The Rise And Fall Of The Ultimate Warrior
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- čas přidán 21. 12. 2022
- No matter the era, The Ultimate Warrior has been one of professional wrestling's most polarising stars, but while the positive side of Warrior's wrestling legacy casts him as a staunch mainstay in the late Hulkamania era, the truth is that Warrior's time at the top of the WWE was shorter than the career epitaph sometimes indicates. And once the slide commenced, Warrior spent the rest of his time between the ropes looking to recapture the lost magic...
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Cultaholic provides video coverage of professional wrestling - including WWE (including WWE Raw, WWE SmackDown, NXT and 205 Live), AEW, IMPACT Wrestling (formerly TNA), NJPW, ROH, and more with daily news updates, reviews, lists, highlights, predictions, reactions, podcasts and much, much more. - Sport
I love the direction Cultaholic has taken on . Yes, there's news and listicles, but these long-form well-produced and researched documentary pieces are all excellent from top to bottom. Keep it up, guys.
Agreed 💯💯
Totally agree.
ITS GOOD TO WATCH WHEN YOUR TAKING A DUMP. BRAVO
Yep. As someone who’s been a longtime fan of channels like Wrestling With Wregret and Wrestling Bios, I love seeing Cultaholic branching out and experimenting with different formats like this.
Absolutely agree. I don't even really watch much wrestling now days, but these mini documentaries will aways get a watch from me. Love them.
9:08 "A record that will likely stand the rest of eternity..."
**GUNTHER enters the room**
Great to hear a balanced view of Warriors career…his rise was great, his fall a mixture of self-inflicted and misunderstandings. He’ll always be my favourite wrestling character of all time
Jason Reed The Warrior never fell he just left because of disagreements with Vince
Documentaries like this are what set Cultaholic apart from all the rest. Ross, incredible job, mate! I can’t thank you and everyone there enough for all you do!! Wishing you all the happiest holiday season ever!! ❤️❤️
Obviously we all love Ross, Sam, Jack, Andrew, Tom, Adam and the rest of the boys in front of the camera, butI just want to take a second to show appreciation for those behind the lens. The writers, producers, editors and all the rest of those oh-so- necessary and often overlooked roles.
It's entries like this that make me realize how great a writing/ researching staff Cultaholic has .
Cultaholic and Team Triple Jump have been a constant in my life for years now, and I just wanted to say thank you.
Thank you, Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone at Cultaholic Towers!
True. People, including me, often forget the amount of effort it takes to make a video like this, especially behind the scenes. Like the background images, the research to get them, the video composition, everything really. It's a well oiled machine that Adam has made work. It's something I look forward to every lunch time haha.
I always loved warrior's custom belt. The yellow i.c. belt and the blue, white, purple winged eagle
Yes! Shawn Michaels had the custom white ic belt I thought it was awesome
Yip the purpel
Love these Rise and Fall segments. Home release levels of quality :)
I was 10 years old when Warrior faced Hogan at Wrestlemania. I was a Hulk Hogan fan first but Warrior was my favorite from the very first time i has seen him on the Saturday morning. I used to watch the PPV with like 10 other kids from the neighborhood, with Pizza and pop, we would wrestle..it was awesome. I know how bad warrior was as a wrestler but none of that mattered when you were a kid.
It's fair to say that the Ultimate Warrior character that entertained millions of fans, was often a much different person outside of the ring. Warrior wasn't "always" in a bad mood, but he definitely got his fill of being approached by fans in public. During the years that Jim Hellwig wrestled as the Dingo Warrior in WCCW, he was a lot more fan-friendly than he was in the WWF. I think that Ultimate Warrior had become a much different person when he agreed to become a WWE ambassador in late 2013, all the way up to his death in April of 2014.
What a nostalgia hit this video was. This era was my very first introduction to wrestling , I loved the warrior as a kid, I had the sleeping bag, the bed sheets , the posters etc, this video has taken me back . Brilliant stuff ross
I was a huge Warrior mark, too. I couldn't afford any merch, though.
Sad
His cousin was my 6th grade teacher in the San Diego area. Her last name was Helwig, and she did mention that they were related. This would have been 1987. He wasn't quite the huge star yet. I thought it was cool at the time. My teacher was star-adjacent to someone I saw on TV.
Did not know that thanks for the info.🤔🤔🤔
@@zacharythomason7359 Wahaha
A young Jim Hellwig kind of looks like the British Bulldog 😮
“See, Hogan had humanity. Weird thing to say these days but we’ll roll with it.”
I love how that signature Ross humor always shines through even in these polished, scripted narrations.
Great job Ross! I always enjoy your narration so much. I like all the other guys too, but you have to be my favorite.
