In Defense of…03.01.06: The Ultimate Warrior (Part 3 of 3)
Posted by JP Prag on 03.01.2006
The Ultimate Extended-Edition Conclusion!!!!
In Defense of…
By JP Prag
Issue #44
The Ultimate Warrior (Part 3 of 3)
Intro
Happy March!!! And welcome back to In Defense Of…! I'm sure you've read the title of the case, so read Part 1 and then read Part 2… or read neither of them and just read the stenography. Actually, read the stenography anyway! I spend a lot of time on that.
And while you feel like reading things, you need to check out the most positive article in the IWC, Hidden Highlights! JT and I spend every Sunday showing how the little things make a huge difference in wrestling.
But if you don't feel like reading anything more than this issue, then let me help you out. For those new to the concept, this article has a pretty simple premise:
Certain people, events, organizations, and storylines in wrestling history have gotten a bum wrap. Some writers have presented overtly critical comments and outright lies as fact, and others have followed suit. Well no more! "In Defense of…" has one reason: to bring the truth to the wrestling fan!
And that's what I intend to do.
Me? I'm the One and Only JP, and I stupidly got into playing Final Fantasy 5 again so that I've neglected everything else that needs doing. I didn't have a Super Nintendo growing up, so I'm still just catching up!
Stenography
Speaking of catching up—Stenographer, why don't you tell everyone what they already know.
Before getting too far, we said this in Part 2 about Part 1:
[A]s JP said, last week we began the case of the IWC vs. the Ultimate Warrior. Before we dove too far into his specific charges, though, we needed to understand where he came from… and no, the answer is not "Parts Unknown". Warrior grew up in Williamsport, IN; a small skinny kid with only a few friends and a father who left him. He soon discovered the weight room in his High School and began to work out, teaching himself the self-discipline he needed to succeed. This inspired in him a desire to go into chiropractics, but his guidance counselor would hear none of it. The counselor felt Warrior had no future and told him to go down to the factory to get a summer job so he'd have a job when he graduated. How's that for support?
Undeterred, Warrior enrolled himself in college and found his way to Georgia. After seeing a body building competition in California, he felt re-inspired to change his work out program to match them and compete professionally. And for a number of years that is what he did, working his way up the ranks and paying his dues. After a while, though, the stress of constant weight gain took its toll on Warrior and he was almost set to return to school and finish his last couple of classes. But then another opportunity arose.
He and four other body builders were recruited by Rick Bassman and Ed Connors to form Powerteam USA, a professional wrestling stable. It quickly became obvious that Bassman knew nothing about professional wrestling and had no connection and no money, so the Powerteam was disbanded. But Warrior and one other member, the future NWA/WCW Champion Sting, decided that they wanted to continue. Warrior had found another calling and wanted to see it through to the end.
And so Warrior and Sting hit the road. Their early career consisted of living together, having no money for food, and piling eight guys in a car to get to a show and make $50. There was criticism that Warrior was green as he was making his way up the major independents. Well of course he was! He was new! But the only way he was going to get better was if people taught him, something the likes of Jerry Lawler seem to have forgotten.
So you see, Warrior was not just handed the world on a silver platter. He had paid his dues for years in weight training, learning a type of discipline few wrestlers of the era had. And then he paid his dues again on the road, earning his spot. The team of Sting and Warrior (before either were those names) went their separate ways, but Warrior was becoming a recognized name. So yes, he went through the independents quicker then most, but that is not a detriment that should be held against him. That is a testament to his dedication and connection to the crowd that made him so worthwhile.
After receiving offers from New Japan the WWF, the Warrior decided to go with the latter. Changing from the Dingo Warrior to the Ultimate Warrior, he began a path of glory in the WWF. Within a year he was Intercontinental Champion and a couple of years after that he defeated Hulk Hogan in the main event of Wrestlemania VI for the WWF Championship.
And yet the criticism oozes out of the "Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" DVD. Many complained that he wasn't ready, that his skills were not good enough, that he didn't have the right mic skills. Well, if the all of that was true, then who is really to blame: The Warrior, who was uber-over with the crowds and was doing what he was told, or the promoters who put him in that position? It's simple. If the promoters did not believe in him they never would have given him the championship and the biggest win ANYONE ever had in that time period. It is only in retrospect do these people chose to re-write history and try to shift blame and make the Warrior out to be less then what he was.
Not to mention that Sting, Warrior's former partner, won the NWA championship just three months later. Yet very few complain about Sting the way they do the Warrior. And there is a reason for that that we will get to.
Meanwhile, the Warrior's relationship with the WWF would go south, and he would leave the company in August 1991. He shortly returned in 1992 for seven months before leaving again until 1996. And that would be the last time Warrior was in the WWF/E.
Warrior would make appearances from time to time and even had a two month run in WCW in 1998. Once he left wrestling, though, Warrior engaged in a journey of self-discovery and knowledge through reading. Yes, a lot of elitist go through such a journey in their teens and twenties, but the Warrior was always a late bloomer. Just because he had his epiphany in his late 30's does not make him any less intelligent, informed, or opinionated. Warrior took his self-discipline and new found inner knowledge and began a speaking tour that continues to this day.
That's quite a bit of info. What about in Part 2?
