When the average wrestling guru thinks of the Ultimate Warrior nowadays, it wouldn't come as a big surprise to see that they wouldn't have many complimentary things to say about the man who is now passionately known as the Warrior. Without going into too much detail, it might however come as a surprise to some, that the Ultimate Warrior has a DVD out now. The title is the suspiciously dubbed "The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior". Now usually when the WWE brings out a DVD about one of its superstars past or present; you are usually expecting it to be paying homage to that superstar. This DVD seems to address more what other people in the business think about the "Ultimate One". Couldn't they have just used a segment on their internet program Byte This instead of making a full fledged DVD" Oh wait, if anyone actually tuned into the latest edition of that program, you would have seen one of the (in my opinion at least) most disrespectful and quite possibly juvenile acts to just dump on a guy who may have not been perfect for the wrestling business, but certainly did more than his fair share to turn the sport of wrestling into the international dynamo that it has become today.

So with that in mind, I'd like to take a look into the man behind the face paint, the tassels, the colourful wrestling attire who just last year was given the honour of being named one of the WWEs 50's greatest wrestlers of all time. Does this mean he's going to be elected into the hall of fame" Even if he is to be abducted you can almost guarantee that in no way, shape, or form is the Warrior going to be making any acceptance speeches anytime soon. If you were to frequently visit his internet site you'd have a pretty good idea that the Warrior will have nothing to do with the WWE and with good reason as well. Or so the Warrior believes is the case. Is he the victim" Or is he just another disgruntled individual who lost his marbles somewhere along the way in what can be considered a checkered past" So without further ado...

Before shedding light on the Ultimate Warrior, I would like to make it clear that back in the heyday of the WWF, I was a huge Ultimate Warrior fan. He just seemed like the type of wrestler who was capable of getting an entire audience out of their seats and all he had to do was have his theme music hit and make a mad sprint down to the ring. Once he was inside the squared circle it looked as if you couldn't contain the man, what with his excessive rope shaking and all. His physique was a rare specimen. He had muscles upon muscles; his body looked toned in just about every area imaginable. You could practically see the veins pulsating out of his forearms, shoulders, thighs, you name it. He was an intimidating individual. Did I forget to mention he was one of the good guys" This from someone who was 275 pounds, and hailed from parts unknown; the WWF must have been blind if they didn't realize they had something special here. The only question is what on earth could you do with a man of this stature" It would not take long for fans to identify the Ultimate Warrior as becoming known as a house hold name in the WWF. His first intercontinental title win would be the beginning of what could be considered the decade of the Warrior. Skeptics are welcome to point out that this decade wouldn't even last even half of its duration as the Ultimate Warrior would find himself in and out of the WWF on a few separate occasions. His individual highlight considered by many was his heavyweight championship win at WrestleMania 6 in Toronto over the immortal Hulk Hogan. This win put the Ultimate Warrior in rare company as one of the best of the business (in that time). Whether the WWE would choose to admit it or not, during his championship reign there was no wrestler out there that was raking in the money for the WWF than its champion. You could look at any WWF magazine and see at least a page and a half of Ultimate Warrior memorabilia. The Warrior's popularity transcended new heights when WCW would create a wrestler with the blatant intention of him coming across as being "An Ultimate Warrior substitute". This farce known as the Renegade would be just one of the blemishes on WCW but that is worth an entirely different article all together. While we are the subject of failures, does anyone remember the Warrior University" I'm sure there are a few people out there (me included) who would have been first in line to enroll there. It would seem that the Warrior would be the one to carry the WWF into the next generation, or so it would seem until he dropped the belt at Royal Rumble 1991 to Sgt. Slaughter and shortly afterwards disappeared from WWF programming.

So what happened" Rumours were rampant that the Ultimate Warrior was dead, or was let go because he was using drugs, or because he had got himself arrested. Considering the WWF was much more secretive about its personal affairs back then, (also keep in mind there was no Internet during this time either) you had to pretty much be a part of the business in some form to get an idea on what the hell was actually going on. You can ask ten different people what they think were the worst traits of the Ultimate Warrior and they'd probably give you ten different responses. So for your reading pleasure, here are three of the most common knocks against the Ultimate Warrior when it came to his contributions to wrestling.

1. Wrestling Ability. Okay, let's get it right out into the open. The Ultimate Warrior is not going to be confused with the excellence of execution in any way, shape, or form. Of course there is a long list of wrestlers past and present of championship caliber who don't wrestle all that well. The Warrior wasn't exactly a connoisseur of technical or mat wrestling. His fighting style can be best summed with one word; brawling. Now for the avid wrestling fan, this wouldn't be a cause for concern. Wrestlers strive on being repetitious. That way fans can identify with the wrestler and their usual mannerisms. This was a staple to getting the fans into what was usually the climatic finish of a match. Who doesn't get engaged when Hogan's "hulking up", the finger waving, the punches, the boot and conclusion with the "devastating" leg drop" Nowadays though, fans like to be entertained and shown things that haven't been done before. If the Warrior was to be wrestling today, he would have to incorporate some new moves into his rather bland repertoire. Would anyone love to see the Ultimate one bust out doing the worm" Or maybe a 6-1-9 or maybe an F-5 is more likely for someone of the Warrior's stature and physique" No matter how you look at it, the Warrior didn't get his legion of fans by executing one heck of a Figure Four leglock.