The only thing better than his scripted narration is the off-the-cuff silliness he brings to other videos like the news and WTF.
It's mad how short his big run was looking back.
Well, didn't help he had already beat the majority of the heel roster coming up. He should of had a match against earthquake, but since he was the big monster of the time he got hogan.
His entrance and matches were an allusion, 'ultimately', to what his career would be with the company.
A little sad there was no mention of sad "airbrushed muscles on spandex" Warrior right before the HGH firing.
Feeling in a bad state, kinda depressed, I'm filled with love and warmth at the sound of Tom's voice !
I get why Warrior was so popular, but he never did it for me. All in all, another great documentary!
The Self-DESTRUCITY of the Ultimate Warrior. And he killed Santa Clause in a comic.
Killed and committed unspeakable sexual acts.
@@Beavie which is weird because Ultimate Warrior was Homophobic.
I hate when people say Warrior never slammed Andre over the top. Some wrestlers say he only slammed Andre off to the side. It's true he slammed Andre the way they said. However, he also slammed Andre from a dead lift without Andre helping him. Warrior had some good matches with Andre. He had good matches with Randy and Rick Roode. His later matches with Randy were very good. You could see Warrior was getting better if you really pay attention. The crap some wrestlers and others gave him about his ability might be true in the beginning. I feel Warrior got better towards the end of his run before the Steroids debacle with Vince. I loved the Warrior and always will. I'm 45 years old. I was younger than 10 when I first seen him. He was huge and had tons of power.
I gotta say this was an excellent video. I wasn't a big fan of you in your "King Ross" days, but I have been following your work a lot more on Cultaholic. Keep up the awesome, entertaining, and informative work Ross.
Still fucking crazy that in another timeline, Jim Helwig would've been Big Van Vader and not Leon White.
How?
@@A_CZcams_Commenter because njpw were going to make him Vader first.
I think the ratings went down for the Warrior because a lot of fans got tired of Hogan around that time and just quit watching it. I think Hogan left because he realized he had wore it out. Pretty sure he had agents advising him to get out.
More documentaries like this plz
Another superb small documentary. These vids are probably my favourite ones you lads do. I'm still working through the WWE documentary bit by bit and I love it. So glad you do this. It's so interesting. Merry Christmas lads.
This and this history of wwe doc have moved you up. Fantastic!
Still scary he died a few days after Raw 2014
Watching him work those ropes, his face red as a beet, I remember thinking: "He doesn't look good..."
@@irighterotica yeah
@@zanethind it wasn't a few days after RAW , it was literally the following day , not even 24 hours later.
I wonder if Warrior could have been a bigger success if he had been truly booked as the main star after beating Hogan. Imagine if Hogan had barely beaten Andre, and then be placed behind Andre on the match card.
A lot of wrestlers weren't able to build a good story feud wise with UW. No real banter back and forth. Only two were willingly known to work a program and they made UW look amazing. Rick Rude and Randy Savage. Unfortunately, UW was not a long term wrestler. Even in his returns, he stuck to the same thing.
Not sure that analogy makes complete sense because Hogan was already on top of the card, ahead of Andre, when WrestleMania 3 happened, but I get what you are saying. It is difficult to know exactly how things went and what was cause and what was effect. Warrior was not booked like you are supposed to book your top superstar after he beat Hogan, but he was also flawed as a wrestler. To truly attempt to make him the top star, he would have needed to feud with Earthquake before Hogan did, or they would have needed to keep Mr.Perfect undefeated and then make him feud with Warrior, import a new monster heel from another promotion or figure something like that out.
fun fact, the original Vader gimmick was supposed to be Hellwig in Japan, but he turned it down to go to wwf... Leon White assumed the Vader moniker and the rest is history
Do the rise and fall of pro wrestling NOAH
Excellent uploads recently
19:36: In other words: Frank Miller's Batman.
That final line is so true.
Great stuff!
I did laugh out loud at the thought of Warrior in ECW. How would that have worked?
New jack beating the daylights out of him
Love how Warrior is always blamed for how Heenan "futher injured" his neck and back. Who is the creator that scripted that a man with a known serious back and neck injury be pressed slammed? No one ever mentions that aspect of the story.
Love all the content yall are awesome Merry Christmas to everyone
That nightmare fuel at 0:22...
I have divergent feelings on Warrior. He was popular, no doubt. And he was fun at times to watch. But he seemed to not have a genuine desire to become an all-time great. He had zero staying power. The guy just seemed to enjoy the money but not the job itself.
Great video 👍🏼
I must say to this day the Ultimate Warrior has one of the most energetic and electrifying entrances of all time
Love these Rise and Falls
Great work as always, Ross
Ultimate Lunatic
Loved his wrestling promos thou 😂
LOVE that we have a match from 🇨🇦 that will be talked about forever in Wrestling history!!!
