I think the Demos thing is easy is explain ... Why are people still talking about Ultimate Warrior? Most over promotion of all time in that period and they were champs for most of it.

I myself hated the Ultimate Warrior and everything about him, but that was when I was going through my "I'm 19 now and wrestling has gotten really stupid and I'm going to college/ following the Grateful Dead around the country" period. I still can't watch a Warrior match, I hated him so much. But I'd imagine that there's a ton of people who were kids during Warrior's run who thought he was fucking awesome and still have nostalgic feelings.

 

Ultimate Warrior def didn't age very well for me at least. I think part of it was him tapping into the short attention span of children here was a guy who moved at 50 million miles an hour, shook the ropes, and acted like every sugar addled 6-10 year old boy. That's what i remembered, heck i even remember playin the video games and those took the bloom off the rose as far as the warrior was concerned. He just wasn't that great. I dont have this huge nostalgia for him.

I liked the Ultimate Warrior as a kid, but I thought even then that had he been in the same promotion with Sting and Luger during that same time period, Sting and Luger would have been a bigger deal and would have been higher on the card.

Warrior is a guy who benefits from our shifting perceptions, I think. he could follow instruction. He could follow along with simple stories. In 2012, his stock is raised far more than it would be in 2002. He's still not great or anything but there are plenty of guys who bring a lot less to the table. That he was so highly produced is actually the thing he has going for him the most.

My perception of him is that Vince created a monster. This is me, in total hindsight and considering everything I've heard about him from guys like Dibiase said in interviews and what Bret wrote about in his book. On the other hand, it was a great idea of a character. It took the Road Warrior gimmick to an extreme closer to Marvel Comics than Mad Max. He was lucky that he had people like Hulk and Randy (and even Rick Rude before them) to lead him along, in what can now be considered merely passable matches.

Warrior's biggest personal failing as a top guy was a complete inability to come across as human. Hogan was capable of it and so was just about every other top babyface in company history. Warrior came across as cool with his running rope-shaking act and sometimes his promos could be bizarrely compelling in their own way, but at some point you have to be able to hang out with kids and do the talk show/media circuit, and Warrior was the same there as he was on television. I suspect that would have been his downfall as WWF Champion, even if he had been booked better with stronger opponents.

Warrior in 88/89 had this great savage charisma. But it seemed like the more he improved, the more charisma he lost. Kinda like seeing Sting's promos, he had this great manic energy which made him an entertaining promo then they taught him the "right" way and he lost it. As far as promos went.

 

I see the Warrior gimmick as Conan the Barbarian on LSD.

I think I was the one kid who never liked the Ultimate Warrior. I was a big Hogan fan as a kid and always thought Hogan was better, and in my weird 10 year old brain, I couldn't like both guys since they were basically 1 and 1A on top of the food chain, so I went with Hogan.

See, I was the exact opposite of that. When I played the old WWF Wrestlemania NES game with my cousin, he always picked Hulk Hogan, which meant that I couldn't. As a result, I tended to latch on to the most Hoganesque wrestlers who weren't actually Hogan. In WWF Wrestlemania, that was Randy Savage. And in WWF WrestleFest, that was the Ultimate Warrior.

Hmm, you guys should really check out the 2 part Warrior podcast on MLW radio from a week or 2 ago, lot of interesting stuff thear.

See, I was the exact opposite of that. When I played the old WWF Wrestlemania NES game with my cousin, he always picked Hulk Hogan, which meant that I couldn't. As a result, I tended to latch on to the most Hoganesque wrestlers who weren't actually Hogan. In WWF Wrestlemania, that was Randy Savage. And in WWF WrestleFest, that was the Ultimate Warrior.

Hogan and Warrior had a very unfair advantage in Wrestlefest -- their slam would eliminate people over the top rope. I always went DiBiase and he didn't have a slam so had to get a pin or submission.

 

Great game.

I think the reason why Warrior got over as well as he did was because he wasn't your typical babyface -- guys like Hogan and Savage may have been portrayed as strong babyfaces, but they were the type in which the heel could get a good heat segment on them and it would appear they were really in trouble. Warrior seldom did that -- true, one could argue Warrior wouldn't have been good in that role, but the fact he was a babyface who didn't seem to be fazed by much that a heel would do to him made him stand out from the pack.

 

The only issue with that type of babyface is that the character has a limited lifespan when pushed as the top guy. Hogan lasted longer because, in the earlier part of his career, he did more in matches to make it look like his opponents had him in trouble and that they might have beaten him.