You had to ask, didn't you? Well, we decided to jump out of the plain history and move into some more controversial items. First was the accusation that Warrior was completely unprofessional with the boys in the back, yet people like Triple H never gave any details as to what that meant. But that is not where the inconsistencies ended. On the Self-destruction DVD, men like Bobby Heenan said Andre hated Warrior, yet everyone else said that Andre would only work with and put over people he wanted. Sure, Andre wanted Warrior to get better and follow directions in the ring, but again Heenan and the other WWE professional spin doctors chose to re-write history in their image, not actuality. More on these inconsistencies in a bit.
Meanwhile, the DVD continued to bash Warrior for his contract disputes, notably his Summerslam 1991 one with Vince where he refused to go on if he wasn't paid a certain amount of money. What the WWE failed to mention was that Vince owed Warrior all of his Wrestlemania payoffs from five months prior, and Warrior had sat down with Vince a number of times to get his missing money, under conditions that Vince agreed to. This was the only leverage Warrior had, and he had to risk it. Also, in 1996, Vince and company failed to live up to the terms of Warrior's contracts, as the courts decreed at a later date. The basic idea behind it was Warrior owned the "Warrior" brand.
You see, Warrior had been developing the brand name of Warrior beyond wrestling for years with comic books, gyms, a school, merchandise, and various other intellectual property. You would think the WWE, who is suing the likes of Brock Lesner because they developed that intellectual property, would understand such a thing, yet still tried to screw Warrior over. They did not sign the contract in good faith, a big no-no in contract disputes.
Back in the ring, Warrior lambasted for crazy angles, including the one with Papa Shango where he was vomiting all over the arena. How Warrior can be held responsible for an angle the WWE came up with is beyond me, but he was. Warrior admitted that Vince was open to new ideas, but when you showed up to TV (three tapings at once) they already had the shows written and you had to have an excellent counter idea on the spot to get the show re-written. He could not in that circumstance (and others) and went through with the entire story.
Another criticism of the Warrior, especially from the boys in the back, is that he was not one of the boys. Warrior self-admits that he did distance himself from the boys, but with good reason. You see, Warrior knew wrestling was his job, not his life. He had other interests and family and friends outside of the squared circle. But since he never opened up to them, they feel the need to badmouth him when he left. It's a natural human reaction (attack the person you least know), but not a correct assessment. Even the people on the Self-destruction DVD did not agree on what people thought about the Warrior. Heenan said everyone hated him, Hogan said everyone liked him (just found him a little eccentric), and Vince said Warrior was a nice guy with a good sense of humor, but didn't let most people get to know that side of him. These blatant contradictions put the entire assessment of Warrior by the DVD into question.
What isn't in question is that Warrior was a limited wrestler. Unlike many other past clients, Warrior did not have training he chose to ignore, but instead chose to stop developing. Some feel this is a flaw, and that everyone should strive to be better at their craft. But Warrior's craft was to be the gimmick and entertain the crowd, not lock in submission moves or pull off triple jump moonsaults. Many of the wrestlers, notably Ted DiBiase, came off jealous of the success Warrior found in such a short order that he was not able to ever achieve. Warrior's goals were not to be the greatest technical wrestler in the world, but to rise to the top of the industry and make a ton of money, both of which he did. And like Warrior said, is he supposed to apologize because he did something in six years that other could not do in fifteen?
This brought into question Warrior's love of the business, or lack there-of. First, there is the idea that he did not pay his dues, yet most fail to mention his years in the body-building circuit, working out and competing for very little money and almost never having food. Or that he did have a streak in the independents where he and Sting used to pile ten people into one car to save on the gas money. Also, the Self-destruction DVD goes into great detail about how Warrior did not appreciate every opportunity he was given. Yet, just a few years ago at Wrestlemania 2000 Pat Patterson told a story of how after winning the title Warrior was backstage crying saying how grateful he was. The Warrior in his own words also put over how grateful he was in an interview, and was extremely cognoscente of what his win over Hogan meant.
Thanks Stenographer. Years later, Hogan would forget the magic he and Warrior created.
One last time out to bat
In the fall of 1998, WCW finally finished contract negotiations with Warrior and brought him in for a six month deal with the intention of working out a longer deal if things were going well. Right from the beginning there was criticism, like why he was called "Warrior" and not "Ultimate". Said Warrior to Dan Flynn:
[Eric] Bischoff called me about coming to work there. I think Hogan called me too. I guess they were surprised the Renegade fiasco didn't drive me to make that mad dash to the ring they expected it to. Titan got wind of them contacting me about a return and rushed into the court and filed a brief making even wilder and broader claims about negotiations than even I knew myself, in an attempt to prevent it. In their brief they made the claim that I, Warrior, didn't own the Ultimate Warrior—that they did, that they owned the intellectual property.
So we had to file a response to it. What happened out of those two briefs being filed was that I came forward and proved through photos and footage—copyrighted footage I owned of the Dingo Warrior—that Dingo Warrior was really just a nascent version of the Ultimate Warrior; that I all along owned it, even before I went up to Titan. The judge said look, there's no question that Warrior owns the character "Warrior"—all the trademark indicia, all the mannerisms, and everything else—he had indisputably created it and was performing the Warrior persona before he even came up to Titan. Vince though had a couple of his cronies file affidavits telling a contrived story that they came up with and provided "Ultimate." So the judge decided that as the trial played itself out, what the truth about that specific matter would be determined then. So that's why when I went to WCW in 1998, it was only under "Warrior."