The character was a hero, the man was a heel.
Great job on the video Ross
Fun Fact: The capital of Parts Unknown is Destru City.
It shows how behind Warrior they were when even Hogan's politics couldn't sway them.
Thanks for another fantastic story, Ross
Warrior's promos and the way he wrestled was perfect for his character. He couldn't do it any other way as that character.
That picture of earthquake teabagging hulk makes my sides hurt
This Guy is not a World Champion material, Ultimate Warrior is not that guy. He belongs in the mid card.
Only Ross can pull those jokes off 😂🤣
So very well done, thank you.
"Written by a sleep deprived English-lit student" sent me into hysterics. Thank you xx
This proves what a good writer Ross is, and always has been.
9:08 Well unless a Ring General from Austria comes along to give a stiff chop to that record.
I believe it was made to fail not intentionally but inevitably. It literally is Hogan 2.0 a big part of Roman problem being Cena 2.0. recreating is incredibly hard and often resented. May Jim rest in peace ✌️
I remember when Warrior came on the scene...he was my favorite wrestler..and then I learned what kind of person he was behind the scenes and I just couldn't respect him anymore..
Great stuff. thanks
I'm pretty sure they said the Warrior's music got your "blood a-pumping". Not that it got your "bladder pumping", as the captions so helpfully showed it.
Honky Tonk Man's 15 month IC belt reign is one I never knew is still a record to this day. How long was Mr Perfect's reign with said belt?
Warrior was so bad in the ring that he made Hogan look like a skilled technician
The Warrior was fun to like as a kid. He was just a total cartoon.
I think we were all pumped for the Warrior return in 1996. It was just doomed from the start. HHH was nobody's fav wrestler in 96 but had tons of potential and it was clear had a good future. The Warrior could've squashed any wrestler for his return. It shouldn't have been Hunter but oh well. Then came what the wrestling world was waiting for. The Ultimate Warrior vs GOLDUST!!! I mean this was fantasy booking ish. Of course, Dustin was shoot injured and instead of having a match, they did this weird psychology battle that was so cringe. So that was terrible. It wouldn't take much longer for Warrior to start no showing events and getting no angles because he couldn't be trusted, then of course he was fired. However, I wouldn't say it was desperate on both sides. Had Warrior came in with a cooler head he would've worked a real match with HHH, and they would've waited until Goldust healed to get these two in the ring.
5:50 I am going to be honest, I don't think it would have mattered. Warrior is the epitome of 'he doesn't know and by god he is going to keep it that way.'
this is another example of what sets Cultaholic apart from Name Redacted
I met Warrior in I think late 2010-early 2011 or so when he spoke at the college I was going to. Think it was right after his match with Orlando Jordan or something that I also remember happening around the same time. Like any other given Warrior speaking he raged against the woke crowd by incidentally sounding like he himself was woke in that he believed that his ideals could save the universe. However towards the end of the whole thing he was like "back in the day I used to think that my beliefs were the end-all-be-all to solving the world's problems. But I've come to realize that they could also start a different set of problems."
I think towards the end of his life Warrior started taking himself much less seriously becoming more aware of how bad a person he was and I think he was on the way to changing for the better. That was the vibe I got anyways. He was very nice to everybody before and after the speaking, signing autographs and stuff. I never bothered to get his autograph because I don't get starstruck like that, but the other college kids did.
It's very in-style to hate on someone like Warrior because judging from their words AND actions they deserve it. But I just always felt bad for the guy. Thrust into being the second coming of a guy like Hogan so early in your career, that's gotta do something to you. I would absolutely hate that kind of fame and pressure. I'm certain Warrior couldn't have liked it either and he had to act out in one way or another.
The comment about honky tonks reign aged well this past year lol
It should be noted that Power Team USA is not to be confused with The Power Team, a group of Christian evangelist bodybuilders, power-lifters and martial artists who’ve been around since the 1970s and tour the country preaching and doing motivational speeches.
Power Team USA was definitely better.
I thought Ultimate Warrior died after he lift Andre the Giant which cause his muscle to rupture. Hahahaha! Now I know the truth. Legend! One of my WWF hero!
I remember my dad telling me the 2nd warrior theory when i was a kid. I don't even know where he heard it back then. how did these rumors spread so much back in the days? lol
Yeah, it went around the playground when I was at school. No idea how these things spread, especially all the way us to other countries like the UK etc
I think it was a reaction to him coming off the juice, and returning significantly smaller than he originally was…if you check his physique in the late 80s compared to his 92 return, he was much smaller. Probably to do with the steroid scandal around that time.