2. On the microphone. Nowadays, how a wrestler cuts a promo can be a career killer maker, back in the glory days of wrestling however, it wasn't considered as big a requirement. On the Ultimate Warrior DVD, there are more than a few references in relation to the promos that the Warrior would do. In most cases, no one really has an idea what the hell he's even talking about for most of the segment. Now this was part of the Warrior persona to come across as wild and unpredictable, but it was these same traits that unfortunately made the Warrior come across as more of a buffoon than anything else. Although I will be quick to admit that his anti smoking promos played a big role in my personal choice not to smoke, but that's another story entirely. One could pick an assortment of Warrior promos gone askew, but for your reading pleasure I will announce my top 3 Warrior promos.

#3 The Pose Down vs. Ravishing Rude: Royal Rumble 1989. In a nutshell, this more or less might have been the brainchild to what was suppose to be the World Bodybuilding federation. I'd like to think that both participants were given the time here to just improvise the whole sketch because there is no way the writing could have been that disastrous for this to have actually been scripted. For those of you out there who don't know what this is about then let me sum it up for you in one fragmented sentence, a series of poses. You have Ravishing Rick "sell" one pose, and then you'd have the Warrior follow suit and the crowd would naturally get behind the Warrior. Of course the Warrior looked pretty foolish as opposed to intimidating but I'm sure the fans weren't really looking at him in that way. For what it was worth however, the Warrior did what he continually was able to do during his heyday, and that was get the fans out of their seats. Although I'm sure there would have been a lot of us wanting to clobber the Warrior like Rick tried to do at the end of the pose down because the Warrior just made the whole pose down thing just plain cheesy.

#2, The Warrior cutting a thanksgiving promo: Survivor Series 1989. 1989 was a good year for bad Warrior promos. This promo was part of a montage of promos that were popular in the WWF where a series of wrestlers would one after the other cut a short promo, usually this was done during the Royal Rumble events when each wrestler would talk about how they would win. The subject of these promos was giving thanks, since the event was on/near thanksgiving. The real highlight of these promos actually was when Rick Rude gave thanks for being the sexiest man alive, and Piper followed by saying thanks for not being Rick Rude. So this medley goes on throughout the course of the event and then we get to the Ultimate Warrior and what he is thankful for. Whether you've seen it once, or have watched it a dozen times over all I can conclude is that I have no idea what the Ultimate Warrior was thankful for. On a side note, why was he yelling" Okay he has to stay in character so that makes some sense, but really he was like a cross between a Neanderthal and Ned Flanders during his thanksgiving rant.

#1, The Warrior's interview prior to Royal Rumble 1991: Saturday Night Main Event" Ah yes, this is the Warrior promo that far and away exemplifies how bad the Warrior was on the mic. If we are again putting into consideration that the Warrior was not popular for what he preached, (assuming we had an indication what he preached exactly) then we can forgive the Warrior for this particular disaster waiting to happen. The Warrior was the world champion at this time and it looked as if the Macho King, Randy Savage was attempting to ratify himself as the #1 contender for the belt. He attempted to do this with the aid of his queen (term to be used loosely) Sensational Sherri. The Warrior would be in the middle of an interview when Sherri would casually make her way down to where the Warrior was and began to try and "pursue" the Warrior into granting her man a title shot. The Warrior would not be easily swayed by this and when it was finally time to reply he did it in a rather typical Warrior fashion, "No!!!" Granted this actually would sound more convincing if you actually had the seen the footage but what resulted afterwards was a good few minutes of hilarity what with the Warrior towering over Sherri and the Macho King throwing a convincing tantrum without slinging out the provocative language. It is promos like these that make it seem clear why the Warrior will never be confused with someone like the Rock.

3. Professionalism These wrestlers are wrestling because it is their job; this is not to say that it is the cushiest profession seeing how you spend roughly 300 days of the year on the road from your families, and there is a risk when you put your body on the line everyday and anyone who has seen the promos on not to try this stuff at home, you can believe there are some grave repercussions if a move is not done correctly. There hasn't been much written about the Warrior injuring his opponents in the ring, but there sure has been more than your fair share of criticism on working with the Warrior when it came to wrestling in a match. You can take your pick; jackass, uncooperative, arrogant, unwilling to do what is best for the business, the list goes on and most of the list can be heard in its entirety on the Ultimate Warrior DVD. If there is one thing that stands out about the Warrior and his professionalism, it would be that he wasn't a fan of traveling. It was so bad that he would miss not just single events, but he'd go for weeks not appearing at events thus making the WWF creative booking team "insert snickers here" have to come up with some last minute replacements which usually resulted in whoever was taking the Warrior's place squashing his would be opponent. You can bet the Warrior's reasoning for missing these events was about as easy to decipher as what he's talking about most of the times in his promos. The WWF would fire him not once but twice because of this ongoing problem. When the Warrior was gone for good from the WWF he made his way over to rival WCW where we would get a Warrior way past his expiration date. It was a disappointing (to some and refreshing to others) way to close the book on one of the most mystifying characters to ever strap on the boots in the world of professional wrestling.

What is there left to say that hasn't been said about the Ultimate Warrior" One could say that he was a great professional athlete, however then you would have people arguing he was neither great, professional, or an athlete. Is there anything that everyone would be able to agree on when it comes to talking about the Ultimate Warrior" Probably not but no matter how you think about him, whether it is the Warrior as a wrestler, or the Warrior as a human being, there really wasn't anyone quite like him before or during his time. There very well might not be another person like him to ever step into the squared circle. I leave it up to you whether you consider that a damn shame or a little slice of heaven.

by Avi Krebs..