Original subtitles

If you could take a bolt of electricity and somehow morph that

into a living cartoon character, that would be Warrior.

The ultimate warrior was a righteous gladiator that rose faster than anybody

the top of the wrestling world.

Very few people in the history of wrestling have gone from...

Stars can pinnacle as fast as the ultimate warrior did.

He had a phenomenal 8x10.

He looked great.

Vince was about big bodies.

Warrior caught on to that and he took it to a whole different level.

He had dreams, he had an intensity, and there was absolutely nothing that was

going to stop him from becoming something.

But the real man behind the face paint, Jim Hellwing, contradicted the ideals of

his heroic alter ego, becoming one of wrestling's most contentious figures.

When Jim would get in the ring, he honestly thought he became the warrior.

For quite a while there, he was absolutely

batshit insane.

He thought he was better than other people.

He didn't want to learn the wrestling business because he didn't like it.

My sense of that chronic paranoia.

When's it all going to end?

Hellwig's divisive behavior behind the scenes would cut his reign short and

leave behind a complicated legacy steeped in controversy.

And now a sad note to pass along. The death of one of the biggest pro

stars of the 1990s. When I heard that he had died the way that he had died, it

hurt.

He was a moment in time. He was a very colorful, powerful character.

for a brief moment in time.

It's been very well documented about how he was difficult to work with, that the

arrogance and the fame and the ego and all of that was growing as his

grew.

But, you know, he would come home, and I would see the sadness and the

insecurity and the self -doubt.

So, you know, people aren't always what they seem to be.

People only share their true selves with the people they're absolutely closest

to. Sometimes they're troubled, and I just don't think that it's fair to judge

them just by one or two things that you saw.

My name is Sherry Tyree, and I was married to Jim Helwig, the Ultimate

from 1982 to 1991.

This picture was us backstage.

It was really nice to have fans give us pictures and just walk up to you when

you'd come in from outside and say, hey, I took this great picture of you and

your husband, and it was just, it was a very, very happy time then.

Somebody gave me a picture. A fan gave me this picture.

And it's him with a little boy on his lap with a face painted and then the

little doll's face painted.

This is the picture after he won Mr. Georgia.

There's a beast there. Oh, my God, he's so big.

When I first met him, he was just massive, absolutely massive.

He literally had the largest shoulders I've ever seen on a man.

And the next competitor is Jim Helwig.

At that time, you know, bodybuilding was huge.

And he had been doing some amateur shows and all of that. And I thought, this

guy is just amazing.

Like, he really has got it going on. This guy has big dreams, big plans.

Our first date, he said, come and pick me up from the bar that he was bouncing

out. So I go.

And all of a sudden, I see the doors fly open.

And he's got this guy by the neck. And he's, like, basically just dropped him

the parking lot.

And then he went back inside and then he got the trash from the bar and he took

the trash out. And I was just like in shock and I started laughing. He goes,

I guess you saw me take the trash out. I was like, yeah, both times.

Should I just run now?

I mean, should I just, you know, go? Should I just leave?

But then the rest of the night was, you know, wonderful.

We just literally sat on a couch and just talked for hours.

And that's when he told me he was a chiropractic student.

Took up weight training and bodybuilding, and from that, I was bold

think after I saw the changes in my scrawny little body that I could make

changes in my life another way, so I set a goal for myself in education to

become a doctor of chiropractic. So those were my goals.

During that time in school, they had discussed genetics, and he had told me

about his grandfathers, that they had died in their 50s, in their early 50s.

One of the teachers had said to him, you know, hey, you know, if you have that

in your family, that doesn't look so great for you.

And I think there was something about that that just woke him up and scared

But he tried to kind of play it off like, you know, I got to get it all in

because I may not be around that long.

His whole drive since the beginning, since the first night I ever met him,

to be somebody and to be something.

His drive was to be rich, to be famous. And he's so driven and

dedicated like nobody I have ever seen in my life.

And he told me what every woman wants to hear. He told me, protect me for the

rest of my life.

Jim and Sherry were married on October 2nd, 1982, and shortly after, Jim put

chiropractic career on hold to pursue bodybuilding dreams in Los Angeles.

