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Warrior
Statistics
Ring name(s)	Jim "Justice" Hellwig Blade Runner Rock Dingo Warrior The Ultimate Warrior The Warrior Warrior
Billed height	6 ft 3 in (188 cm)
Billed weight	275 lb (125 kg)
Born	June 16, 1959 (1959-06-16) (age 48) Crawfordsville, Indiana
Billed from	Parts Unknown
Trained by	Red Bastien Rick Bassman
Debut	1985
Retired	1999

Warrior (born Brian James Hellwig on June 16, 1959) is a former American professional wrestler best known as The Ultimate Warrior of WWE and WCW fame. He legally changed his name to Warrior in 1993 and currently works as a motivational speaker.

Contents 1 Bodybuilding career 2 Wrestling career 2.1 World Wrestling Federation: The first stint (1987-1991) 2.2 WWF: The second stint (1992) 2.3 WWF: The third stint (1996) 2.4 World Championship Wrestling (1998-1999) 2.5 Life away from the ring 3 Finishing and signature moves 4 Championships and accomplishments 5 Comic book 6 The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior 7 Legal issues 8 Possible Forthcoming publications 9 Warrior University 10 Entrance themes 11 External links

Bodybuilding career

Prior to his career in professional wrestling, Warrior, as James Hellwig, was an amateur bodybuilder.^[1] Hellwig competed in a number of NPC contests, and won the 1984 NPC Mr. Georgia contest.^[2] Hellwig started training with weights when he was 11 years old and has described himself as "the small, insecure kid who wasn't into any sports."^[3] He moved to California where, after seeing bodybuilder Robby Robinson, decided to take up the sport. His first contest took place in Florida where he placed 5th. Later, while he was attending Life Chiropractic College in Marietta, Georgia, he won the Junior Atlanta contest, and placed 5th at the 1981 AAU Collegiate Mr. America. In 1983 he won the AAU Mr. Coastal USA, before taking the Mr. Georgia title the following year. His last bodybuilding contest was 1985's Junior USA's, which was won by future IFBB Pro, Ron Love. Hellwig finished 5th.

Wrestling career

Warrior began his pro wrestling career as Jim "Justice" Hellwig of Powerteam USA, a group of bodybuilders formed in 1985 by Red Bastien and Rick Bassman. The gimmick was not successful, however, and of the four members of Powerteam USA, only Hellwig and Steve "Flash" Borden had subsequent wrestling careers of any note (Borden went on to become Sting). They formed a tag team called The Blade Runners with Warrior as Blade Runner Rock when they wrestled in the UWF and on the independent circuit, but the tag team soon disbanded.

Warrior later became Dingo Warrior for a short period in World Class Championship Wrestling, winning the Texas Title. After WCCW, Jim Hellwig signed with the WWF and adopted the name Ultimate Warrior.

World Wrestling Federation: The first stint (1987-1991)

As a World Wrestling Federation (WWF) superstar from the mid-'80s to the early '90s, the Ultimate Warrior was known for his high-energy ring entrances, which featured him racing into the arena at full speed, bursting into the ring, and violently shaking the ropes up and down. He was also known for his distinctive pattern of face painting.

Warrior enjoyed two stints as Intercontinental Champion, defeating The Honky Tonk Man (in 32 seconds at the first ever SummerSlam in 1988) and Rick Rude at SummerSlam 1989. The Warrior was heralded as the wrestler to carry the torch after the pending retirement of Hulk Hogan in 1990. Following a few confrontations with Hogan, most notably at the 1990 Royal Rumble, the Warrior was written in as Hogan's opponent for WrestleMania VI. Ultimate Warrior defeated Hogan on April 1, 1990, at the SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario, in the main event (which was billed "The Ultimate Challenge", as both Hogan's WWF World Title and Warrior's Intercontinental Title were on the line) of WrestleMania VI. The Warrior held the title until the Royal Rumble in January 1991, dropping the belt to Sgt. Slaughter (thanks to interference by Randy "Macho King" Savage).

Warrior gained revenge on Savage at WrestleMania VII, pinning him in a "retirement match." Thereafter, he became embroiled in a brutal feud with The Undertaker after Undertaker and his manager, Paul Bearer, locked Warrior in a coffin on the set of Bearer's Funeral Parlor (one of the WWF's biggest "evil" incidents to that time; the Warrior's life was portrayed as being in danger as Bearer sealed the casket shut, and Vince McMahon frantically reminded the audience that he had a limited air supply as WWF officials worked feverishly to break the casket open to reveal a motionless Warrior inside). Eventually, Jake "The Snake" Roberts offered to help Warrior in his feud, but wound up turning against him. In spite of this, Roberts' impending feud with Warrior was quickly scuttled.

