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Ultimate Warrior 1959-2014


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he was always my favourite as a kid. i remember when i first got into wrestling in 1993 and my fantasy booking was that the Warrior would come out of retirement and be the one to beat Yokozuna for the title at WM 10. by the time he eventually came back in '96 i was more a Brer Hart fan, but you maintain a soft spot for your early favs ;)

It's all already been said in here; the timing is shocking, the circumstances mysterious, and I feel really bad for his family. Haven't watched the speech from RAW yer but I thought his HOF speech was lovely; seemed like a good guy with a lot of BS in his past to work through.. very weird and very sad news, and an especially crazy week for a company that doesn't exactly specialize in "typical weeks". 

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I don't see any way anyone can say the Savage match wasn't great.

 

It's usually the Savage match and the Rude match that are cited as the "best"

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I think Mania 6 and 7 are thought of as very good/great by most.

Also, this should go without saying but I got into it on Twitter with a few people, you can be a fan of someone's work and sad that they died while still finding some of that person's views to be garbage. Praise of him as a wrestler, character, childhood hero etc is not an endorsement of his homophobia.

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(Dingo) Warrior vs. Rick Rude in WCCW is the first heel vs. heel match I recall seeing, and in those days DW was as mysterious and disjointed as Kabuki was to a kid raised on WWF.

I also remember my kid sisters bawling when he pinned Hogan -- that was a great day.

RIP

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I feel bad for his daughters too. Did he ever get to warn them that our government is spreading AIDS?

 

 

If a philosophically-inept billionaire like Bill Gates and bleeding-heart liberals like African-loving Angelina-Pitt-Brad-Jolie want to save the World from HIV, good. Just shut up and spend your own money to do it. It's not my problem. And I'm ashamed to one day have to tell my kids that their gutless government reps are making it an even bigger one for them in their future.

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You know, I'd absolutely enjoy a thread of transcribed Warrior promos. Fuck that; an e-book. That's why this era of information tech was invented. Someone should work on that.

 

I really do wonder how he would come up with his promos. They were nutty, yea, but also pretty complex. Like I honestly wonder if he would write stuff down or practice alot, or just totally wing it as soon as the cameras rolled. 

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I'm trying to find the rest of our correspondence. A few years ago, I e-mailed The Ultimate Warrior about painting a family portrait of my wife, myself and our dog. This was his response:

Gregg, hello. 

 

Thanks for being a fan. I appreciate that you were. It was great and inspiring time for all of us. The experiences, lessons, and memories of it all still inspire me today to get everything thing I can out of my life and live with intensity.

 
I do commissions, yes. 
 
The price would depend on the size and whether you wanted an ink and watercolor piece or a knife/oil piece.
 
Let me know.
 
 
Thanks for your inquiry.
 
Always Believe,
 
Warrior
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Found his response!

Gregg, hello. Thanks for the info. I'm not sure 5' by 5' would work...I would have to see the image of what you would like done. If the image works for an exact square, we could go with it, but, usually, this is not the case. A more rectangular canvas might work better.

 
I also need to see the image to know if watercolors would work over the oils, especially at that size. You won;t find too many watercolor portraits at that size because the intensity of watercolors, at that size, does not match the intensity and richness you can get out of oils -- and with the way I use my knife, a portrait at that size would EXPLODE off the canvas, I can promise you that.
 
The price for something that size would not be cheap, no less than a few thousand dollars, probably even more. I can know from looking at the image. My 42 x70 INCH oil/knife portrait canvases sale for between 5K and 10K..
 
Let me know.
 
Always Believe,
 

Warrior

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I feel bad for his daughters too. Did he ever get to warn them that our government is spreading AIDS?

 

 

If a philosophically-inept billionaire like Bill Gates and bleeding-heart liberals like African-loving Angelina-Pitt-Brad-Jolie want to save the World from HIV, good. Just shut up and spend your own money to do it. It's not my problem. And I'm ashamed to one day have to tell my kids that their gutless government reps are making it an even bigger one for them in their future.

 

Yea, he had some crazy ideas, but that's not what today is about. Not even close.

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There is no good death, or bad death. Death is what it is, an event that simply exists for the interpretation of others. And if I were ever able to choose the context in which to go, Warrior's was relatively kind, compared to how it might have been. For his children, I'm certain they would have preferred him to be as immortal and as invincible as his alter ego. I cannot begin to imagine their take. So I choose to not.

Edited to add: I'm just glad my initial impression was incorrect.

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So I was talking to a co-worker about the Warrior's death at work and another guy a few seats over swings around and says "You know the original Ultimate Warrior died in the 80s.  This guys was the second one".  That is a paraphrase, not a direct quote.  I swear, this rumor has lived for 25+ years.  I didn't even think about it until the words left this moron's mouth.  

 

I had a co-worker tell me this morning that they thought he died a long time ago.

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I don't see any way anyone can say the Savage match wasn't great.

 

I've said this before, but the WM7 match is only great if you're emotionally invested in the Savage/Liz storyline. If you're not, it's pretty dull. Their Summerslam 1992 match is much better.

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I don't see any way anyone can say the Savage match wasn't great.

 

I've said this before, but the WM7 match is only great if you're emotionally invested in the Savage/Liz storyline. If you're not, it's pretty dull. Their Summerslam 1992 match is much better.

 

 

Honestly, I've always thought that match was overrated. Kicking out of 5 elbow drops? Really? I literally LOL'd at that when I watched it again years ago.

 

I probably think the Hogan match is better.

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Dude was a wrestler and a painter. His politics never hurt anyone. Meanwhile he spent a few years as one of the most entertaining cats around in a business we all are crazy enough to love. You don't have to think he was a good guy if you don't want to, but it's not really the time to make that particular case, okay?

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Well I certainly agree, there is no need to make the case. We're sharing our memories and concerns and those are mine. btw you've all been reported to the dean of students at Warrior U for mourning a stranger.

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It's so weird. I mean, we're all pretty numb to wrestling deaths at this point. I think Eddy was the one that really bothered in the way that I didn't think I could watch wrestling anymore, or at least I couldn’t get emotionally involved anymore. 

 

Obviously, Benoit was just awful, but in a weird way it made me want to rally around wrestling because whatever the darkness of wrestling is, it isn't THAT. Not to that level. 

 

And Macho was tough, but Mach was out of sight for so long, and it was just sad that he died after seemingly finding happiness.

 

This is more just...really since 2011 I've found myself really invested again. Whether it was Punk, or Bryan, The Shield, the Undertaker's streak, or the very unique run of Cena, or really the shift and emphasis back on the wrestling and the fact that we haven't had as many tragedies or sordid shit that ruins thing, but wrestling has been fun for a while now. Maybe it's just that wrestling is just better after being kind of up and down in the post-Attitude Era 2000s, but there’s so much to enjoy now. It went back to less being something I'll always watch because I've watched it since I was 5, but more that I’m excited to watch it.

 

And this weekend was the culmination of that. One of my favorite cities in the world, a HOF-filled with a lot of inspirational stories and colorful characters, 80,000 just friendly, cool people so excited about being in New Orleans and seeing 'Mania, and a show that saw probably the last match of one of the greatest performers in history, and one of the truly-great blowoff feel-good moments in wrestling history. And then even Raw Monday and Main Event Tuesday were just fucking awesome. I watched the Shield match last night as I was grading papers and I was thinking about the weekend and I was just fucking pumped about all the shit coming up. 

 

And then this happened. And it reminds me that you should never care too much because this, particular to other forms of entertainment and sports, always has tragedy looming. 

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