It was there Jim befriended a young Steve Borden, better known today as

Wrestler Sting. Steve convinced Jim they could make money together in wrestling,

and they send out promotional packages across the country.

The first to call... is Memphis promoter Jerry Jarrett.

Jerry Jarrett in Memphis was known as a promoter who would take chances on new

and unknown talent. From Atlanta, Georgia, and from California, the

Fighters.

I'm Jim Cornette. I've been a promoter, matchmaker, announcer, and manager in

pro wrestling for 40 years, and I was not a fan of The Ultimate Warrior.

They're going to be involved in a single ball match coming up here. When Borden

Hellwood got to Memphis and showed up at the TV studio, it was rotten.

But you could tell that they had some physical

charisma. You wanted to look at them. You just didn't want to see what they

ended up doing.

Look at these men. Look at them. Okay, buddy, well, you know there's a lot more

to it than just being big.

the promoters decided, you know, these guys may make it, but we don't have time

to do on -the -job training.

And so they started looking for a place to send them so they could get rid of

them. So Hellwig and Borden go to Mid -South.

And that's where the future of professional wrestling was shaped

knowing it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the most awesome tag team in professional wrestling, the

Blade Runners!

When the Blade Runners came to UWF, I was a broadcaster.

I'm Jim Ross, the voice of AEW wrestling.

I've never met or seen a wrestler with less ability than the Ultimate Warrior.

Elwood was very narcissistic.

I look this good.

I've got a great smile.

I have wonderful teeth.

What more could a promoter want? Well, I don't know. Maybe, could you wrestle?

The wrestlers liked Steve a little bit more, and he was more trainable, whereas

Jim was hard -headed.

I didn't have the personality to take it. I didn't like to be handled that

And Steve was more that he liked to have his hand held.

This is where I started seeing Jim change, where I saw this kind of side of

that was more selfish.

You know, at the time, I didn't get much thought to what he's going to do or how

he's going to succeed in the business.

You know, I concentrated more on what I needed to do.

They were two completely different people with a different idea of what

really wanted to do.

Steve was all in.

But Jim always, I think on the inside, he wanted to do something on his own.

That his size and all of that would get more attention.

Despite his limited in -ring ability, Jim's physique is undeniable.

After parting ways with Sting, he looks to gain stardom in one of wrestling's

most groundbreaking territories.

World class had the hottest syndication in the country. So if you could get on

world class, every promoter in the country wanted you when you finished

My name is David Manning. I was the referee, promoter, a booker.

With world -class wrestling back in the heyday.

This is the third controversial finish.

When we brought him in, the world -class fans had never seen him. So we just

built the story we wanted and we created the star we wanted.

Weighing in excess of 300 pounds, the Dingo Warrior.

We started trying to think of a name. And I forget exactly who came up with

Dingo Warrior. Their pitch was, well, think of a wild dog. This is a wild

warrior because he was a hill.

I thought he was Australian when I saw his name the first time.

So what is a dingo warrior?

I have no idea. Nobody else did either.

It was literally just the name.

And then I remember us, like, going to Hancock Fabrics or something, you know,

and cutting the streamers. It was cheap trunks. The paint was cheap.

It was what we could afford at the time. And there you go. You have the dingo

warrior.

This guy is a monster.

A muscle monster.

Probably his first 15, 20 matches we gave him people to slaughter.

The more the fans cheered, the bigger the

Dingo Warrior's ego got. The bigger the Dingo Warrior's ego got, the harder it

was to work with the Dingo Warrior in the ring.

And I think that history followed him everywhere.

It was basically, I've got the best body.

I should beat everyone.

And I'm not going to spend a lot of time learning this craft because I don't

care about it. I just want to be a TV star.

The only place that a wrestler with that kind of attitude could find a home in

the 80s was in the WWF.

In 1987, there was no grander stage in wrestling than the WWF.

Wrestler Jim Hellwig is now one step closer to achieving his dreams of being

the spotlight.

And his life with his wife, Sherry, is also about to change forever.

So this is the letter asking Jim to come to the WWF.

I mean, he just knew that everything was going to change when he got this. He

was so happy.

No matter what territory you were in, he knew that if you were going to make

money and you were going to be on top, that is where you had to go.

