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00:02If you could take a bolt of electricity and somehow morph that into a living cartoon character,
00:12that would be Warrior.
00:16The ultimate warrior was a righteous gladiator that rose faster than anybody to the top of the wrestling world.
00:25Very few people in the history of wrestling have gone from start to pinnacle as fast as the ultimate warrior
00:31did.
00:37He had a phenomenal eight by ten. He looked great.
00:41Vince was about these bodies. Warrior caught on to that and he took it to a whole different level.
00:47He had dreams, he had an intensity, and there was absolutely nothing that was going to stop him from becoming
00:55something.
00:56But the real man behind the face paint, Jim Hellwig, contradicted the ideals of his heroic alter ego,
01:04becoming one of wrestling's most contentious figures.
01:07When Jim would get in the ring, he honestly thought he became the warrior.
01:11I was sitting in part time now waiting for the next spaceship to hire planes.
01:15For quite a while there, he was absolutely batshit insane.
01:20He thought he was better than other people.
01:22He didn't want to learn the wrestling business because he didn't like it.
01:25I sensed that chronic paranoia. When's it all going to end?
01:30Hellwig's divisive behavior behind the scenes would cut his reign short
01:34and leave behind a complicated legacy steeped in controversy.
01:39And now a sad note to pass along. The death of one of the biggest pro wrestling stars of the
01:441990s.
01:45When I heard that he had died the way that he had died, it hurt.
01:50He was a moment in time. He was a very colorful, powerful character for a brief moment in time.
02:09It's been very well documented about how he was difficult to work with.
02:16That the arrogance and the fame and the ego and all of that was growing as his popularity grew.
02:22But, you know, he would come home and I would see the sadness and the insecurity and the self-doubt.
02:33So, you know, people aren't always what they seem to be.
02:39People only share their true selves with the people they're absolutely closest to.
02:44Sometimes they're troubled and I just don't think that it's fair to judge them just by one or two things
02:51that you saw.
02:52My name is Sherry Tyree and I was married to Jim Helwig, the Ultimate Warrior from 1982 to 1991.
03:01This picture was us backstage.
03:03It was really nice to have fans give us pictures and just walk up to you when you come in
03:08from outside and say,
03:09Hey, I took this great picture of you and your husband and it was just, it was a very, very
03:13happy time then.
03:15Somebody gave me a picture. A fan gave me this picture.
03:17And it's him with a little boy on his lap with a face painted and then the little doll's face
03:23painted.
03:25This picture after he won Mr. Georgia.
03:27He's a beast there. Oh my God, he's so big.
03:31When I first met him, he was just massive, absolutely massive.
03:36He literally had the largest shoulders I've ever seen on a man.
03:40And the next competitor is Jim Helwig.
03:46At that time, you know, bodybuilding was huge.
03:48And he had been doing some amateur shows and all of that.
03:52And I thought this guy is just amazing.
03:54Like he really has got it going on.
03:57This guy has big dreams, big plans.
04:00Our first date, he said, come and pick me up from the bar that he was bouncing out.
04:05So I go and then all of a sudden I see the doors fly open.
04:09And he's got this guy by the neck and he's like basically just drops him in the parking lot.
04:14And then he went back inside and then he got the trash from the bar and he took the trash
04:20out.
04:20And I was just like in shock and I started laughing.
04:23He goes, oh, I guess you saw me take the trash out.
04:25I was like, yeah, both times.
04:27Should I just run now?
04:28I mean, should I just, you know, go?
04:31Should I just leave?
04:33But then the rest of the night was, you know, wonderful.
04:36We just literally sat on his couch and just talked for hours.
04:39And that's when he told me he was a chiropractic student.
04:42Took up weight training and bodybuilding.
04:44And from that, I was bold enough to think after I saw the changes in my scrawny little body that
04:49I could make changes in my life another way.
04:51So I set a goal for myself to an education to become a doctor of chiropractic.
