On the way to work this morning I read that The Ultimate Warrior has passed away. It has been confirmed by the WWE on their website and so it hits home even more.
Just this past weekend Warrior of course after patching up his differences with WWE was inducted into the Hall of Fame, in fact he was the headliner in New Orleans. His speech was amazing and the one thing he said that was more heartfelt was him being the father of his two daughters who were there with him and the fact is was more important than ANYTHING he had done in the wrestling business. You can see/hear the speech here -
I got into wrestling late, I was 15, it was the summer of 1990, that spring Intercontinental champion Warrior had defeated Hulk Hogan to win the WWF championship at Wrestle Mania VI. That summer, Warrior was in another feud with Rick Rude which culminated in a steel cage match at Summer Slam and it was after watching this I went back to watch older stuff, and it wasn't that old, the Wrestle Mania match which I loved back then and STILL watch it every now and then and still like it a lot. Yes, this day and age the wrestling I like is very different to that style of match and the current WWE product but this match was great, for me, it was billed as The Ultimate Challenge and it lived up to that.
Recently with it being 'Wrestle Mania season' there's the obvious talk of past Mania moments that fans have witnessed and I've already spoke about one of mine but one that topped that was the following year. At Wrestle Mania VII Warrior had, pardon the pun, the ultimate moment as he defeated Randy Savage in a career match. If there is anyone that hasn't seen it, you really need to. It was a great spectacle and an amazing moment.
Warrior had a shall we say, interesting time in the WWF, many say he was hard to deal with, there's the famous Summer Slam 91 incident where just before his match where he teamed with Hogan to take on Sgt Slaughter, General Adnan & Colonel Mustafa (The Iron Sheik) in which he 'held up' Vince McMahon for more money to which then ended his first run with the company. However, the WWF came calling again and he was back at Wrestle Mania VII.
Warrior would go on to have a stint in WCW where Hogan got a victory back over him.
WWE went on to produce a DVD titled 'The Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior' which featured many WWE alumni slaughtering him. Warrior didn't take too kind to this and actually took them to court which I believe was settled eventually.
After negotiations with WWE, more specifically Triple H, Warrior agreed to go into the Hall of Fame and a deal was done for a positive DVD release which I began to watch the other day and things were looking up.
Then as stated earlier, there was the really good HOF speech, appearance at Mania and he did this promo on Monday on RAW -
To end, I got to work, still in a state of shock not knowing the circumstances of Warrior's passing but very sad.
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