#121 – Ultimate Warrior
There was no one else like him in the world of professional wrestling – The Ultimate Warrior. Dre and the Black Cat sit down to talk about the icon mere days after his passing and days after seeing him live in New Orleans and review two matches from his career. The first is his cage match with Rick Rude at SummerSlam 1990 for the WWF Heavyweight championship and the second is possibly his very first TV appearance with Sting in the mid-80s when he was simply known as Jim Hellwig and teamed with a young Steve Borden and were known as the Freedom Fighters. Please support the Old School Wrestling Podcast by visiting flairchop.com to purchase our book “The OSWP 500,” the collected volumes of the first 75 episodes, an OSWP t-shirt, or one of our beautiful posters.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 56:15 — 32.6MB)
The night Warrior passed my Twitter feed blew up with RT, favorites, follows, and people saying that I was the last person Warrior retweeted. For about three days this went on, I even had to turn off my notifications just to get some sleep. As of now I still get a couple RT a day, but the madness has stopped. In the end I did get some press, but not for myself. I did what I do best and that was promote Drunken Zombie and OSWP sending them traffic.
Nice find on the early Sting /Warrior match. I always wondered what it would have been like if they switched paths. Warrior in the NWA taking Flair to the 45 min. Draw? No way. But Flair did get some pretty good matches out of Luger early on so who knows? What about if it was Sting who was “passed the torch” from Hogan at wrestlemania 6? Would the WWF machine have been able to make him a household name? Would he have hung as champ through the steroid trial, taking away Bret Hart’s role? Not sure if Sting had enough charisma but neither did Bret really.
I was driving when I listened to this show, so I was in my head beating my chest with my fist as Tommy Dreamer’s voice came through my speakers. The Innovator of Violence himself! Can’t wait to see what other gems you got on Mania weekend.
The only thing I did pick up on during Warrior’s weekend that I can look back on as a potential warning sign was just how frail he seemed. For a big dude, he was walking like Great Khali, and he could only do one half-hearted rope shake and looked like he was going to fall down. But just because someone has injuries from a life on the road, I would never have imagined that this would happen so soon after. Whatever anyone’s opinions on the Warrior are, a wife and two young girls now have no father or husband. And that’s the saddest part.
I remember a Warrior promo that my friend still talks about to this day. It was the Survivor Series where they had all the winners of the elimination matches go into a final elimination match. It ended up being Hogan, Warrior, and Tito Santana against Rick Martel’s entire team and Ted DiBiase (or something like that). Warrior was spouting on about the little warriors and the Hulkamaniacs. He though for a second and said “all the…arribadowchee”. He invented a word for the little Tito Santana fans. I’m surprised it didn’t stick.
Also, kudos to Dre, he is the master of impressions. Swig of Vitamin Water for the working man.
I remeber that. I think Warrior was trying to combine “Arriba!” (The spanish word for “upward” and Tito’s catchphrase) with arrivederci (Italian word for goodbye or until we meet again). Spanish, Italian whatever, it’s perfectly logical to all the warriors in parts unknown.
My problem is I think you all were a little too nice to Sting in comparing him to The Ultimate Warrior. First off when Sting fought Flair at Clash 1 that same day Warrior beat Hercules at WrestleMania 4. So he was not off tv still , he had already done matches and snapped the chain of Hercules. So to catch everyone up on who shot to the top first and who meant more here we go … Warrior won the IC title August of 88 , Sting won the lame tv title in March of 1989 . Warrior again won the IC title in August of 89. Warrior won the WWF title in April of 1990. Sting won the WCW title in July of 1990. Now , Warrior at WrestleMania 7 ended the career of Randy Savage that was 1991. Warrior had a feud with Rick Rude in WWF , Sting had a feud with Rude later in WCW. Warrior had a big match with Hogan , 7 years later Sting had a big match with Hogan. So really Warrior did a lot of things first , Warrior also as stated had the machine going with him. Sting also spent the most over and important year of his career wandering in the rafters and pointing a bat and his big showdown with Hogan was a let down from a match quality stand point. After beating Hogan in a rematch he dropped the belt to Savage a few months later. Warrior had 1 really big run. Sting had two hopeful pushes ended when he simply did not connect. Also , Sting and Flair never had a match as good as Clash 1 , from then to the last Nitro the quality dropped. Sting never lived up to his hype , Warrior in his short time coming and going made a bigger impact and made more money.
Do know that’s you have reviewed over 500 matches
Awesome! I had no idea. That’s a lot of wrestling.
this episode makes it 501 matches
My wife has every right to divorce me.
Loved Dre’s Ultimate Warrior impression.
My favorite Warrior promo was when he referenced the skeletons in his bones. Wish I could remember the context surrounding that. Man that was funny.