04:57So those were my goals.
04:58During that time in school, they had discussed, you know, genetics.
05:03And he had told me about his grandfathers, that they had died at like in their 50s, in their early
05:0850s.
05:10One of the teachers had said to him, you know, hey, you know, if you have that in your family,
05:15that doesn't look so great for you.
05:17And I think there was something about that that just woke him up and scared him.
05:23But he tried to kind of play it off like, you know, I got to get it all in now
05:27because I may not be around that long.
05:29His whole drive since the beginning, since the first night I ever met him was to be somebody and to
05:35be something.
05:36His drive was to be rich, to be famous.
05:40And he was so driven and dedicated like nobody I have ever seen in my life.
05:47And he told me what every woman wants to hear.
05:51He told me, protect me for the rest of my life.
05:57Jim and Sherry were married on October 2, 1982.
06:02And shortly after, Jim put his chiropractic career on hold to pursue bodybuilding dreams in Los Angeles.
06:09Sting has arrived!
06:11It was there Jim befriended a young Steve Borden, better known today as Wrestler Sting.
06:17Steve convinces Jim they can make money together in wrestling and they send out promotional packages across the country.
06:24The first to call is Memphis promoter, Jerry Jarrett.
06:30Jerry Jarrett in Memphis was known as a promoter who would take chances on new and unknown talent.
06:36From Atlanta, Georgia and from California, the Freedom Fighters.
06:45I'm Jim Cornette. I've been a promoter, matchmaker, announcer and manager in pro wrestling for 40 years.
06:51And I was not a fan of The Ultimate Warrior.
06:56They're gonna be involved in a single fall match coming up here.
06:59When Borden and Hellwig got to Memphis and showed up at the TV studio, it was rotten.
07:06But you could tell that they had some physical charisma.
07:12You wanted to look at them, you just didn't want to see what they ended up doing.
07:17Look at these men. Look at them.
07:19Okay, buddy. Well, you know there's a lot more to it than just being big.
07:22So the promoters decided, you know, these guys may make it, but we don't have time to do on-the
07:27-job training.
07:29And so they started looking for a place to send them so they could get rid of them.
07:32So Hellwig and Borden go to Mid-South.
07:35And that's where the future of professional wrestling was shaped without anybody knowing it.
07:44Ladies and gentlemen, the most awesome tag team of professional wrestling, the Blade Runners!
07:53When the Blade Runners came to UWF, I was a broadcaster.
08:00I'm Jim Ross, the voice of AEW wrestling.
08:02I've never met or seen a wrestler with less ability than the Ultimate Warrior.
08:10Hellwig was very narcissistic.
08:12I look this good. I've got a great smile. I have wonderful teeth.
08:17What more could a promoter want? Well, I don't know. Maybe, could you wrestle?
08:21Sir, this man gets my body slam.
08:23The wrestlers liked Steve a little bit more, and he was more trainable, whereas Jim was hard-headed.
08:29I didn't have the personality to take it. I didn't like to be handled that way.
08:34And Steve was more that he liked to have his hand held.
08:37This is where I started seeing Jim change, where I saw this kind of side of him that was more
08:43selfish.
08:47You know, at the time, I didn't get much thought to what he's going to do or how he's going
08:51to succeed in the business.
08:52You know, I concentrated more on what I needed to do.
08:55They were two completely different people with a different idea of what they really wanted to do.
09:02Steve was all in, but Jim always, I think, on the inside, he wanted to do something on his own.
09:08That his size and all of that would get more attention.
09:13Despite his limited in-ring ability, Jim's physique is undeniable.
09:18After parting ways with Sting, he looks to gain stardom in one of wrestling's most groundbreaking territories.
09:29World Class had the hottest syndication in the country.
09:32So if you could get on World Class, every promoter in the country wanted you when you finished here.
09:39My name is David Manning. I was the referee, promoter, a booker with World Class wrestling back in the heydays.