@@opulentwaters7939 do u think hulk went back on the roids in wcw?
@@greyjedi6430 good question bro. I don’t think he was juicing at that point- if you look at him during the heel turn compared to the late 80s, he’s ridiculously smaller. Leaner, more defined but much less mass. Maybe he was on something else, but I wouldn’t say an anabolic.
His best match is for Randy Savage
And 2nd Rick rude
Hands down. It was his best. I'm surprised Savage didn't tire him out. I can see Randy saying to Warrior, "Okay...just 4 more elbow drops and we're almost done." Lol RIP ALL. Everyone involved in Warrior vs Savage at WM7 has coincidentally passed away. Announcers, commentator, wrestlers and managers.
"There was nothing methodical about Warrior's brand of onslaught because Jim Helwig wasn't paid by the hour."
LMAO
I Love these videos more please
they should have had him feud with Savage longer or after Savage retired, Warrior would be managed by Savage
The idea of Warrior in ECW is fucking hilarious
I was in my late teens when I first saw him on TV. I wished at the time I had his physique. I loved his entrance music was awesome! I loved his intensity. Then 25 years later, I find out he was a jerk and couldn’t wrestle according to other wrestlers.
bravo, ross bravo!
Sure, Warrior didn't have a lot of wrestling skills in-ring or promo skill, but he was over with the fans.
He never "fell." He cashed out and quit.
This content 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
GOD GIVE US BACK ULTIMATE WARRIOR AND WILL GIVE U HOUSTON MILLER !!!
well, i still dream, what would have been, if they turned Hogan Heel after the 1992 Rumble and let him do the Job to Sid Justice at WM 8 - sure, Sid turned out to be not what they hoped, but still, that would have been amazing - turning Justice after that Rumble Finish was just stupid
I always called him the ultimate steroid!
Common cultaholic and Ross W
I was in 7th or 8th grade when Warrior was at the top of WWF. I was OK with it........ but I think it was intended for the young.
Warrior and ECW could’ve worked, much like Sid and ECW did for a short time.
Warrior was never meant to last longer. He has achieved a cult status due to his short career.
damn so that answers my question lol i remembering hearing the original warrior died. when he did die in 2014 i remember trying to figure out if it was true.
21:37 The story that has always been told is that Warrior held up Vince for money. Vince and all the rest tell it like he did it the night of Summer Slam 91. If you look at the stamp at the top right of the letter, you will see that Vince responds to Warrior July 11th. Warrior was responding to the fact that Vince still hadn't paid him the total amount for his work at WM7 on top of demoting him from being the champion. Thing is, all competitive people want to the first or on top. When you get canned the company without giving you enough time to develop, I can imagine in a real world scenario, you're going to have some bad feelings. Vince had 6 weeks to follow through with this. He chose to wait until SummerSlam to tell anybody else or do anything else about this to make him look like had been held up that night. Vince, well, we see how things are working out for him now. Hogan, I imagine had he the legs kicked out from under him that early in his career without the push he'd been given, I'd bet good money he would have done the same thing.....Oh wait.....That's why he came to WCW..............Narc mentalities and greed. Hogan couldn't do a match on his own either BTW. But he had 9 years to perfect his position and solidify his place in the minds of WWF's audience that he was the Guy. Double Standards set by the Civilian American Moron.
Wow never knew that this type of work was cut throat and just like every work place , employee just don’t want to work …😂
Reminds me of Heavy Metal Van Hammer.
I dont care what anyone says you're still going to be king Ross to me. ❤️
Maybe I'm an outlier, but I never really thought the Warrior was all that. No actual wrestling ability, rambling nonsensical promos ... people claim the Warrior at least had charisma, but I never saw it.
I felt bad for warrior because me at 9 years old at the time of wrestlemania 6 was like ok whom else is next? I would have had legitimate heels lined up. Pn the A&e documentary i believed it was reported that warrior indeed asked vince that in the lockerroom after wm6. Nobody clearly had an answer. You beat the biggest babyface as ababyface. What nex??. This is why face vs face doesnt work. When shawn beat bret wat was next? Did shawn take it to the next level? No bret came back much like hogan did when warrior could not take it to the next level. What happened after wm x-7???? Austin turned heel with no top face because the rock was the only other top face. Its hard to do these things for that reason. I felt this was not warriors fault. There just was nobody.
Why did we love this guy? Smh
anyone remember Spoony Reviews of his comics?
9:06 lmao
These videos would be so much better if you could show some actual video footage of the fights
Now you know how anal WWE is and will give warnings to CZcamsrs about copyrights
Rise and Fall of Pro Wrestling Noah please
Vince did him dirty