In August 1991, Warrior was involved in an alleged pay dispute with WWF/E owner Vince McMahon. The WWE alleges Warrior had put a figurative gun to Vince McMahon's head and threatened to no show the main event for SummerSlam teaming him with Hulk Hogan against Sgt. Slaughter, Colonel Mustafa, and General Adnan unless he was paid a certain amount of money. Warrior responded on his website to these allegations by stating he was owed money stemming from worked performed at Wrestlemania VII. Vince McMahon reportedly fired Warrior after the incident, Warrior states he left the company.

WWF: The second stint (1992)

Upon returning at WrestleMania VIII (to rescue Hulk Hogan from a beat down at the hands of Sid Justice and Papa Shango), he received a degree of creative control over his bookings. Many fans may remember the Papa Shango angle, in which the "witch doctor" cast a spell over Warrior, causing him to convulse and vomit in very odd colors though Warrior says he hated that story and had no control over it.

Rumors and urban legends began around this time (and still persist to this day in some fan circles) that the original Ultimate Warrior and Dingo Warrior were not the same as the one who returned to wrestling in 1992, 1996, and 1998, and it was believed that the original Warrior had died. When the Ultimate Warrior returned to the WWF in 1992, it was rumored that Kerry Von Erich was playing the part, since Warrior's hair was much shorter than before; however, this has been shown time and time again not to be the case, as the character had always been played by the same individual. The reasons for this confusion are the storyline which featured Warrior being "locked in an air-tight coffin" by The Undertaker (whom he was feuding with at the time) and his musculature's drastic changes, provoked by the presumed reduction (or cease) of anabolic steroid use occasioned by Titan Sports legal troubles over the alleged distribution of performance enhancing drugs. It was around this time (mid-late 1992) that Warrior sported a "Muscle Outfit," a flesh colored spandex singlet with muscles printed upon it.

Late in 1992, Warrior was scheduled to be the tag team partner of Randy Savage at Survivor Series. Weeks before the event, however, Warrior and WWF were at odds again, arguing over who had creative rights to the Ultimate Warrior name as well as creative differences as to how the Warrior's character should be used. Though popular belief was that the Warrior was actually supposed to start a feud with Nailz, the WWF states that his reason for leaving was a "violation" found in his system during a random drug test. This occurred at the height of Warrior's ongoing marketing/financial differences with Vince McMahon. Titan Sports—and specifically, the WWF—was under intense scrutiny of its drug policies including "performance-enhancing" drugs, the most prominent being steroids. Warrior has claimed to have had test results that show he was not using steroids during this period. Warrior has stated that he and fellow wrestler, Davey Boy Smith, were used as scapegoats during Vince McMahon's steroid litigations. According to Bret Hart during an interview with the Below the Belt show, the WWF was actually preparing to have a Hart/Warrior match at Royal Rumble 1993. Warrior was replaced by Razor Ramon after he left.

WWF: The third stint (1996)

After several years spent mostly outside of the wrestling limelight, Warrior returned to the WWF in 1996, squashing future superstar Hunter Hearst Helmsley at WrestleMania XII. Triple H refers to his match against Warrior as "not my best event," and has referred to Warrior as "the most unprofessional guy I have ever worked with." Following WrestleMania, Warrior participated in brief feuds with Goldust and Jerry Lawler.

The WWF terminated Warrior's contract when he took time off allegedly to grieve the death of his father. WWF owner Vince McMahon claimed that Warrior had not seen his father in ten years and didn't care much for him; therefore, he did not take Warrior's excuse for missing bookings at face value. Warrior disputes Vince's explanation, claiming that the real reason why he no-showed those events was a breach of contract by McMahon.

In 1995, The Renegade debuted in WCW as Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage's "secret weapon," using ring attire and mannerisms that closely resembled Warrior's. Renegade was later used as Warrior's stunt double when Warrior himself was in WCW for a brief time in 1998.

World Championship Wrestling (1998-1999)

WCW signed Warrior in 1998, and gave him a degree of creative control over his matches, considered by some to be a foolish move. His debut drew huge audiences and ratings, but it did not last. He created a storyline where he formed a stable opposing Hulk Hogan's New World Order: the "One Warrior Nation." The acronym OWN for One Warrior Nation was a play on the name nWo. Highlights of the unpopular storyline included Warrior kidnapping and "converting" The Disciple and frequent instances of "magic smoke" knocking out all of the nWo members except for Hogan (and covering Warrior's movement through a trapdoor in the ring). The British Bulldog suffered a near career-ending injury when he landed on Warrior's trapdoor at Fall Brawl '98; Perry Saturn was also injured by the trapdoor, though not as severely.