09:47This is the third controversial finish.
09:50When we brought him in, the World Class fans had never seen him.
09:52So we just built the story we wanted, and we created the star we wanted.
09:57Weighing in excess of 300 pounds, the Dingo Warrior.
10:05We started trying to think of a name, and I forget exactly who came up with the Dingo Warrior.
10:10Their pitch was, well, think of a wild dog. This is a wild warrior because he was a hill.
10:13I thought he was Australian when I saw his name the first time.
10:16So what is a Dingo Warrior?
10:19I have no idea. Nobody else did either.
10:22It was literally just the name.
10:24And then I remember us, like, going to Hancock Fabrics or something, you know, and cutting the streamers.
10:29It was cheap trunks. The paint was cheap.
10:32It was what we could afford at the time.
10:34And there you go. You have the Dingo Warrior.
10:39This guy is a monster. A muscle monster.
10:44Probably his first 15, 20 matches, we gave him people to slaughter.
10:48Oh, there goes one. And here's Dingo, hammering away on carry.
10:53The more the fans cheered, the bigger the Dingo Warrior's ego got.
10:57The bigger the Dingo Warrior's ego got, the harder it was to work with the Dingo Warrior in the ring.
11:03And I think that history followed him everywhere.
11:05You the master. You the king.
11:08You the king.
11:09It was basically, I've got the best body. I should beat everyone.
11:14And I'm not going to spend a lot of time learning this craft because I don't care about it.
11:20I just want to be a TV star.
11:21The only place that a wrestler with that kind of attitude could find a home in the 80s was in
11:29the WWF.
11:36In 1987, there was no grander stage in wrestling than the WWF.
11:41Wrestler Jim Helwig is now one step closer to achieving his dreams of being in the spotlight.
11:47And his life with his wife, Sherry, is also about to change forever.
11:52So this is the letter asking Jim to come to the WWF.
11:57I mean, he just knew that everything was going to change when he got this.
12:00He was so happy.
12:02No matter what territory you were in, you knew that if you were going to make money and you were
12:06going to be on top, that is where you had to go.
12:08And I knew that this was probably going to change the entire dynamic of our marriage.
12:13Because I knew that he was going to be on the road 20, 25 days a month.
12:17And I mean, it was basically going to be a long distance relationship.
12:21And so he had assured me, you know, once I start making some money, I want you to come on
12:25the road at least seven days a month or something like that.
12:27And so I did go to some of these beginning matches.
12:30And they had him working with some of the job guys, you know, Barry Horowitz, those guys.
12:38And those matches, they were pretty rough.
12:42The Jingo Warrior!
12:46His big thing with me was, I want you to sit in the crowd, I want you to watch the
12:51matches, and I want you to give me your feedback on what the people's reactions are.
12:57And people were up getting popcorn, you know, going to the concession stand.
13:01I mean, they looked at him, but it wasn't like, wow, this guy's amazing, who's this guy?
13:07The guy's got the look, he's got the body.
13:09He knew that if he was going to make it there, that he was going to have to figure out
13:14what his gimmick was going to be and where he was going to go with the character.
13:19And I know that Vince saw a lot in him, and they had this great connection and this friendship.
13:23And I mean, I think he really looked up to Vince.
13:26And I know Vince did not like the name Dingo Warrior.
13:30Who was?
13:30The Ultimate Warrior!
13:34Vince said, we want you to do Warrior, but we don't want Dingo.
13:37And so the first time they wrestled Terry Give, they did a pre-take where they used to put the
13:41little screen up in the corner back there.
13:43For all you WWE bands out there looking for some type of direction, you came to the right place, brother,
13:49because you're looking at the Ultimate Warrior!
13:51His energy, his mannerisms, his jargon began to come together there.
13:55And when you look at these bands, the only thing that flows through these bands is the power of the
13:59Warrior!
14:01You know, he's not the great wrestler, but Vince saw the intensity.