So you see, Vince and company were immediately threatened by the fact that Warrior was willing to go work for the competition and tried to sabotage him again, despite the fact that they had signed a contract giving Warrior complete intellectual control over his name and properties (a case that would take another two years from that date to finally be settled). But Warrior took it in stride and decided to make it happen anyway. He then appeared on an episode of Nitro to confront Hogan and Bischoff in the ring.
The initial response was huge. The crowd was so happy to see Warrior back, and had found yet another person to beat the evil Hogan. But his speech was long and convoluted, and Hogan and Bischoff just stood there listening.
All right, there are very few times I will attack Eric Bischoff, but this is one of them. Why was Warrior not given an outline and timeframe? Why didn't the director tell him to wrap it up? The Warrior's promo style was not unknown in the industry. It was a lot of energy with a lot of poetic metaphors, something that works in a taped promo leading to a match. An in-ring confrontation is a different animal, yet Bischoff decided to have Warrior go on. Yes, it was Warrior's words and his promo, so that gives him some fault, but it is Bischoff's job as the head of the organization to control the talent and the content. If an actor in a movie writes their own script and the director does not tell them where to stand and how to position the camera's, can the actor be given the blame for making a bad movie? This is what happened here.
But that is not even the crux of this discussion. On the "Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" DVD, Hogan claims that Warrior committed a cardinal sin and saying that he had defeated Hogan before, and now nobody would be interested in the match. Sorry to say, Hulkster, but that's not how it works. Everyone knew the history between Hulk and Warrior, and knew the outcome. But it was eight years beforehand! One match… eight years ago! All he was saying was "I beat you before, and I can beat you again." The fans thought that would be great idea because Hogan was heel and that is what they wanted. How else was Warrior supposed to put himself over? Hogan's argument makes no sense, and he and Bischoff blame Warrior's promo and that comment for killing the momentum of their feud.
What they fail to mention is some of the ridiculous things they did to "further" the storyline. For instance, Hogan saw Warrior's shadow reflection in a mirror while he wasn't there, and we at home saw it, too. That's like going into Randy Orton's head and seeing his father dripping in blood. Moments like that did more to kill the momentum of the Warrior/Hogan feud.
Still, Hogan and Warrior's match at Halloween Havoc 1998 would go on to draw a 0.78 PPV buyrate, higher then the previous month's Fall Brawl (0.70) and the proceeding month's World War III (0.75). Not exceptionally high, not Wrestlemania levels, but still decent for a one-match show. The match itself was not up to most critic's standards, and it's hard to argue that point. But let's look at it this way:
This was Warrior's third match in three months, and those matches were his first in two years. To say he had ring rust would be an understatement. Also, on the DVD Hogan admits that his timing was off and he was missing all the spots, as well, so it was not just Warrior. Also, Hogan mentioned how he tried to set a fireball off in Warrior's face, and it ended up backfiring on him and burning his eyebrows off. Why was Hogan even trying to do that, I cannot even fathom. But what Hogan neglects to mention is that the fireball did end up scorching Warrior's arm, and he was working injured throughout the match.
What they also fail to mention is that Warrior lost, with little complaint. He had also lost one of his previous matches as well, and the only match he won was by DQ. And did Warrior complain about that? Did he say he would refuse to job and not do certain things? No, he went along with everything and let Hogan get his win back from eight years prior.
At the end of the program, Warrior tried to find out what the plans were for him. There were none, and WCW seemed to be disinterested in having a further relationship with the Warrior. They got what they wanted out of him, and then it was time to just let his contract run out. This would be Warrior's last time on the grand stage of wrestling.
What'd he say?
Of course, while on the grand stage of wrestling, Warrior often cut long, fairly incomprehensible promos. To that I say: so what?
First off, Warrior's character was to come out of left field and be from "Parts Unknown". Sure, nobody had ever incorporated "Parts Unknown" into their character like Warrior did, but that does not make it uninteresting or irrelevant. Macho Man Randy Savage is fairly incomprehensible. I find Ric Flair incomprehensible a lot of time (especially when he starts wooing, saying things quickly into a mic, and then dropping elbows on his jacket). The point, these guys get over the emotion of their speech, not the words.
You could have Chris Jericho write a speech for Chris Benoit and have Benoit read it perfectly with Jericho as director, and it would still not have the same impact. Jericho has a skill Benoit does not: timing and charisma. Benoit, for all his skill, will fail to make the same type of impact in front of the camera that Jericho does. Likewise, Benoit will win over the crowd with his match alone (especially if it goes longer) while Warrior could lose a crowd just based on matches. Wrestling is not all about wresting, nor all about speaking lines. It's about the connection with the audience and getting them to care whether you are beating someone or they are beating you. A punch can be more devastating then any super flippy move if done by the right person. And super flippy move can look horrible and out of place if done by the wrong person.
But I digress, on the Self-Destruction DVD, they cut up a bunch of Warrior's promos and interlaced them with music and graphics. Of course he is going to look horrible if you do that! You have to look at each event in context. Perhaps one of those promos was two minutes, and got over a match with Ric Rude. Perhaps another one was long and just for character development. So long as they worked on that show, on that night, is all that mattered. I can sting together a twenty minute highlight reel of Rey Mysterio and Kurt Angle blowing spots set to Charlie Chaplin music, and you would think they were the worst wrestlers in the world. But if you say that they hit 99% of everything else in a high impact fashion, then the context makes all the difference.
