The Ultimate Warrior

[Mr. DS]

After visiting one of my favorite sites, www.wrestlecrap.com, I was inspired to dig up some old video of The Ultimate Warrior.  For those of you not familiar with wrestling, he was a huge star back in the mid to late 80s.  His wrestling character was an odd one.  He basically made it sound like he was a warrior sent from the heavens to wrestle.  He'd wear face paint, tassels on his arms and ran to the ring like a maniac.  I used to be a fan as a kid but as an adult, I had to question if the guy knew where to draw the line of character and man.  He eventually changed his name to his character's namesake and released a comic book filled with odd rhetoric and ideologies.  Anyhow...I found this first video with several WWE superstars commenting on his interview style...

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P39b7v1wzfg

Yeah scary stuff right, but this is my favorite Warrior moment...

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNEd4KH_A4s

Nowadays he does conservative speeches.  Purely odd...

[rebel_1812]

I liked him as a kid.  I though his manic energy is what made the character a memorable one.  As to whether he is crazy; most high energy people are describe as crazy by others.  Not to the extreme case as the warrior was but I think it happens because their minds are wired differently then the average person.

[trekgeezer]

Crap, I thought you were talking about the Yul Brynner movie!

[AnubisVonMojo]

Man, Warrior is the only wrestler I know of who had a harder time making the transition from ring life to real life after it was all said and done. There is no more human being in their minds. There is no more James Hellwig or Randall Poffo, there is only Warrior and the Macho Man. If any other people tried to dress up like a bad comic book superhero and ran around proclaiming himself as such, they'd be tossed in a padded cell asap... well, except for those "Who Wants to Be a Superhero" people...

Crazier still is the YouTube videos taken by attendees at a sports memorobilia show from just a few months ago where the Iron Sheik threw a sh!t fit on the Warrior. Not sure how it started, but the videos of Sheik dropping f-bombs left and right for 2 or 3 minutes are hilarious and unsettling. Like watching a drunk: you're not sure if he's just going to be a threat to himself or become one to someone else too. I'd post it here, but as I said, looooooooooooots of instances of the 'f' word. Just head over to YouTube and search for "ultimate warrior iron sheik".

[Snivelly]

Man, Warrior is the only wrestler I know of who had a harder time making the transition from ring life to real life after it was all said and done. There is no more human being in their minds. There is no more James Hellwig or Randall Poffo, there is only Warrior and the Macho Man. If any other people tried to dress up like a bad comic book superhero and ran around proclaiming himself as such, they'd be tossed in a padded cell asap... well, except for those "Who Wants to Be a Superhero" people...

Crazier still is the YouTube videos taken by attendees at a sports memorobilia show from just a few months ago where the Iron Sheik threw a sh!t fit on the Warrior. Not sure how it started, but the videos of Sheil dropping f-bombs left and right for 2 or 3 minutes are hilarious and unsettling. Like watching a drunk: you're not sure if he's just going to be a threat to himself or become one to someone else too. I'd post it here, but as I said, looooooooooooots of instances of the 'f' word. Just head over to YouTube and search for "ultimate warrior iron sheik".

The Warrior has been out on the lecture circuit calling Arabic people all sorts of lovely racists names the past few years, and on his website as well, so maybe the iron Sheik was reacting to that. 

A couple of years ago, maybe not that long, a site called SomethingAwful.com featured a link to one of the Warrior's online rants, and he threatened a lawsuit.  The site published the correspondence between the parties involved, and it was rather funny. 

[AnubisVonMojo]

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if you're right on the nail about that one Snivelly. In the tirade, I think Sheik proclaims that he's from Georgia numerous times, which would make sense if Crazy McSteroids happened to drop any anti-Arab sentiments either in person or on his website. If he's got the same crazy as Randy Savage though, it won't be long before Warrior's out there with a rap album of his own dissing the Sheik on every other track... only Warrior's will less likely have any kind of musical accompaniment and will just consist of himself going off on several 20 minute tangents.