14:05What a clothesline!
14:06And so he knew if he could get the people's attention with that, then he could turn that into something.
14:12You know, and that's when the shaking of the rope started and just, okay, I've got to go out there
14:16and I've got to grab the attention.
14:18And then, you know, he's got to be kind of a mystery.
14:21People have to kind of figure out, who is this guy? Where is he from?
14:26And that's where the Parts Unknown, where's he from? And he's from Parts Unknown.
14:29I was sitting in Parts Unknown, waiting for the next spaceship to hire planes!
14:34Warrior's promo style was unique, irreverent, sometimes had to be, uh, interpreted.
14:40Fear is the air, the towers breathe!
14:44What'd he say?
14:45His promos were nonsensical. At best, they made no sense.
14:53Just seeing that...
14:53The conditions that I have have already continued to worship
14:57as I have broken us from all the street figures
15:01and all the rubber rooms across these weak planets!
15:05We would get in the car and he would just crack himself up and he'd go,
15:08What did I say? What was that? You know?
15:10I mean, everybody looked at him as this intense, serious, aggressive, ultimate warrior.
15:16And he was those things. But he could also be extremely funny.
15:21But I promise you, his entrance music was the thing that really was the catalyst.
15:27Wait a minute! Somebody's music!
15:30You hear that music, stop what you're doing.
15:33They've exploded here in the garden!
15:35He just flies to the ring, shaking the robes. He's got all the colors on.
15:41Wow! It was game over from that point on.
15:48You take a guy that looks that good, you give him music,
15:51you put every big star in wrestling in the ring with him and tell him to lay down.
15:55He's got to win. He's got to win decisively.
15:58You smash him over. It's called a push, a big push.
16:01And you make this guy the biggest star that you can by disguising his weaknesses and exposing his strengths.
16:10That's a living cartoon character. It's coming to life. It comes to your hometown.
16:15You can get that cartoon character's autograph. There's nothing else like that.
16:19And then the merchandising became a huge thing.
16:22Hey, fellas. What's going on?
16:23Nothing, Dad.
16:25Drop kit!
16:26Wrestling buddies want to be your buddies.
16:28His favorite merchandising was his wrestling buddy.
16:32I think this picture of him and his wrestling buddy.
16:35I don't think that people understood how excited he was about the wrestling buddy.
16:40I don't know. There's just something about it. It just made him feel like he had arrived.
16:46We were able to buy our first house on the lake.
16:49The original part of the house we bought was $100,000.
16:52We added a $100,000 addition.
16:54It wasn't crazy. He had his home gym.
16:57You know, the house was just absolutely amazing.
16:59He's getting these huge checks. We're happy.
17:01And he's getting this big push to the top.
17:04And I think that is where the friction came in between he and the other wrestlers.
17:10I'm Jake the Snake Roberts.
17:12And, um, well, he debuted while I was in the WWF.
17:16He would fly off the handle very quickly.
17:19Very hard to get along with. Impossible to talk to.
17:22And then he was a complete jerk in the ring.
17:25Bobby Heenan was not a fan.
17:28Oh, he's out with a big rough hand!
17:31Bobby had a bad neck from his years in wrestling.
17:34And he always told guys to take care of his neck.
17:36He walked up to him and said,
17:38Hey, you know, you broke my neck.
17:40Oh. He didn't care.
17:42That rang.
17:44Lombardi's bell is ringing right now.
17:46You know, there's an unwritten rule in wrestling.
17:49It says the number one thing is you take care of your opponent.
17:53He threw that one out the window.
17:54I'm not trying to be a prick here when I say that literally he couldn't wrestle.
17:59He couldn't talk.
18:00He got over because he looked like a million dollars and the most successful promoter in the world pushed him
18:05to the moon.
18:06And there's nothing else to say.
18:09Those guys talking about how bad of a wrestler he was really affected him.
18:15And then it kind of made him second guess himself a lot.
