrior’s lengthy Hall of Fame acceptance speech/diatribe. Others like Hulk Hogan played nice in order to keep the peace, and Hogan posted on Facebook that he was glad to have the Warrior back in the WWF family and hoped the Warrior found the same inner peace that Hogan now enjoys. Hogan chose to ignore the years of mockery the Warrior tossed his way – with the Warrior going as far as suggesting Hogan was a womanizer, a wife swapper and having homosexual relations with lifelong friend Brutus Beefcake.
Some old time fans however also spit venom at the Warrior – reminding us that he was no catch as catch can style worker or simply taking delight in what appeared to be a out of shape individual who struggled a bit to get through his Monday Night Raw appearance without becoming winded. I even saw at least one poster suggest Warrior may have heart issues and they felt that was “deliciously ironic” given that Warrior himself wished ill on many that he had long standing issues with.
I myself am basically Vince McMahon’s perfect example for what he wished to accomplish as he took the wrestling world by storm. I was not yet 2 years of age when Hulkamania kicked off in the WWF in late 1983 but by the time of Wrestlemania 1 a year later, I was a fully mesmerized fan despite not yet being 3 years old. My baby book speaks of my wrestling love as my toddler self was going ga-ga over Hillbilly Jim, The Junkyard Dog and especially Hulk Hogan. This love affair at such a tender age only blossomed more and more and thus by the time The Ultimate Warrior stormed into the WWF in late 1987, wrestling was in my blood for life.
Warrior was born June 16, 1959. He took up lifting weights by the age of eleven and became a professional body builder by the very early eighties. He enjoyed some success in that regard and placed in several competitions – culminating in a win at the Mr. Georgia competition in 1984. A year later Warrior’s next calling came about as he joined a small group of body builders in being trained by Rick Bassman and Red Bastien. “Power Team USA” ended up with only two stand outs: Warrior and Steve Borden (Sting). The others quickly fizzled out of the business.
Warrior and Borden worked as “The Freedom Fighters” briefly and then altered their gimmicks to better copy the success of the Road Warriors, who had taken the wrestling world by storm in under 2 years. Now dubbed The Blade Runners, the green and muscle bound pair found little success in the southern territories like Memphis and eventually they moved on to the Mid-South territory, where they became Eddie Gilbert’s hired muscle in “Hot Stuff International” in 1986. It was in Mid-South where the two men reached a career divergence, as Sting branched off into singles competion and Warrior wound up moving on to Texas as the babyface “Dingo Warrior”.
Warrior received a modest push in the World Class Championship Wrestling area, but the territory was dying as fast as the talent was and thus the big money was in a wrestling area that had national exposure. By 1987, this meant either Jim Crockett Promotions or the WWF, assuming you wanted to stay in North America. New Japan was reportedly interested in Warrior to portray their “Big Van Vader” gimmick, but the WWF signed him up in June of that year. Crockett really wouldn’t have been a good fit, as they by and large expected you to know how to work longer matches and have a solid wrestling skill base – very few men ventured into JCP who looked or worked like the Warrior. The Warlord and Nikita Koloff are the closest examples to a successful roid monkey in Crockett-land.
The WWF brought Warrior along very slowly and it wasn’t until late fall that he started to receive a push. This is the earliest time I can personally recall the Warrior as he snapped Hercules’ chain during an angle that led to their Wrestlemania 4 collision. After that Vince strapped the rocket ship to Warrior’s back and he became a hero to millions. The Honky Tonk Man had kept the WWF IC title for 14 months through chicanery like having himself disqualified or simply running away and taking a count out loss. The Warrior proved to have the perfect gameplan to counteract Honky’s behavior at Summerslam ’88: run through him like a truck through a produce stand & pin him before he has a chance to weasel out of the match.
After that the next eight months saw the Warrior buzz through many mid-card heels until Bobby “The Brain” Heenan outsmarted the Warrior and helped Rick Rude cheat the Warrior out of the title at Wrestlemania 5. Thankfully for all the little Warriors like myself, Warrior overcame this and regained the title at Summerslam ’89 to the delight of millions. That fall, the Warrior battled the Heenan Family’s lethal weapon in Andre the Giant – and fans were shocked to see Andre bested in mere seconds during many of these encounters. The legendary Giant had taken Hulk Hogan to the limit only 2 years earlier and now this wild man was downing him with ease nightly.
Another super heavyweight arose the ire of the Warrior when John Tenta debuted in October of 1989 as a “fan” planted by Jimmy Hart to trick the Warrior into a beatdown to soften him up for Dino Bravo. I reenacted this angle with my brother, who was ten years older than I – I portrayed Tenta…Needless to say, I fared poorly in that afternoon scuffle.
While feuding with Tenta (now dubbed “Earthquake”) and Bravo, the Warrior had a chance meeting during the 1990 Royal Rumble with World Champion Hulk Hogan. After a taste of the seismic shock that Hulkamania colliding with the Warrior caused, Jack Tunney signed the two to meet in the main event of Wrestlemania 6.