And I knew that this was probably going to change the entire dynamic of our

marriage. Because I knew that he was going to be on the road 20, 25 days a

month. And, I mean, it was basically going to be a long -distance

And so he had assured me, you know, once I start making some money, I want you

to come on the road at least seven days a month or something like that. And so I

did go to some of these beginning matches.

And they had him working with some of the job guys, you know, Barry Horowitz.

Those guys.

And those matches, they were pretty rough.

His big thing with me was, I want you to sit in the crowd, I want you to watch

the matches, and I want you to give me your feedback on what the people's

reactions are.

And people were up getting popcorn, you know, going to the concession stand. I

mean, they looked at him, but it wasn't like, wow, this guy's amazing, who's

this guy?

He knew that if he was going to make it there,

that he was going to have to figure out what his gimmick was going to be and

where he was going to go with the character.

And I know that Vince saw a lot in him, and they had this great connection and

this friendship. And, I mean, I think he really looked up to Vince.

And I know Vince did not like the name Dingo Warrior. Who is?

The Ultimate Warrior!

Vince said, we want you to do Warrior, but we don't want Dingo.

And so the first time I wrestled Terry Gibb, they did a pre -take where they

used to put the little screen up in the corner back then.

For all you WWE fans out there looking for some type of direction, you came to

the right place, brother, because you're looking at the ultimate warrior.

His energy, his mannerisms, his jargon began to come together there.

And when you look at these bangs, the only thing that blows through these

is the power of the warrior.

You know, he's not the great wrestler, but then saw the intensity.

And so he knew if he could get the people's attention with that, then he

turn that into something, you know, and that's when the shaking of the rope

started and just, okay, I've got to go out there and I've got to grab the

attention.

And then, you know, he's got to be kind of a mystery.

People have to kind of figure out who is this guy?

Where is he from?

And that's with the parts unknown.

Where's he from? I'm from parts unknown.

I was sitting in parts unknown waiting for the next spaceship to hire planes.

Boyer's promo style was unique, irreverent, sometimes had to be

Here is the air that cowards breathe!

What'd he say?

His promos were nonsensical.

At best.

We would get in the car and he would just crack himself up and he'd go, what

I say? What was that? You know, I mean, everybody looked at him as this intense,

serious, aggressive, ultimate warrior.

And he was those things.

But he could also be extremely funny.

But I promise you, his entrance music was the thing that really was the

catalyst.

We hear that music, stop what you're doing.

He just flies to the ring, shaking the ropes. He's got all the colors on.

Wow. It was game over from that point on.

You take a guy that looks that good, you give him music, you put every big star

in wrestling in the ring with him and tell him to lay down.

He's got to win. He's got to win decisively. You smash him over. It's

push, a big push.

And you make this guy the biggest star that you can by disguising his

and exposing his strength.

That's a living cartoon character. It's coming to life. It comes to your

hometown. You can get that cartoon character's autograph.

There's nothing else like that.

And then the merchandising became a huge thing.

Hey, fellas, what's going on?

Nothing, Dad.

Wrestling Buddy want to be your buddy.

His favorite merchandising was with Wrestling Buddy.

Picture of him and his Wrestling Buddy.

I don't think that people understood how excited he was about the wrestling

buddy. I don't know. There's just something about it. It just made him

he had arrived.

We were able to buy our first house on the lake.

The original part of the house we bought was $100 ,000.

We added a $100 ,000 addition.

It was crazy at his home gym.

You know, the house was just absolutely amazing. He's getting these huge checks.

We're happy.

And he's getting this big push to the top.

And I think that is where the friction came in between he and the other

wrestlers.

I'm Jake the Snake Roberts.

Well, he debuted while I was in the WWF.

He would fly off the handle very quickly, very hard to get along with,

impossible to talk to.

And then he was a complete jerk in the ring.

Bobby Heenan was not a fan.

Bobby had a bad neck from his years in wrestling.

And he always told guys to take care of his neck.

He walked up to him and said, hey, you know, you broke my neck.

He didn't care.

You know,

there's an unwritten rule in wrestling.

It says the number one thing is you take care of your opponent.

He threw that one out the window.