Warrior only participated in three matches in WCW. The first was the War Games main event (along with seven other wrestlers) at Fall Brawl. Diamond Dallas Page would win that match. Then on WCW Monday Nitro, he tag teamed with Sting to defeat Hogan and Bret Hart by disqualification, in which he had virtually no participation besides single handedly chasing several nWo members down the entry way, whipping them with Hogan's belt. Lastly was his loss to Hogan at Halloween Havoc, in what is widely considered to be one of the worst pay-per-view wrestling matches ever.^{[citation needed]}

In the build-up to their match at Halloween Havoc, Warrior played mind games with Hogan by projecting backstage "apparitions" of himself in a mirror that only Hogan could see. The WCW storyline portrayed Hogan as "cracking up" in seeing these apparitions. However, the announcers could also see them, as well as the television audience.

In the Halloween Havoc match, the timing of the maneuvers and hits was very poor; the match was worsened due to an arm injury that Warrior received in the War Games, and an attempt to "blind" Warrior with a fireball backfired when Hogan faced complications igniting the flash paper, causing the fire to go up in Hogan's face instead. The match finally came to an end when Horace Hogan hit Warrior in the back with a chair while Eric Bischoff had referee Nick Patrick distracted. Hogan then scored the pinfall, ending the match.

WCW claimed that attempts were made to save the storyline and re-sign Warrior, but he was said to have asked for too much money, and WCW ended negotiations. In a DVD shoot interview available through online sources, Warrior claims that they simply decided not to call him any more, despite his having phoned WCW general manager Eric Bischoff 16 times after the Havoc debacle. He has further indicated in interviews and convention appearances that the only reason he was brought back was so Hogan could get a win over Warrior in return for Hogan's WrestleMania job. Warrior has further described Hogan as "insecure," and has indicated that a weekend stay at Hogan's Tampa home prior to the October '98 PPV was "an eye opening experience." Warrior's last appearance in WCW was the Nitro after Halloween Havoc, when he chased nWo Hollywood out of the ring in a "shmaz" (multiple participant no finish). He announced his retirement the following year. According to the book The Death of WCW, Warrior supposedly insisted upon a new contract picking up where the previous one left off in exchange for the Halloween Havoc job, though this claim is largely unsupported.

Life away from the ring

Warrior officially retired from wrestling in 1999. He found a new career as a conservative speaker and commentator, denouncing left-wing politics. Most notably, he mentioned that "queering doesn't make the world work" (44:20-46:50 of the video) during a speech at the University of Connecticut. Warrior has explained those comments on his website as meaning that the human race would die out if everyone were a homosexual.

According to a 2000 research study by Turner Networks, Warrior and Bill Goldberg were among the top five most internationally recognized wrestlers in the world, behind Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash. In April 2006, WWE.com had a poll for the most deserving person for the WWE Hall of Fame. Warrior received the most votes, but it is unlikely that Warrior would agree to join.

In June 2007 Warrior hired Bernie Gernay, a New Jersey sports marketing agent as his representative. Gernay and his company, PSI Marketing Group, handle Warrior's contracts, marketing and business opportunities.

Finishing and signature moves

• Running big splash
• Gorilla press drop
• Running diving shoulder block
• Front powerslam
• Lariat, often repeatedly done in succession
• Axe handle
• Shoulderbreaker
• Bearhug
• Big boot

Championships and accomplishments

• World Class Wrestling Association

• WCWA Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Lance Von Erich
• WCWA Texas Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• World Wrestling Federation

• WWF Championship (1 time)
• WWF Intercontinental Championship (2 times)

Comic book

Beginning in May 1996, Warrior began writing with Jim Callahan and The Sharp Brothers illustrating a comic book entitled ‎WARRIOR, featuring himself as the main character. The comics sold well in the first two months of their distribution, before sales plummeted and the comic was taken out of circulation in early 1997. The initial success of the comic and its ultimate failure are often attributed to the same things.

As a comic book, fans argued that WARRIOR was a failure: there were virtually no characters other than Warrior, little action, and considerably more text than the average comic (in the first issue, at least one entire page is nothing but text, with a small picture of Warrior in the corner).