When it comes to Warrior, the important thing to remember is that in those moments, he captured the audience. They did not care what the words were (pick up a Kidz Bop CD to see what I mean about people not caring what the words are and just pay attention to the tune and emotion), they cared about their emotional involvement. And that kept them sitting in front of their TV and buying tickets to the arena.
Take for instance the aforementioned promo with Hogan in WCW. Now that was completely buried on the DVD, but Derek Burgan did a little research for me that proves my point (not that I wouldn't have made the same point, it just sound better from a source):
Gene Okerlund said that "ratings sunk like a rock" during Warrior's promo, which most certainly can not be true. After a little research, I found out Warrior's segment on Nitro did a 6.4 to Raw's 3.1. Now that I think about it, Okerlund might have been even harsher on this DVD to Warrior than Heenan. The difference being that Okerlund often comes across as totally clueless when he opens his mouth.
Warrior has been right all along. His promos, although incomprehensible to most, are enthralling. People like to watch and listen to him. They are into Warrior, no matter what he's doing.
Shoot ‘em if you got ‘em
Despite being an enthralling character, Warrior also had a physique unique to the time. We have already gone into great detail about Warrior's gym prowess, but the accusations of steroid abuse run high. So, was Warrior gassed up?
From Mike Tenay's(!) interview with the Warrior on "The Wrestling Insider" radio show on March 20, 1994:
Caller: In the WWF, was The Ultimate Warrior always you? There seemed to be a great weight loss. Did they bring somebody else in to be you?
JH: There were a lot of rumors about that. I died quite a few times, too. From about every disease you could think of. Number one, there's always been steroid abuse and I've never denied taking steroids. The weight loss, yes, when I took time off in 1991 after the SummerSlam event after me and Hulk and the Iranian guys at Madison Square Garden. I went to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and lived in the woods for eight months. I had been in the road real hard, real strong, every day, cross country, international. So I decided to take a break, and when I came back, I hadn't been using the steroids. I was still training as hard as I could and doing all of the things I had to do, but yeah, steroids do work no matter what people lead you to believe. They are taken by people. They are taken by all kinds of people for different reasons, maybe not the right reasons. But when you're in a position and you're pilling down the money and making money and establishing security for yourself later in life, you do what you have to do. You do what you have to do to be number one to get there. Once you get there, sometimes the price is even more and you have to decide whether you want to pay that price.
Let's pause. Did you read that up above? Warrior said he never denied taking steroids! He did it. Well, think back to the Lex Luger case: steroids were not listed as a class three controlled substance until 1992, so Warrior was legally using them with a prescription. And again, all of the side effects were not known at the time, it was just what bodybuilders and wrestlers did. But why was he taking them? The interview continues:
MT: Vince McMahon, Jr., was recently indicted on anabolic steroid-related charges. Have you followed the news of the indictments? And what's your opinion overall of the situation?
JH: I haven't really followed it that closely. I really haven't followed wrestling that closely. When I was doing it, I was so involved in thinking in The Ultimate Warrior character, that was the important thing. That the people get their money's worth from that character. Yeah, I've been following it. The New York Post and other people have called to ask me my opinion or what I thought. As Vince took the WWF banner and made that thing grow into the entity that it did, he made a lot of enemies. There used to be territories where people wouldn't bring your talent here or if we do we'll do a mutual thing. I think somebody wanted to see him fall. Based on the indictments and the time and the money that I know they spent bringing those charges against Vince, it's my opinion that it's a bum rap. Vince never told me to take steroids. There's not a wrestling fan out there who's gonna deny or say, if were going to make a list of the wrestlers you think were taking steroids, The Ultimate Warrior was one of them. If I can say that, and I was part of the inner circle, so to speak, and made it to the WWF, who's a better testimonial of whether Vince did that or not.
MT: Did you feel any pressure to maintain a certain look or find yourself out of the limelight?
JH: I put that pressure on myself, and deservingly so. People bought the character for one reason. The guys used to tell me not to run to the ring, not to shake the ropes, don't do those things. I was at a point in the beginning where I was wondering if they were telling the truth or not. I finally said, "The people are going nuts over it, so let's do it." Those are things that made or established or created the mold of The Ultimate Warrior, if I was to back off on any one of them, he wouldn't be The Ultimate Warrior. The body and the physique was one part of it. I credit it to training. I went to the gym every day, no matter what time of day. I went to the gym after the matches at 2 or 3 in the morning. I went to the tanning beds every day. I worked deals with hotels and gyms. I had drivers who would find this and find that. I wanted to keep that up. It's much more than taking steroids. It has to do with discipline and making a decision that you're going to do it. If I neglected any one part of the mold that we had created, he wouldn't have been The Ultimate Warrior and I wouldn't have had the limelight.
You see, there is no blame passing here, there is no crying about it. Warrior freely admits to what he was doing, and admits it was his decision overall. Sure, he felt the pressure to look a certain way, but that was still his decision. It would take years of reflection for him to realize what he was doing to himself. From our interview with Dan Flynn:
FLYNN: I've noticed that many wrestlers live a paradoxical lifestyle. So, on the surface they seem a paragon of health. But when you go beyond the surface, on the inside their bodies…
WARRIOR: Hey, when we are young it's built into us to think we'll never die. That you're invincible. And truth is you, your body, can get away with behavior when you are younger that later in your life you and, again, your body can't take. There are ways other than hard work, diet, and discipline to achieve a healthy look on the outside, yet be messed up and damaged on the inside. This is what definitely happened to some of the guys I worked with who have since died. They get some juice and keep taking it and continue, as they always have, to practice unhealthy dietary habits. None of them really exercised hard. When they were young they could getaway with it. At 40-50 years of age, you throw in a bit of slimy street drugs and the fact you haven't consistently practiced healthy exercise and diet habits and BAM!—the body says, "No more."