This match allows for a chance to look at one of the unnecessary ways the Warrior was attacked decades later in the infamous “Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior” documentary. A segment of that DVD was focused on mocking the Warrior’s promo style and verbiage. However Warrior was not that much worse than the wacky stuff that Hogan, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Roddy Piper and other top guys were coming up with during their cocaine fueled promo sessions. (Seriously, if you have the WWE Network, go watch any show from 1990/1991 and find a non-Jake Roberts promo that doesn’t involve screaming.)
Anyway, Hogan and Warrior ended up having a shockingly watchable match. If you were 8 years old like I was, this was like having He-Man collide with Superman but in real life – a mind blowing experience! Hogan would lose that day, but he made sure to make himself the center of attention after the bout. Hogan dramatically sulked mid ring and then slowly retrieved the World title he was no longer the claimant to and embraced his conqueror mid-ring, before making a sympathy inducing exit.
Hogan had also left the unvanquished foe list remarkably small, and Warrior was stuck working with Rick Rude for the second time within a year. Warrior then moved on to feuding with Mr. Perfect, who Hogan had already beaten multiple times on national TV. By January of 1991, Warrior’s drawing power was low enough that his title reign was cut short and Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter pinned the Warrior for the title (with the help of Randy Savage). The mood around that match, and the Warrior’s failure to provide jingoistic closure for America, opened the doors for Hulk Hogan to step in and save the day. I can personally vouch for that being a gut wrenching match to watch, even while being too young to appreciate the complexities of the Gulf War.
Warrior went on to have a fantastic match with Savage at Wrestlemania 7, briefly ending Savage’s career (and in essence, kicking off his return via the Elizabeth post-match angle). However Warrior became entrapped in the mind games of Jake “The Snake” Roberts and found himself at the mercy of Jake and the Undertaker’s evil deeds. Backstage, Warrior was becoming hard to deal with, as he looked at the WWF as a business and refused to be a part of the traveling circus unless he was fiscally rewarded properly. The financial wars between he and Vince finally came to a head in late August of 1991 and Warrior left the WWF.
His return eight months later at Wrestlemania 8 was a genuine shock. By then the Warrior provided much needed star power as Vince McMahon was phasing out a lot of his 80’s stars in order to freshen up his roster and hopefully return the WWF to greater prosperity. Warrior had a great amount of creative control during this period and it led to goofy angles with Papa Shango in between genuinely interesting feuds with friend/enemy Randy Savage and Ric Flair. Dave Meltzer recently reported Warrior failed every steroid test he was given during this run, and that became a key reason for Warrior being fired/quitting at the same time as fellow roid freak Davey Boy Smith. Both men missed scheduled matches at Survivor Series that year due to being released.
Warrior entered into relative obscurity for the next 3 years, making very infrequent independent show appearances. Hulk Hogan meanwhile joined WCW in 1994 and a year later created a Warrior clone named the Renegade, largely implying during the build up to Renegade’s debut that it was in fact the Warrior himself that was going to appear. Meanwhile in late 1995 rumors started to circulate that the Warrior would appear in the 1996 Royal Rumble, but the WWF and Warrior didn’t come to terms in time. The Warrior did ultimately (pardon the pun) re-sign with Vince in the spring and one of the big selling points of Wrestlemania 12 was the reemergence of the Warrior. HHH and others may have frowned on the squash match he endured as the Warrior’s chosen opponent, but in my opinion that was the vintage Warrior that the fans wanted to see on that night.
The rest of Warrior’s run was unremarkable, as it seemed the WWF wanted to protect its up and coming heels like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Mankind and so the Warrior was left with having a schmozz with Goldust (designed to put Warrior over without hurting Goldust who was suppose to have a World title chase at house shows soon after). Things weren’t much better after that when announcer Jerry Lawler was deemed the Warrior’s next PPV challenge. Warrior was finally given a headline feud as he and Vader were set to battle, but the Warrior missed some shows in the summer due to his father dying, and Vince saw fit to use that as an excuse to rid himself of Warrior’s big ego, fat contract and suddenly limited drawing power. I was actually at the RAW taping where Warrior had his last WWF televised match (vs. Owen Hart). The Warrior then went to the internet to defend himself and offer his side of the story. Shockingly RAW magazine editor Vince Russo chose to print this anti-WWF rant and Russo even sided with Warrior in the article!
Warrior returned to obscurity until Hulk Hogan decided that he wanted his win back in late 1998. WCW then paid the Warrior an ungodly sum of money to work only 3 matches (including a tainted loss to Hogan) before paying him to sit at home. Warrior spent much of the next 14 years becoming a pariah via internet rants against Vince, Hogan and others. He also was given infrequent opportunities to give public speeches – during one of which he uttered the infamous phrase “queering don’t make the world work”. Warrior competed in one final match in 2008 for a foreign money mark – he bested Orlando Jordon.
Not much else was noteworthy from Warrior after that until early this year when it was revealed that HHH had mended the long hurt feelings between Vince and the Warrior and thus the Warrior would be the keynote inductee in this year’s WWE Hall of Fame. His speech was impromptu and he seemed to hold back some desired remarks in order to keep the peace. He received a warm reception at the jam packed Superdome for Wrestlemania 30 and then delivered what almost served as his own eulogy the following night on Raw:
“Every man’s heart one day beats its final beat. His lungs breathe a final breath. And if what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others, and makes them bleed deeper, and something larger than life, then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalized.”