I'm not trying to be a prick here when I say that literally he couldn't wrestle,

he couldn't talk.

He got over because he looked like a million dollars and the most successful

promoter in the world pushed him to the moon.

And there's nothing else to say.

Those guys talking about how bad of a wrestler he was really affected him.

And then it kind of made him second guess himself a lot.

I think they were spot on about him in some occasions.

But I don't think they really understood that there was more to him than that.

and that he did have a sensitive and a very insecure side.

You know, he kind of grew up just a really scrawny, insecure little kid. I

he weighed like 140 pounds.

His dad left home when he was 12, and that was very, very traumatic for him.

He told me that, you know, his dad was cheating with one of the neighbors.

It really did something to him. It caused him a great deal of pain.

And when he started working out and he saw changes in his body, He got excited

about that, and it made him realize that he could be more.

I think that all of us carry around that really insecure inner child.

And I think that all the trauma that we have as children sometimes we take with

us. And in his case, he had a very severe anxiety disorder.

He had had it for years. He was always very anxious.

How would he show that sadness and insecurity at home?

Well, I mean, I think he was a human being.

I mean, he had insecurities. He cried.

He got frustrated. He wanted to be the best. He put a lot of pressure on

to be the best. You know, he did not want to be that scrawny little kid

So he had to make this work.

By 1990, the Ultimate Warrior is the biggest star in the WWF aside from one

the immortal Hulk Hogan.

The final piece of Vince McMahon's plan to crystallize a new megastar takes hold

at WrestleMania VI.

WrestleMania VI was in Sky Dome in Toronto, one of the great North American

cities for wrestling.

Besides Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior was the biggest box office attraction

in wrestling.

He found out a few months before that he was going to be taking Hulk's butt, and

it was the greatest joy of his life. He just thought, wow, this is going to be

amazing, and he was very pumped about it.

And then it came, and WrestleMania VI was there.

Champion against champion, title for...

He was the most nervous I've ever seen in my entire life.

He had severe anxiety.

I

literally

could physically feel the match. Like I was like feeling it, you know, the

emotion of it, the excitement in the arena.

I've just never felt anything like that.

Stephanie to hear the skydive.

Vince felt that six or seven years of Hulk Hogan steadily on top was enough.

didn't want to get stale. He thought that the warrior was ready to take it.

With the clothesline up to the floor goes Hogan.

Hogan had been on a breakneck schedule.

He was tired, he was beat down, and he was ready to take a break.

And so Vince made the decision to pass the torch.

It's the only time in that decade run with the WWF that Hulk Hogan actually

legitimately got beaten, pinned one, two, three in the ring by an opponent.

And it was the ultimate warrior.

For Hogan to do what Hogan did for Ultimate Warrior is a miracle.

He carried the warrior to immortality at WrestleMania VI, and they did it live,

which is even more astonishing.

After the match, he kind of went off on his own for a little bit, just to take

it all in.

And for him just to give himself a big pat on the back and say, wow, nobody

believed in me, but I did it. I mean, he was rich, and now he was the world

champion. But that was short -lived.

Because literally, like two months after,

Jim Hoag left and the ultimate warrior came home.

He became really erratic. He started staying on the road, which he never did

before. He was disconnected.

Something was off.

You call his behavior erratic. What do you mean by that?

He seemed altered.

I mean, I didn't see anything, but he definitely was not well.

He was on the road, and I tried to call his room, and he didn't answer.

So I had them do a wellness check on him. You ask any wrestling wife out

when you don't hear from your husband, you get scared.

And when I called back, the guy goes, he's there, he was asleep, and that was

the end of it.

I thought back to something somebody told me a long time ago.

There's always going to be women that want to sleep with your husband, but

the ones that want to steal your life that you have to worry about.

So I called the room.

He answered the phone, and I heard a girl's voice.

thought, oh my gosh, I'm devastated.

I started going through his things and I found this day planner.

And I looked at page one and page two and page three and it'd be a girl's name

and the town.

I told him, I said, when you come home, you're going to be served papers.

And I'm divorcing you.

I didn't wait for a response.

You know, my worst fear had come true.

I had just lost my husband.

By 1991, Jim Hellwig's nine -year marriage to Sherry comes to an end.