Also, in the business it's easy to get scripts for potent pain-pills and the like. In every arena that they go to there is a doctor there that's a big fan willing to write scripts for whatever the talent may ask for. Add to it street drugs and booze and fatigue and eventually there's a wall one is going to hit and hit hard. And, you are right, the inner demons. It takes quite bit of level headedness to put celebrity and life on the road into perspective. You have to be grounded in solid, genuine ways.
FLYNN: You wrestled with several of these guys who are obviously no longer with us—Rick Rude, Curt Hennig, Kerry von Erich. Do you think there is something about the lifestyle that leads to self-destruction?
WARRIOR: Ultimately each individual is solely responsible for destroying their own life. I think there are always tell-tale signs one gets warning them that "Hey, you better take a hard look at what you are doing." Typically, self-destruction happens in stages and each person is given ample opportunity to get their act together. You can't keep tempting fate without there eventually being a serious, negative consequence.
Shit, the autopsies came back and a lot of those guys died from street drugs. Hennig died from a coke overdose. Rick Rude died from [liquid] ecstasy. Davey Boy Smith was doing cocaine and ungodly amounts of growth hormone and all kinds of different steroids.
Look, these guys who have died over the last few years didn't just have that vision of death at that final moment of their life. The further and further out there they got with destructive behavior they knew inside themselves, many, many times along the line, that there was a price they were going to pay. They were doing the drugs to run from something. Something they didn't like about themselves, their lives, the way things had turned out. The more drugs they did the greater the escape from the reality they didn't like. Unfortunately, there are no success stories down that road. None. Not one. You don't drug yourself into a reality you would like better. You have to fix the one you are living. Too bad that fact isn't enough to have people snap out of it and get their life act together before it is too late.
People have criticized me about what I wrote in some posts when some of those guys died—like I didn't have any sympathy. Anybody who wants to can read them. Frankly, I'm sick of all the sympathetic praise we throw around adults who screw up their lives. Life is about finding the strength day in and day out to make it work. Most people do. I'd rather praise them than people who don't. We are a society, today, where we pathetically place praise of vice above praise of virtue and, as an adult, I'm not okay with it. My kids, if no one else, deserve better out of me, deserve better out of the world they will have to grow up in.
Warrior understands now what he was doing to himself, but he did not understand as much then. But on the same token, he does not have patience for the type of recreational drugs that other wrestlers have died from. He was never using steroids for recreation, he was using it for his career. And yet, that is what would do him in. Or so Vince would have us believe.
Flunking a steroids test was apparently the reason Warrior was fired from the WWF in 1992. Or was it? Back to the interview with Mike Tenay:
MT: Back in November 1992 when you left the World Wrestling Federation, I guess basically it was contractual differences with Vince McMahon, Jr. What exactly were those differences?
JH: I wanted to go out and do other things. I knew things from the entertainment that came across Vince McMahon's offices were shoved aside because Vince McMahon wanted to have you on the road and drawing and producing out there so you could make money. That's totally understandable, but I wanted to reach a point where I could work with people out there as my representatives doing things like that. He agreed to it verbally, and when I presented him with papers, he terminated me.
And there is more to this in the Dan Flynn interview:
WARRIOR: The business has always had its highs and lows, but you are talking about the time when the crap hit the fan with the Dr. Zahorian steroid stuff, causing Vince and some of the talent, Hogan and Piper, to be implicated, eventually Vince being prosecuted.
FLYNN: That's what I want to know. What was it like being in the WWF during that real dark time with the Steroid scandal, and the feds coming down on Vince?
WARRIOR: Well, most of the guys took stuff. Even guys you'd never imagine, just to keep up with the pace of the road, the lifestyle, the hanging out with groupies, and drinking, and whatever else. Of course, steroids were legal. You could get them with a prescription from a doctor. It was just at the time that the government was initiating a crack down. The war on street drugs was a bust, so they focused their attention on steroids. The word came down from the office to either to make sure you had a prescription or get off altogether. I can't remember exactly without a timeline in front of me. All the documents I have from my litigation with Titan lay it all out to the day, everything. I just know the office did things in stages. Just trying to go off the top of my head here, it effected a lot of guys negatively. I wasn't bothered by it. I never depended on just steroids to maintain my physique and knew I could keep right at what I was doing. In '92 when I came back you couldn't use them, and I reached a great physical peak by using the knowledge I had. Hogan, on the other hand, went on The Arsenio Hall Show and lied about having ever taken them, which just made matters worse and created, I recall, real friction between Vince and he. Both had different ideas about how to handle it all. Hogan would always say that Vince was going about dealing with all this the wrong way. But Vince got really scared about it all. I remember very vividly a conversation he had with me. He really thought he was going to do some time in prison.
Plus, remember what Warrior said about how he came back in 1996:
[Vince McMahon] had had the time to reconsider how he'd wronged me in 1992, using me and Davey Boy Smith as scapegoats to take the heat off his back when he was federally prosecuted over the steroid stuff.
