“Didn’t he already die from lifting weights?”
That’s what people usually say when I mention the Ultimate Warrior. The guy named James Hellwig, who would eventually become known as the Ultimate Warrior, was one of the biggest stars of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) from the late 1980s to the ’90s.
The Ultimate Warrior was famous for having the best accompanying music of that era as well as the best entrance, often coming out of the locker room running, when most wrestlers would walk and make gestures.
Warrior would come to the ring every night and give the fans a show; among his most memorable matches included beating Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 6, and his Wrestlemania 7 encounter with the “Macho King” Randy Savage.
The fans loved him so much that, to this day, they still talk about his matches. The running, the high energy, the strength, the face paint, the muscles, the awesome speeches and his overall connection with the crowd made the Ultimate Warrior one of the most influential and iconic stars in the business.
Personal and local
Our bus driver in high school would talk about how he considered the Ultimate Warrior as the best wrestler of all time. The common story among older Filipino wrestling fans was that the Warrior died from lifting weights. That could have been a story concocted by the very company that made his career.
What most people do not know is that he had a rocky relationship with WWE.
If anyone saw a copy of “The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior,” people would realize that he wasn’t dead at all. But when the DVD was released in 2005, it looked like the company really wished he was dead.
The documentary revealed that the Warrior ruined his own career because he asked for too much money and more control over the character that WWE developed.
One of the interviewees mentioned that the Warrior was blurring the lines between reality and his ring persona. Jim Hellwig legally changed his name to Warrior in 1993 to have the rights to anything associated with his character.
What was saddening is that years after the launch of that DVD, everyone actually thought no one was ever going to hear from him again, other than the videos he had on YouTube. What was more depressing for the WWE universe was that people thought they would never see Warrior entering the WWE ring ever again.
The past two years changed all that. As WWE launched its new video game, everyone was talking more about who the promoter was, and it was the Warrior himself! This year, Wrestlemania and its Hall of Fame ceremony sold itself to the old school fans by inducting the Ultimate Warrior in the WWE Hall of Fame.
It was a moment nobody would have expected, as the Warrior had seemingly made his peace with the company by agreeing to be in WWE programming once again, after more than a decade.
Past controversies
The Hall of Fame speech kept everyone waiting for him to mention his past controversies and issues with other wrestlers. He looked like he wanted to explain everything that he was accused of in the past, but eventually he just stopped and said he was also a good person.
This was a sign for the fans that the Warrior had already made peace with the company he had been locked in a legal battle.
It was the night after Wrestlemania 30, on Monday Night Raw, that fans were treated to an unexpected surprise by the Warrior. He was back, and he had something to say to the fans, but he was obviously having a hard time expressing it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a mask which resembled the iconic face paint that his character would always wear at matches during his prime.
The roller-coaster three-day ride—the Hall of Fame ceremony, Wrestlemania 30 and Monday Night Raw—was overwhelming for any WWE fan. Unfortunately, on April 8, the night after three days of programmed events, the Warrior succumbed to heart attack. He was 54.
It was unexpected, but when people look back on his speech at Monday Night Raw, a day before he died, people somehow saw it as a goodbye message to all those who remembered him. One realized that he was there for a last ride, in the nick of time. As he let go of animosity he had toward people in the place he loved, it was clear that all had been forgiven, and it was the start of a new adventure.
It showed that even if second chances may seem impossible, the Warrior didn’t think so, and that forgiveness and peace will come to those who reach for them. Thank you, Warrior.
The following are the words he spoke before the WWE universe during his last public speech on the April 7 edition of Monday Night Raw:
“Every man’s heart one day beats its final beat, his lungs breathe their final breath, and if what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others and makes them believe deeper in something larger than life, then his essence, his spirit will be immortalized.”