 

Such matches for Warrior tended to be rare (case in point, vs. Rude at SummerSlam 89).

Being the guy who steamrolled Honky Tonk Man for the IC Title couldn't have hurt.

Ha, there's a derivative gimmick in my own backyard. Former SMW and WCW jobber Paul Lee runs a promotion in the town I went to high school. He's the most blatant Ric Flair derivation I've ever seen. It isn't even close.

See, I was the exact opposite of that. When I played the old WWF Wrestlemania NES game with my cousin, he always picked Hulk Hogan, which meant that I couldn't. As a result, I tended to latch on to the most Hoganesque wrestlers who weren't actually Hogan. In WWF Wrestlemania, that was Randy Savage. And in WWF WrestleFest, that was the Ultimate Warrior.

Hogan and Warrior had a very unfair advantage in Wrestlefest -- their slam would eliminate people over the top rope. I always went DiBiase and he didn't have a slam so had to get a pin or submission.

 

Great game.

 

Are you talking about the Royal Rumble? Anybody could throw someone over the ropes in that game.

No they couldn't, it was only characters who could do a bodyslam. DiBiase didn't have a bodyslam, neither did Mr. Perfect and a whole host of others.

No they couldn't, it was only characters who could do a bodyslam. DiBiase didn't have a bodyslam, neither did Mr. Perfect and a whole host of others.

You can just do an Irish Whip and Back Body Drop them over the rope to eliminate them.

Easier said that done. DiBiase did a powerslam from the Irish whip anyway, Perfect did a dropkick. Again, it was only Hogan and a couple of others who could do a back bodydrop.

Easier said that done. DiBiase did a powerslam from the Irish whip anyway, Perfect did a dropkick. Again, it was only Hogan and a couple of others who could do a back bodydrop.

Speaking of Wrestlefest, I'd always assumed the woman in it was a young Lilian Garcia, but was it actually Mike McGuirk?

Easier said that done. DiBiase did a powerslam from the Irish whip anyway, Perfect did a dropkick. Again, it was only Hogan and a couple of others who could do a back bodydrop.

 

Man I pumped so many 20ps into that machine, can't believe I'm only finding out about this now. Must depend on where you are in the ring.

Warrior is a guy who benefits from our shifting perceptions, I think. he could follow instruction. He could follow along with simple stories. In 2012, his stock is raised far more than it would be in 2002. He's still not great or anything but there are plenty of guys who bring a lot less to the table. That he was so highly produced is actually the thing he has going for him the most.

I think what benefits the Warrior's perception. Certaintly amongst casual fans who remember that era. Is that he wasn't put in a situation where he was exposed. He wasn't on live TV every week. So the stuff that everyone remembers about him is the PPV matches, where as you say he was not only highly produced, but he was against guys who knew what they were doing.

 

It was also a time when wins and losse's meant something. So beating Hogan and Savage clean, back to back at mania. Makes him look like a world beater.

 

What's the general consenus on the Career Match nowadays?

 

I know that the Savage/Liz reunion is considered a high point as far as long term booking/payoff's go. Especially as it ended up leading to Savage/Jake. Which is another high water mark in company history.

 

For years the Career Match was considered top 5 material at Wrestlemania, but so much water has flowed under the bridge since then.

As a kid I couldn't get into the Warrior at all. He seemed way too "out there" for me. I don't think he ever did anything to really turn me off, I just remember being much more interested in Randy Savage.

He wasn't on live TV every week. So the stuff that everyone remembers about him is the PPV matches, where as you say he was not only highly produced, but he was against guys who knew what they were doing.

That is what really killed him in WCW, is that he was untethered every week on Nitro and not guided by someone like Vince who probably knew the character better than Jim did.

While we're on Savage / Warrior, does anyone else like the Summerslam 92 match? I've always been high on that and the Perfect / Flair shenanigans entertained the hell out of me as a kid. Never see anyone talk about that match.

I remember that I gave that one to SLL when he asked for random matches to review over at Segunda Caida, but I can't find the article itself. Hey guys, you really need to do some work on indexing the links for your work. There's a lot of good writing in there, but nobody wants to scroll through the entire thing in order to find just one post (like I did just now). It's a big catalog of reviews without organization as it is right now, you just have to plow through everything chronologically and hope you find what you're looking for.