You see, Vince knew he was going to lose Warrior no matter what. Warrior had reached the pinnacle of the sport, and did not have the drive to stay in it just to stay in it (see: Funk, Terry). So instead he let Warrior go and then blamed him to get the heat off himself (admitting his own fears that he might go to jail, a humbling moment we rarely get from McMahon). In 1992, Warrior was clean when he was fired.
And do you think Vince might have held those comments Warrior made in 1994 to Mike Tenay against him? Remember Roddy Piper said basically the same thing on that HBO special a few years back, and Vince fired him immediately. Vince may give many chances, but he never forgets when someone screws him (or what he perceives as screwing), and so therefore has used his media power to re-write history instead of telling the humbling story that really happened.
The first rule of conservation
Warrior has parlayed his experiences in the ring, behind the scenes, on the road, and with his own endeavors into a new career: public speaking. Warrior has found after deep soul searching that he has conservative leanings. Ok, leanings would be putting it mildly, but he has found a philosophy he believes in. And so he is trying to create a new career for himself. But he understands that he has to work for it. From the Flynn interview:
I haven't been doing what I am doing today for twenty years. But I know how far I've come in the last five years. I know how much further I'm going to go in ten years. I know how hard I work at it. Everything I'm doing now is a continual work in progress. I'd like to get some gigs writing columns but my pieces are longer and more personal, and it'd take someone spending the time to mentor me about how to tweak them to get that done.
And elsewhere:
I'm pleased with what I've done thus far. Keep in mind, Ultimate Warrior started out as Dingo Warrior. It took some time to get to the full blown version. I plan to evolve in like fashion as a speaker.
Warrior realizes that if he wants to be a better speaker and writer he hast to work at it. He has to find others who are better than him to teach him, and he has to try new things to see what works and what does not.
Sometimes, though, his views can incite people. I believe the quote is, "Queering doesn't make the world work." From the Hartford Advocate:
On April 5 [, 2005], Warrior spoke to a capacity crowd at the Dodd Center on the UConn campus in Storrs. During that speech, many audience members, some intent on disrupting Warrior's speech, took offense at his comments, causing tempers on both sides to flare and voices to rise. The scene became so intense that a police officer, fearing things could get dangerous, called in reinforcements. A video of the speech and the mayhem that followed, filmed by UConn student Russ Passig (one of Warrior's most vocal opponents during and after the incident), was obtained by the Advocate .
A side from a kick-ass video introduction, consisting of kick-ass wrestling highlights, the first 44 minutes of Warrior's presentation were uneventful. He talked of rights and responsibilities, and his definition of conservatism: "preserving traditions that have worked throughout time, beginning with the simple idea that people need to think and provide for themselves."
Yes, things were fairly calm until Warrior described how liberal thinking has created an "abyss of moral relativity where everything is as legitimate as everything else.
"The broadest and most despicable illustration of this most destructive consequence of moral relativity," Warrior said, "is that barbarism, today, is as legitimate as civilization."
I, too, have watched this video, and I have to say this is a pretty fair assessment of what happened. Warrior spoke his views for a good forty minutes with little incident, mostly on being a moral representative of the world, yadda yadda.
Now, let me preface this by saying I am a liberal person. If Warrior and I were to meet in real life, he would call me an idiot who is destroying the very fabric of our society, except with a few more made up seventy-five cent words. And you know what? I'm fine with that. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and beliefs. Warrior happens to believe concrete, ego-centric Christian values are the true morality and everything else is bubkiss. Well good, I don't believe that at all. But likely at least half the world does to some extent, especially if voting patterns can be believed in the United States.
That brings me to my next point. When Warrior made his inflaming comments, three quarters of the room was clapping and cheering. They either agreed with the man or the sentiment. Granted, it was in a room of young college republicans (no offense, Mike LaFave), but even if they did not agree with the words, they enjoyed the intensity and meaning with which they were spoken.
Why did Warrior speak such words? Well, the Hartford Advocate alludes to it but does not outright say it: Warrior was being heckled. A group of extreme liberals went to the show with the express intention of heckling Warrior. Some were handing out fliers before the event with out-of-context quotes from Warrior to help prove their point that Warrior was no good. Basically, Warrior was antagonized and spoken over (during his own speech, no less!) until he was forced to respond.
Warrior has never hidden the fact that he does not believe in political correctness, and then decided to antagonize the liberals right back. He almost drove them to violence, proving his point, or at least in his own mind.
UConn, though, and the young republican group chose not to back Warrior after the event and issued a retraction and apology. From Warrior's website:
Explain for me if you will, young College Republicans, how you square your applause and praise at the event, a 45 minute ride together back to the airport having a mature, engaging discussion, and further praise, handshakes, and appreciation for coming with an absolute denouncement of my appearance and the things I said?
He's right. Whether they agreed with him or not (and his views were never hidden), the college republicans betrayed Warrior and lied to his face. There was time before, during, and after the speech in which they completely supported Warrior, and yet turned against him with the PC police got on their case. If you have ever read Warrior's writings, this is one of the things he absolutely despises, and has criticized even Republican leaders for giving in to such tactics. Whether I agree or not is irrelevant, those are the Warrior's opinions and he is entitled to them.