The comic's most enduring issue, and the one which has received the most ridicule and is now worth the most money, is one of the final issues, which breaks away from the main storyline into a Christmas tale. The plot of the comic is hard to decipher, as it contains no dialogue, monologue, or text boxes. Inexplicably, Warrior attacks the North Pole, usurps Santa Claus' authority over the elves, and in the final frame, which gained the comic its enduring popularity, a sweaty Warrior forces Santa into bondage gear and poses beside him. The apparent sexual undertones, lack of an actual plot, and non-sequitur nature (nothing from the previous issue served to segue into the Santa attack issue) gained the comic cult popularity, especially on the internet. Though nothing sexually explicit is depicted in the comic, some fans have come to describe it as the "santa rape" issue; more commonly, it is referred to as "the one where Warrior puts Santa in bondage".

According to Warrior, six issues of the WARRIOR comic book were created, as well as a "Warrior Graphic Novel that revealed the story behind the creation of Warrior’s Comic Book Universe". However, only the first four issues of the comic were actually produced.

The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior

On September 27, 2005, WWE released a DVD documentary focusing on Warrior's retrospective wrestling career, entitled The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior. The DVD featured clips of his more notable feuds and matches along with commentary from WWE stars past and present (some of which are largely unflattering), the DVD has provoked some controversy due to Warrior's own allegations of libel by WWE against him, and his wife. Originally, Warrior was asked to help with the production of the DVD, but as he refused to work with WWE (citing he did not want to be associated with their promotion), there has been some resulting animosity between Warrior and WWE over the content and his vehement accusations of bias.

After the release of the DVD, Warrior was asked to appear on Byte This!, WWE's weekly webcast program, ostensibly to air his side of the story. He refused the offer, instead opting to issue a paragraph-long controversial statement, responding back to the insults of host Todd Grisham by calling him a "queer", and frequent contributor Droz a "cripple." This led to Matt Striker subsequently appearing on Byte This! and performing an unflattering impression of Warrior, including numerous references to the abuse of steroids. Striker, Grisham, and Droz shared several jokes at Warrior's expense, and an edited version appeared on WWE.com days later - the edits chosen giving the segment a less vitriolic feel than what was originally broadcast.

A week after this parody aired, JBL was featured on the show and angrily criticized and mocked Warrior, angry at his recent calling of his real-life friend Droz as "crippled." He angrily called Warrior an "absolute piece of shit" and said he "can't stand the son of a bitch." JBL would, however, admit to the fact that he and Warrior had no previous grudge - he was simply angry about Warrior's original statements.

Legal issues

In 1993, Jim Hellwig legally changed his name to Warrior in order to retain the legal rights to use the name outside of the WWF. The one-word name appears on all legal documents pertaining to Warrior, and his children carry the Warrior name as their legal surname. The ultimatewarrior.com domain is registered to "Mister Warrior".

Warrior and the WWF engaged in a series of lawsuits and legal actions in 1996 and 1998^[4], where both parties sought a declaration that they owned the characters, Warrior and Ultimate Warrior, under both contract and copyright law. The court ruled that Warrior was legally entitled to use the gimmick, costuming, face paint designs, and mannerisms of the "Warrior" character. In January 2006 Warrior filed another lawsuit against WWE in an Arizona court over the depiction of his wrestling career on their recently published The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD.^[5]

Possible Forthcoming publications

In a 2006 audio interview with conservative speaker, Dan Flynn, Warrior revealed that he will be publishing two books in 2007. The first being a strictly ideological work on the core conservative values, and their function in a modern society. Although as yet officially untitled, Warrior hopes the work will be released as America: Get It or Get Out; but the release date of the book is unknown.

He also has plans to release a second book in the second half of the year, which will be part autobiography, part motivation guide. Warrior has stated that "...the book will detail my wrestling career...but it will be from an intelligent, inspiring angle". He further stated, "I'm not interested in detailing the seedy underbelly of an industry I have no desire to be associated with".

Warrior University

During his first stint away from the WWE, Warrior opened the short-lived "Warrior University", a wrestling school in Scottsdale, Arizona. According to Vince McMahon in The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, no one actually graduated from the school.

Entrance themes

• Scandal's "The Warrior" - WCCW
  
• Jim Johnson "Unstable" or "Warrior Wildfire" - WWF
  
• Unknown name of song in WCW
  

External links

• Home of Warrior - Official Website
• Ultimate Warrior FAQ
• Online World of Wrestling - Ultimate Warrior Profile
• IMDb Entry
• Legal threats
• Ultimate Warrior Shoot Interview