And to make matters worse, he loses the WWF Championship.

Feeling betrayed, his relationship with his boss, Vince McMahon, begins to

deteriorate.

I was in Orlando, and Vince came to me and said, we want to put you and Warrior

together and give you your championship run, which I had been waiting for for

years.

But before we can put you and Warrior together, you need to go and get the

from him.

What?

What do you mean?

You're the effing boss, man.

It's just the way we have to do these things.

So I went to his private dressing room and knocked on the door a couple of

times. What?

Come here.

So I came in and he got right in my face and said, let me tell you something.

I don't care.

Anything about your family, I don't care anything about you.

I don't care anything about wrestling.

I just want to do my shit.

Here's the deal. You better not miss a show.

Because if you miss a show, you're missing my money.

And if you mess with my money, I'm going to get you. End of story.

Get out.

I walked out and I was in shock.

For this jackass to come to me like that was like pissing in my mouth.

But I had to do it if I wanted that championship.

After SummerSlam, it'll be me and Warrior, head to head, making more money

I ever thought I'd make.

Plans for Jake the Snake Roberts would soon be derailed as tensions between

McMahon and Hellwig begin to boil over.

Desperate to remain at the top of the card,

Jim planned the drastic move.

At this point, he moved into his home that he bought in Arizona.

He decided he wanted to live the big life, so he bought himself a million

-dollar mansion in Scottsdale.

He called me up because of our history, and he needed somebody that he could

trust, somebody that he could talk to.

He wanted me to come out.

He had decided in his mind, in his paranoid mind, that he wanted

everything that Hulk had.

He wanted the same money. He wanted the same cut of the merchandising.

He wanted it all.

So he's like, I'm going to give Vince this letter, and if he fires me, he

me. I was like, you can't do this. You can't hold a PD.

And he's like, well, I've lost my whole life, and I feel like I deserve what he

has.

And at that point, there's absolutely no getting through to him.

And I knew.

that this was going to end really bad for him.

Leading up to the SummerSlam pay -per -view in 1991, with 20 ,000 fans in

attendance and millions more watching at home, Jim delivers a letter to Vince

laying out a list of demands.

He threatens that unless he is treated creatively and financially in line with

Hulk Hogan, he would refuse to show up.

His relationship with Vince is the most complicated thing.

He loved Vince.

And I think that he looked at him kind of like a father figure in a way.

I actually believe that a lot of it was he just wanted more attention from him.

And any time he asked Vince for something, Vince gave it to him.

You know, I want my own locker room. I want a limousine all the time. I want

Learjets. I mean, he just wanted it all.

And I think at that point, Vince had grown tired and weary of the demands,

it came to the point where, I mean, what do you do? It's a business, and you

don't hold up a show.

Vince is infuriated, but he has one rule.

Get the match in the ring at all costs.

Vince temporarily placates Warriors' demands, but he has no intention of

honoring them after the event.

I was there at SummerSlam, man. It was in Madison Square Garden.

I'm so amped up, man.

I am going to start making thousands and thousands of dollars every time I'm

going to do that.

I was standing next to Vince when Warrior came out of the ring.

Warrior!

And Vince put his hand out and stopped and just, by the way, you're... Fire.

Now get out of my building.

And Vince looked at me and he goes, you got the worst luck of any human being

I've ever met.

To say that I wanted to kill that son of a bitch would be putting it lightly.

I carried that anger for years.

This is a letter from Vince McMahon to the warrior. Dear Jim.

As you know, on September 23rd, 1987, you signed a booking contract with Titan

Sports. At the time you signed the contract, you were a relatively obscure

wrestler with an enthusiastic, professed desire to succeed.

Unfortunately, it now appears the fame that you have obtained through the

efforts of Titan Sports has gone to your head. Frankly, you've become impossible

to work with.

You have become a legend in your own mind.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. However, you are not entitled

vent your feelings by breaching and threatening to breach your contract.

was a serious mistake on your part.

Jim's greatest downfall of all time was his inability to see things from

somebody else's perspective.

He just always thought that his way was the right way.

After threatening to no -show SummerSlam, Jim Hellwig is suspended by

McMahon. Over the next 18 months, both engage in several legal battles, leading

to Jim's eventual firing.