As I noted above, other people do agree with Warrior and support him, he is not alone in his thoughts. From Melissa Beecher's report of Warrior at Bentley College in February 2003:
["]He exceeded all of my expectations," said Andy Prunier, co-vice chairman of the Bentley College Republicans, the group that sponsored the event. "He didn't sugarcoat anything and I appreciated that."
"What you come to college for is to hear a variety of views, both liberal and conservative, and he really let his views be known," said junior Matt Revan. "He is direct and gave it to us straight."
"I really didn't know what to expect, knowing that the Warrior is a rookie as a speaker. But this really was a great event. We couldn't be happier," said Chris DeRose, a freshman co-vice chairman of the Republican group. "He got up there and presented some important issues."
And from Nicholas Norcia's report of an appearance at Penn State University in October 2003:
"That was the greatest speech I've seen at this school," said Mike Jozkowski (senior-mathematics). "He emphasized that what makes this country great is self-reliance -- the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality."
I could go on forever with these, but the point it made. Warrior's views, taken in sound bites, can be made to look ridiculous. But his whole views, taken all together and in context, can make an argument that a large minority of people would agree with. He is not an insane lone wolf, but a man representing many people, though maybe not you or I.
And then there is the big question:
Does what Warrior does at speeches take away from (or add to) his accomplishments in wrestling?
The answer is no! One has nothing to do with the other except they are by the same man. Do you judge how well you did on math test by how well you can swim? Do you judge how good your costing analysis was by that time you ate worms when you were three?
We are talking about separate worlds, and when I think of the Warrior in our world of professional wrestling, I want to remember the wrestler above all and his impact and meaning to the industry. What he does in his personal time and his new life are of little concern to me except if it means he will return to wrestling. More on that in a bit.
For now, what do other wrestlers think of the current Warrior? From the Flynn interview:
FLYNN: Firsthand, or secondhand, have you gotten any sort of reaction from any of your old colleagues in wrestling about what you're doing these days?
WARRIOR: No, well—yes, secondhand. Goes back to what I said earlier. I'm cut from a different mold. Most the guys I worked with are still trying to make a living off the business, in any way they can. They haven't grown in the ways I have. Of course, they think what I am doing is oddball. Truth is they don't really know and have never taken the time to find out. Everybody who finds out about what I am doing these days by reading some criticism of me elsewhere, when they take the time to come and find out truly where my head is, they are pleasantly surprised. Many are proud to have been fans of my wrestling career, but even more proud to say they are bigger fans of what I am doing now.
Like I said, Warrior is not Terry Funk, he's Warrior. He has to cut his own path.
The once and future...
FLYNN: Any chance you'll ever go back to wrestling?
WARRIOR: I don't foresee it. There's no place to go. I can't split my energies and always have in the back of my mind that I will return. I just keep on keeping on with what I am doing now. I have been able though to use quite advantageously the intellectual property. New dolls are out and they are selling better than all others. I just sold one of my collector's dolls for more than that has ever been paid for a wrestling figure. And I am in Akklaim's new "Legends of Wrestling" game. The response about that has been over the top—getting ready to do some promotional appearances for that soon. It's been, believe it or not, very humbling to see how Ultimate Warrior's popularity has sustained itself. Of course, I never expected anything less (laughs).
As just seen in the Flynn interview, Warrior had no intention of going back to wrestling. He does not need wrestling like some, although he still has an interest. It was his life for fifteen years. Of course, since I've been talking about Warrior for three weeks, he had to flood the newsboard. From 411mania(!):
In an interesting commentary on his official website, the Ultimate Warrior (Warrior Warrior) says that if TNA is serious about competing, they need to bring him and Goldberg in and let them have a match together. Below is a portion of the commentary.
"[Sting] also mentioned in the press conference that Ultimate Warrior coming to TNA would be interesting. Yes, I have to agree -- it would be very interesting. What would be more interesting is if the TNA execs had the creativity, integrity and balls to entertain it seriously. Frankly, what they should do, if they want to be competitive (there's that nasty blood, sweat and tears word again), is sell some of those construction materials Daddy Jarrett has laying around, and put up the financing to bring in Goldberg and Ultimate Warrior and let us try to beat the intensity out of one another.
Now there's an idea -- an attention getting one, and a money making one. I mean, instead of always using "warrior" as the adjective to fallaciously describe all those who aren't -- bring a real, and Ultimate, one in. Let the hardcore, natural intensity rip. Let both of us take our mischaracterized heads halfway out of our asses, just enough for us to be businessmen capable of discussing the serious potential success yet not enough to defuse a competitive grudge, and let the serious and creative thinkers at TNA, those without an agenda or envy problem, work out a program.
Put your silly a** fear and prejudice for my strong, bold character away and think SUCCESS. Hell, I'm all for great ideas. But don't expect me to keep my mouth shut when you don't come up with any. Of course, as I hinted at, it won't be inexpensive. Goldberg has an agent and has to give him a cut. I'm my own and I charge even more. The bigger obstacle, and definitely the one that has us both the most hated in the industry, is that we are strong individualists who don't need, or even necessarily want, to be in the business and can get along having great lives without it. But, what a way it would be for the most envied and despised to shove the final word down the throats of those Nor'Easterners, while TNA capitalizes off the incredible heat of it all."
Warrior is not hiding anything. I like his last thought: "I'm my own [agent] and I charge even more." Warrior, as we have noted, is not into wrestling just to be in wrestling. He won't just accept whatever is being offered just to get back into ring. Wrestling is work to Warrior, not life. From the Flynn interview:
FLYNN: You haven't wrestled since then. Has anyone approached you to come back since then, like the Jarrett outfit?
