The Ultimate Warrior remains to this day one of the most iconic and well-recognized figures in pro wrestling history. He soared to the top of the WWF in the late 80’s/early 90’s, the highest of heights being his victory over then WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan in 1990 at WrestleMania VI.
Because of that fateful match held at the Skydome in Toronto, Ontario, two impressionable Canadian youngsters, Lawrence and Ethan became so captivated by The Ultimate Warrior that they decided more than 21 years later to get a film crew together and journey to New Mexico to seek out, meet and interview The Warrior.
This feature aired on Canadian sports network theScore. I found it one via my favorite wrestling news sites LordsofPain.net
Check out the 20-minute video below:
Here are some of my impressions on the video:
Lawrence and Ethan do a great job of covering their backstory, trip to New Mexico and of course finally meeting The Warrior. What I found annoying was the arguing and complaining between the two of them about 5-10 minutes in on their quest when The Warrior didn’t return their phone calls. I thought “OK guys, you could’ve edited that out”, but I suppose it adds to the build-up of the story.
When they finally meet up with Warrior (yes, that is Jim Hellwig’s legal name now, for those not in the know), he is still as tall as I’d imagine and still looks like a powerhouse, but the age is so apparent now. His hair is grayed out, actually a full-white buzz-cut. He’s wrinkled in the face and you can see from his walk and… well, he’s old! Which is completely expected, I mean come on, how long ago was 1990? (I hear your wheels turning doing the math!) But compared to Hulk Hogan, who unlike Warrior is still active to this day in pro-wrestling, Warrior still looks younger and more spry, whereas Hogan just looks beat down and decrepit.
Warrior does get into some of his memorable times in the WWF. He touches briefly on ‘Mania with the Hulkster, but what surprised me were his tales of working a match with Iron Mike Sharpe (of all people!) and a funny tale about him and the late great Randy “Macho Man” Savage (getting gorilla-pressed in the photo above).
The ending was a surprise, and I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t watched it yet, but I found it funny! Whether it was real or not, it totally fit the eccentricity of The Warrior as I’ve heard and read about over the years. All in all, this is a nice feature– a good watch for any wrestling fan.
The CSPN 