[Mr. DS]

Crazier still is the YouTube videos taken by attendees at a sports memorobilia show from just a few months ago where the Iron Sheik threw a sh!t fit on the Warrior. Not sure how it started, but the videos of Sheik dropping f-bombs left and right for 2 or 3 minutes are hilarious and unsettling. Like watching a drunk: you're not sure if he's just going to be a threat to himself or become one to someone else too. I'd post it here, but as I said, looooooooooooots of instances of the 'f' word. Just head over to YouTube and search for "ultimate warrior iron sheik".

Funny you mentined that Anubis, I was just on Youtube last night watching that.  The Iron Sheik smacked that security guy pretty hard twice. 

[AnubisVonMojo]

I know! I'm pretty sure the Sheik is legitimately insane at this point. He kept blaming the security guy for the thing with the Warrior, telling him, "This is your fault! You made this happen!"... only with three or four variations on the f word thrown in too. Being security for crap like that just ain't worth it. They should've hired other ex-wrestlers to do security instead. Some of those guys can be bought off with a hot sandwich and a cup of coffee... or a hit off of a crack pipe, sadly enough. I'm sure Lex Luger and Jake Roberts were available.

[Snivelly]

If you're feeling masochistic, visit the Warrior's site and have a read.  It's fascinating and scary at the same time, the man is so wrapped up in himself!  Read his blog, he mentions the incident with the Iron sheik but fails to report what went on there. 

Don't say I didn't warn you, this is insane:

http://www.ultimatewarrior.com

[Mr. DS]

I found another one on YouTube of the Warrior ripping into an NFL agent's assitant who told him to hurry up with an autograph for a football player.  Apparently sports conventions are violent places.

[Derf]

Not to defend the Warrior too much, but I don't really think he's as crazy as he comes across. I've read several of his diatribes, and, yes, he has the communicatory ability of a mutant lemur (ring-tailed, no less), and, yes, he is extremely conceited, but his underlying rhetoric seems to be just a very traditional, if somewhat overly individualistic, view of the American Dream. He claims to have read the works of America's founding fathers and to have taken their teaching very much to heart. That would make him much more conservative (in the traditional, moral sense more than the political sense), but not exactly crazy. If I recall, he claims he changed his name to Warrior to protect it and himself from legal troubles started by the WWE as well as to signify his will to fight anybody, anywhere to protect what he sees as his. Admittedly, I'm probably more traditionally conservative than many on this board, so maybe I'm more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and read some sanity into his rantings, but at the same time, I seldom hear anyone arguing against the few intelligible things he does say, instead just resorting to ad hominem attacks. After teaching writing courses for just under 20 years, I think I have gained some ability to "read between the lines" a bit, and so maybe I can just weed out the main points of a rant better than most. Or maybe I'm just crazy, too. 

[AnubisVonMojo]

The problem may not be with what the Warrior's saying, so much as that no one can understand what he's saying when he's saying it because it's always wrapped up in hoarsely shouted jibberish... and because he may just be insane. I picked up the comic book a few years ago because I thought it be interesting to see if the guy could write, but it was like reading an illustrated bible for borderline lunacy. He's like a televangelist, a life coach and a berserker all in one. heh heh

[Derf]

The problem may not be with what the Warrior's saying, so much as that no one can understand what he's saying when he's saying it because it's always wrapped up in hoarsely shouted jibberish... and because he may just be insane. I picked up the comic book a few years ago because I thought it be interesting to see if the guy could write, but it was like reading an illustrated bible for borderline lunacy. He's like a televangelist, a life coach and a berserker all in one. heh heh

Admittedly, the man can't write a coherent sentence or stay on topic for more than a couple of seconds. But then, I read that kind of writing all the time in my classes, so, as I said, maybe I've just gotten good at picking out the coherent bits and piecing them together. The "critiques" of Warrior's writing that I've come across, however, are often just as incoherent, and usually are just diatribes from the opposite end of the political spectrum. I guess maybe there are just plenty of crazy people posting on the internet. What are the chances of that?

[AnubisVonMojo]

The internet: giving the crazed and socially unacceptable a medium to discuss the issues that matter most to them... while typing with their nose from the confines of a straight jacket in a padded cell.

[JaseSF]

The Warrior has been talking in mind-numbing riddles only he likely understands since the late 1980s.