WARRIOR: Yeah, when they first started up they did—others too, mostly dreamers. I spoke with both Jeff and his dad. They, the Jarretts and others, always present themselves like they think I'm sitting at home drooling for a chance to charge at the ring and that I should be grateful that they called, like, allowing me an opportunity to do so. Blows me away. Of course, that is how most other guys still working, outside WWE, are. They don't know anything else, are afraid to go out and attempt anything else and get all their self worth from being in a ring, staying part of the circus of it all. They don't have any other means of making a living for themselves so when anybody calls and says jump they say how high and when their feet hit they ask about how far to bend over.
This type of attitude they have though, these promoters, like the Jarretts had when they called, creates a problem when it comes to negotiating with me. This has contributed to many mischaracterizations. They get offended when they realize I know how valuable the Ultimate Warrior is and if they want him he isn't going to come cheaply. They don't get away without discussing those details with me like they do with others, which is to say they don't really discuss them in detail at all with others. It's like, "Hey, we have a ring set up and are going to put your face on TV for a little while, come on down and we'll figure what we'll pay you afterwards." That's enough for most guys looking for work not doing anything else. That doesn't work for me.
You see, Warrior is not a wrestling looking for one more day in the spotlight. He only wants to do something if it is going to make an impact and last in history. Is him fighting Goldberg in TNA one of those things? Perhaps it is. We'll never know until we see it. But Warrior is open to the idea, and honest about what he expects.
In the meantime, Warrior has a lawsuit with the WWE to go through (breach of contract and defamation of character) and many more paths to pursue. Will this be the last gorilla press slam by Warrior? I truly believe not.
And so ends the Ultimate Challenge
After reading such a long case, I don't think you need a summary. But instead, I'll leave you with a couple of quotes that sum up the basic ideas. First, from Warrior himself:
Gotta run...taking my daughter, Ms. Indiana Marin Warrior, to the Russian Ballet of Sleeping Beauty [tonight]...just another one of those 'self-destructive' things I do.
And last, as Derek Burgan so aptly noted in his review of the Self-Destruction DVD:
Christian [closed] out the DVD with possibly the truest statement on it, "like it or not, everyone remembers the Ultimate Warrior.
The defense rests.
Hung Jury
Well everyone, that wraps up our twentieth(!) case. So what do you think?
And please take into consideration the rules (well, they're more what you might call guidelines than rules) of a fair court system:
(1) All parties, events, circumstances, etc… are innocent until proven guilty. In this court, the defendants have already been found guilty without trial, and so therefore this is an appeals court. Finding a defendant guilty means you disagree with the evidence presented.
(2) The jury must find the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt. That means that if there is doubt in your mind that the defendant is guilty, then you cannot find the appellant guilty. Reasonable doubt means that the average person, looking at the facts presented, could not find the defendant guilty on all counts despite personal feelings.
(3) This is a court of fact, not fiction. Fantasies of what could have been or should have been do not fly here; especially fantasies of the impossible (such as a wrestler not getting injured at an untimely moment). All we have is what did actually occur and the intentions of those being accused.
(4) A defendant cannot be judged by events outside the case at hand. For example, if we were trying a particular contract signing by a wrestling promoter, you cannot use that ten years later that wrestler died from a heart attack relating to the drug use that the wrestler started when he signed with the promoter. One has nothing to do with the other in terms of the case at hand.
(5) You do not have to like the accused before or after the case at hand, and a vote of not guilty does not change your personal preferences. You can make it clear that you feel the accused is the worst thing you have ever seen, but if the facts compel you to see that the accused cannot be found guilty beyond reasonable doubt, then voting guilty would be unconscionable.
Keeping the rules of this court in mind…
IN THE CASE OF THE IWC VS. THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR, WARRIOR HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF BEING A MENTALLY UNSTABLE, FLASH-IN-THE-PAN WRESTLER WITH AN OVER-INFLATED SENSE OF WORTH AND DESERVED THE BURIAL JOB HE GOT IN THE "SELF DESTRUCTION OF THE ULTIMATE WARRRIOR" DVD.
Apparently, I could have gone into four parts (not with this case, that's for something special!). I'm very interested to see how this comes out. I think I presented a very convincing and logical case (if not longer than usual), one that delved more into who Warrior is then his Self Destruction DVD cared to. I often get accused of being one-sided (we'll get into that in Issue #52), but I spent this entire case presenting what other people say about Warrior and refuting it. We shall see!
And so our trip of crazy cases moves on to number three of five. Next week we cool off a bit, but go in a slightly different direction with: In Defense of… Scott Steiner (Part 1 of 2)!
In the meantime, be sure to check out Hidden Highlights—the most positive article in the IWC. Don't forget to send JT and I your Hidden Highlights for RAW, SmackDown!, Heat, Velocity, Impact, or any other show you saw this week (that includes house shows and indy events, you know)! Oh, and Wrestlemania, too (last couple of days, all entries must be in by Friday)!!
Until then, the next time you read some throwaway line presented as fact, challenge it. The truth matters, and you have a right to know.
Know a particular person, event, organization, storyline, etc… in wrestling history that needs a defense? E-mail the One and Only JP at lookforme@mikefine.com, and I'll be glad to hear your case.