Feeling powerless, Jim makes a bold move to regain control of his life and the

character he left behind.

Warrior's run with the WWF came to an end in 1992, and Warrior went home and

changed his legal name to Warrior because they owned Ultimate Warrior, and

were mad at each other for several years.

Warrior became Warrior.

Not the Warrior.

Not Jim the Warrior Hellwig. He changed his name legally to Warrior.

You know, I changed my name because they were saying, look, whatever you did for

the last 15 years, we own it. You can't even refer to it.

I started using my character that I'd spent all those years developing,

in entrepreneurial projects.

Why do you think he legally changed his name to Warrior?

This is just my opinion because I was not his wife then.

He had to reinvent himself. You have to make a living. You have to have a

career. You know, he built the character and he just felt like that that's

probably what he was going to have to do.

By 1996,

Hulk Hogan and other WWF wrestlers have jumped ship to their arch competitor,

WCW.

In order to recapture WWF's former success, Vince decides to approach

for a second chance.

Along with members of his executive team, Vince flies to Warrior's new home

Arizona to make amends.

During this talk and during this lunch, All the warrior talked about was his

concepts and his visions and his ideas for spreading

death trucity.

You're probably wondering out there in TV land, what the is death trucity?

Death trucity was the truth in between destiny and reality where

you could stay true to yourself while achieving your goals

demented mind he was going to be some kind of motivational person for children

and beleaguered people across America.

As I got on with the entrepreneurial project and started thinking about

speaking, got interested in reading and writing, Ultimate Warrior always

represented like a true -to -life superhero comic book character. So I

story around this graphically created Ultimate Warrior comic book character.

So now he wants to be a motivational speaker.

He wants comic books.

Look, there's nothing wrong with you, that stuff, if you're qualified to do

This is time in my life I could never get back.

It was a total waste of a trip.

Although his staff has major apprehensions, McMahon takes a risk by

Warrior once again, and his big return is scheduled for WrestleMania XII.

Warrior's opponent is rising star Hunter Hearth Helmsley, better known today as

Triple H.

He basically sold nothing, took Triple H's

finish and stood right back up and looked at him, beat him up and beat him

minute and a half, class.

Just trashed him, just destroyed him, because he was the warrior and he was

most important thing in the world.

The pop was huge, but only for a few weeks.

When the 1996 WWF fan saw the guy that he remembered as being the big star

from 1990, it really wasn't as good as I remember him, because things had

changed. He was not going to sell lots of merchandise.

Destrucity was not going to become a household word.

The comic book was not going to be on all the shelves.

Things were not going to be going his way. And so Vince made the decision.

We don't need him on our roster.

Warrior's career in the WWF is over, and it isn't the storybook ending everyone

was hoping for.

Defeated and disappointed, Warrior retreats back to Arizona.

Years later, he goes back to his bodybuilding roots and opens his own

It was there he would cross paths again with his ex -wife Sherry.

I think that's probably one of the times where he was very, very, very happy.

He had built this from the ground up. And I don't know, I just felt like a new

energy in him that I hadn't seen in a long time.

And he and I were friends at that point. And he was dating and I was dating. And

it wasn't like weird or anything.

It was just nice just to have him in my life and have him as a friend.

And then I met my now husband there.

And he met his wife.

And then when I got pregnant with my daughter, it got to the point where he

I decided that it was not a good idea for me to be in the gym anymore because

had fallen in love and he had fallen in love with somebody else.

And it was going to make our significant others, you know, very uncomfortable

for us to be around each other.

And he stood in front of me and he took my hand.

And I want to thank you for all these years of being my wife.

And I'm so sorry for all the pain that I've ever caused you.

And I wish I could have been a faithful husband.

And the fact that he acknowledged that meant a lot to me.

And know that I always loved you.

And I wish you nothing but happiness and the best.

And I know you're going to be a great mom.

And that conversation ended our relationship.

And that was the last time that I saw him.

With Warrior's wrestling career in the rearview mirror and his relationship

Sherry officially over, he was not done creating controversy and would spend the

next decade using his fleeting celebrity status.

to become a conservative motivational speaker.

