by Eugene

Try to imagine the worst co-worker you’ve ever had. He was self-absorbed, self-righteous, and very, very indignant. He was sure he was always right, and he had no problem telling you so. And yet, for all his faults, you couldn’t get rid of him. Maybe he was married to the boss’s daughter. Maybe the clients inexplicably loved him. Whatever the case, he was untouchable. But as with all things, there comes an end. The golden child who was the bane of your existence falls out of favor. Suddenly, everyone sees through his act and he’s grown tiresome. The company decides that they’re better off without him, lost sales be damned, and they jettison him from the organization and your life.

This pretty fairly sums up the state of affairs as they exist between World Wrestling Entertainment and their former champion, the Ultimate Warrior. Formerly known as Jim Helwig (he had his name legally changed to “Warrior” after departing the company in order to continue using the name without running afoul of trademark laws), the Warrior crashed and burned as quickly as he had arrived on the scene. The man whose trademark was to frenetically scamper to the ring enjoyed a similar sprint to the top of his profession, knocking down whoever stood in his way.

The Warrior initially made his mark by wrestling in independent territories as part of the “Bladerunners” tag team, which saw him team with future WCW star Sting. At the time, the Warrior went by the name of “Bladerunner Rock.” After splitting ways with Sting, the Warrior debuted with the WWE (then called the World Wrestling Federation) in 1987 under the name “the Dingo Warrior.” Suitably unimpressed with the Dingo name, WWF Chairman Vince McMahon insisted on a name change. At the time, the Road Warriors were dominating the tag team scene in the South. Kerry Von Erich was wrestling as “the Modern Day Warrior.” With his bodybuilder’s physique and rock star hair, McMahon saw Helwig as “the Ultimate Warrior,” and the name stuck.

The Warrior was perhaps the first professional wrestler to make his ring entrance a large part of his gimmick. The heavy throttle of guitar chords heralded his entrance, and he frantically sprinted to ringside, boot and bicep tassles fluttering in his wake. Yes, he tied tassels to his biceps. And often, they were neon pink and green. It was that familiar entrance music that had the entirety of Madison Square Garden on their feet at Summerslam in 1988 when the Warrior made an appearance as the Honky Tonk Man’s surprise opponent for the Intercontinental Championship he had held for 15 months. After rushing into the ring and making the Garden nearly explode with enthusiasm, the Warrior squashed the Honky Tonk Man in 51 seconds flat. Thirty-seven seconds, if you exclude the Warrior’s entrance.

At times, the Warrior exerted himself so much just during his ring entrance that by the time he entered the ring for his match, he was already physically spent. It was no matter though, because the Warrior’s matches were fast paced and tended to end quickly, so as not to expose his lack of in-ring ability.

And that was the Warrior’s greatest failing, harped on often by various commentators on the DVD. Former wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan and Ted DiBiase comment extensively on the Warrior’s inability to properly carry a match. Hogan remarked that he knew the Warrior’s feud with Randy “Macho Man” Savage would produce some of the Warrior’s best matches, because Savage was so exacting and precise in planning his matches that the Warrior would have little room for error.

The Warrior faced HHH in HHH’s first Wrestlemania in’96. The future son-in-law of the WWE’s Chairman said the Warrior “ruined the experience for me,” and described the Warrior as “the most unprofessional guy” he had ever faced in the ring.

Longtime wrestling manager, color commentator and WWE Hall of Famer Bobby “the Brain” Heenan also comments extensively on the career of the Warrior. The man known to fans as “The Weasel” doesn’t have fond memories of his dealings with the Warrior, and he relates the story of a match where the Warrior faced off against Heenan, with the planned end result being that Heenan would lose, be “knocked unconscious,” and the Warrior would outfit him in a weasel costume. As the Warrior performed his familiar gorilla press on Heenan to end the match, he appeared to lose his grip and simply dropped Heenan at an awkward angle behind him. Heenan was infuriated and suggested that the Warrior was a dangerous wrestler to work with because of his disregard for the safety of his fellow workers.

Beyond that, “He never understood how a match worked,” Heenan discloses. “He was one of those guys . . . you just couldn’t tell him.” Heenan goes on to relate the story of a series of matches between the Warrior and the late Andre the Giant in which the Giant took issue with the Warrior working much "stiffer" (or harder) than was necessary. After repeated matches where the Warrior went against instruction and belted the Giant harder than they had agreed, one night, the Giant simply stuck his fist out as the Warrior ran into it, face-first, full steam.

But the problems with the Warrior went beyond troubles in the ring. “You just couldn’t tell what he was talking about,” WWE Hall of Famer Sgt. Slaughter says in the DVD. As best as humanly possible, the following is the unabridged, transcribed text of a promo by the Warrior that is immortalized on the DVD. To achieve the full effect of the lunacy conveyed in the DVD, one has to imagine a fully ‘roided man in full makeup screaming each and every word at you, looking as if he’s a heartbeat away from a full brain hemorrhage:

I WAS SITTING IN A CASTLE, IN A PLACE NOT FAR FROM HERE. AND I CAME HERE FOR ONE REASON: TO ATTACK AND KEEP COMING. NOT TO ASK, BUT JUST TO GIVE. NOT TO WANT, BUT JUST TO SEND. SEEN THE POWER OF THE WARRIOR DOWN THE THROAT OF EVERYONE IN THE WWF UNTIL THEY BECOME SICK OF IT. WELL YOU’RE GONNA GET SICK OF IT, BECAUSE THIS FREAK OF NATURE IS JUST BEGINNING TO SWELL. AND WHEN I GET BIG ENOUGH BROTHER, THERE AIN’T GONNA BE ROOM FOR ANYONE ELSE BUT ME AND ALL THE WARRIORS FLOATIN’ THROUGH THE VEINS OF ALL THE WARRIORS...

During an aborted attempt to transcribe another promo, the words “lawnmower” and “lions” appeared to have been uttered in the same breath. “It was as if he was speaking in tongues,” McMahon said.

The baffling and spectacularly nonsensical promos by the Warrior may be his most significant contribution to the history of professional wrestling. They certainly occupy a good portion of the DVD. One spends a not insignificant – and always entertaining – amount of time watching this man huffing and puffing and snorting his way through a promo, pumping his tasseled arms in the air, bulging chest pocked by steroid-induced acne.

But the best part of the DVD may very well be the chapter where they talk about his promos and splice it with snippets from McMahon and current WWE wrestler Chris Jericho. The funniest bits, in fact, are when Edge and Christian – two WWE wrestlers who were likely in middle or grade school during the height of the Warrior’s career – duplicate the promos the Warrior cut on Hulk Hogan prior to Wrestlemania VI. The WWE is wise enough to give us an uncut version of Christian’s take as a DVD extra, and it alone is worth the price of admission.

Buy "WWE: The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior"

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