The woman who would become my wife walked into my life. She was

And through her, I realized I had been, without knowing directly, all along

living by a conservative philosophy of life.

You know, I was in my mid -30s. I wasn't just going to sit or retire and just

not do anything.

So I started with a real simple idea of just going out, talking to young people,

all different ages. And I don't pull my punches about any.

He thought he was going to be a motivational speaker and a coach. He was

actually a far right wing nutcase who hated gay people.

Let me come down off my politically correct horse.

Because querying doesn't make the world work.

And said, you know, really horrible things about a variety of cultures and

peoples. His political rants or his anti -gay rants or his right -wing rants or

his homophobia. I've never yet understood the first thing about how

head worked.

And then he would say a variety of things about a lot of the guys in the

business that.

may or may not have been true, but coming from him was the most unpalatable

all. Hulkamania is entwined in society by the example

you've set of how to fuck up a life.

I mean, you didn't care if your wife slept with other guys.

I mean, you're a real piece of shit, Terry.

Here was the most unprofessional.

argumentative, hard to work with, egotistical, untalented guy that all

people had a hand in making a star, and then all he did afterwards was trash

him.

After spending years publicly disparaging his contemporaries and

lawsuits with the WWE, it was unlikely that Warrior would ever find himself

-to -face with any of his former opponents.

That would all change in 2014,

in a move that shocked the wrestling world when it was announced that the

ultimate warrior would be headlining the Hall of Fame ceremony at WrestleMania

30.

One of his longtime enemies would be lying in wait for his return.

Had a roll of quarters in my pocket.

I was going to beat his ass.

And I'm waiting on him, looking for him.

Of course, warrior being warrior, they had him in a private area and security

guards and all that. I had to wait.

I had to wait. I had to wait. And I'm boiling, I'm boiling, I'm boiling.

And then all of a sudden, somebody tapped me on the back.

I turned around and it was water.

He put his hands up. He goes, please, just let me do this.

I need to apologize to you and your family.

That's who I was then, but that wasn't me.

But if it means anything, just know that I'm sorry.

He disarmed me.

Another lesson in life, man.

That's what I got.

A lesson.

At the Hall of Fame weekend, Warrior went around. He made amends with some of

the talent that was there.

I think it probably warmed Vince's heart more than anyone because he just always

likes to bring people back into the fold.

You look great.

Congratulations. You always look great. You look better than anybody. He was on

his best behavior, and he did what...

Everyone considered to be a fine speech.

I've never interacted with anybody in this business that hasn't taught me

something. The inductions were made and his family was there. And it seemed like

an improbable storybook ending for this multi -decade contentious relationship.

The next night.

He comes out on Monday Night Raw live on television and cuts another promo. And

it's a very inspirational speech that people actually understood.

I am Ultimate Warrior.

You are the Ultimate Warrior fans.

And the spirit of Ultimate Warrior will run forever.

Warrior didn't look healthy that night.

Like he had...

Really got fatigued or hadn't been able to sleep or something was off.

My sister called me and she's like, I'm so sorry about Jim.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

What do you mean?

Somewhere around 12 hours after that final Monday Night Raw appearance, he

leaving his hotel room, walking to the car the next morning, had a heart attack

and died.

One of the biggest pro wrestling stars of the 1990s. We learned overnight that

the ultimate warrior has died.

It's probably one of the most startling things that ever happened in wrestling.

After almost 20 years, a guy finally comes back, has a chance to at least

resurrect his legacy, if not his career, gets started, drops over

dead.

He does his promo.

And he gets a standing ovation, and he goes home, and he dies.

He couldn't write that story.

So sad.

It was sad.

I was sad for his family. The children weren't going to have a father. I mean,

just everything about it, and just so bad.

Nobody should ever have to see their loved one die like that. I mean, I was

for the fans. I was sad.

That people had lost something that meant so much to them. This character,

gimmick, the ultimate warrior. Like, everything about it was so horrible.

I would say that Warrior never said anything any more truthful than his last

words on Raw.

Every man's heart one day beats its final beat.

His lungs breathe their final breath.

You're going to breathe your last breath.

Your heart's going to beat its last time. It's just we never suspected.

It'd be that quick, that soon for him.

Rest in peace.