18:18I think they were spot on about him in some occasions.
18:23But I don't think they really understood that there was more to him than that.
18:28And that he did have a sensitive and a very insecure side.
18:36You know, he kind of grew up just a really scrawny, insecure little kid.
18:40I mean, he weighed like 140 pounds.
18:42His dad left home when he was 12.
18:44And that was very, very traumatic for him.
18:47He told me that, you know, his dad was cheating with one of the neighbors.
18:50It really did something to him.
18:52It caused him a great deal of pain.
18:54And when he started working out and he saw changes in his body, he got excited about that.
18:59And it made him realize that he could be more.
19:02I think that all of us carry around that really insecure inner child.
19:08And I think that all the trauma that we have as children, sometimes we take with us.
19:12And in his case, he had a very severe anxiety disorder.
19:16He had had it for years.
19:17He's always very anxious.
19:19How would he show that sadness and insecurity at home?
19:22Well, I mean, I think he was a human being.
19:24I mean, he had insecurities.
19:26He cried.
19:26He got frustrated.
19:28He wanted to be the best.
19:29He put a lot of pressure on himself to be the best.
19:33You know, he did not want to be that scrawny little kid anymore.
19:36So he had to make this work.
19:46By 1990, the Ultimate Warrior is the biggest star in the WWF aside from one man, the immortal Hulk Hogan.
19:55The final piece of Vince McMahon's plan to crystallize a new megastar takes hold at WrestleMania VI.
20:05WrestleMania VI was in the Sky Dome in Toronto, one of the great North American cities for wrestling.
20:12Besides Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior was the biggest box office attraction in wrestling.
20:19He found out a few months before that he was going to be taking Hulk's spot.
20:24And it was the greatest joy of his life.
20:26He just thought, wow, this is going to be amazing.
20:28And he was very pumped about it.
20:30And then it came.
20:31And WrestleMania VI was there.
20:34Champion against champion.
20:36Title for a title.
20:37This is what it's all about.
20:39He was the most nervous I've ever seen in my entire life.
20:42He has severe anxiety.
20:44Take a look at this.
20:45Look at the intensity.
20:48Eye to eye right here.
20:50Face to face.
20:51I literally could physically feel the match.
20:54Like I was like feeling it.
20:56You know, I mean, it was just the emotion of it.
20:59The excitement in the arena.
21:01I've just never felt anything like that.
21:03Here we go, gorilla.
21:08It's Stephanie here at the Sky Dog.
21:11Vince felt that six or seven years of Hulk Hogan steadily on top was enough.
21:15He didn't want to get stale.
21:17He thought that the Warrior was ready to take it.
21:19Wow.
21:20Caught him with the clothesline.
21:21Out to the floor goes Hogan.
21:23Hogan had been on a breakneck schedule.
21:25He was tired.
21:26He was beat down.
21:27And he was ready to take a break.
21:28And so Vince made the decision to pass the torch.
21:31He got him up.
21:32It's the only time in that decade run with the WWF that Hulk Hogan actually legitimately
21:39got beaten.
21:40Pinned one, two, three in the ring by an opponent.
21:42And it was the ultimate warrior.
21:45Here it is.
21:48Oh, he moved out of the way.
21:53And the big splash.
21:55One, two.
21:56He got him.
21:57He got him.
22:00Unbelievable.
22:01For Hogan to do what Hogan did for Ultimate Warrior is a miracle.
22:07He carried the Warrior to immortality in WrestleMania 6.
22:11And they did it live, which is even more astonishing.
22:16After the match, he kind of went off on his own for a little bit.
22:20Just to take it all in.
22:22And for him just to give himself a big pat on the back and say, wow, nobody believed in
22:26me, but I did it.
22:27I mean, he was rich.
22:28And now he was the world champion.
22:31But that was short lived.
22:32Because literally, like two months after, Jim Hoeg left and the Ultimate Warrior came home.
22:45He became really erratic.
22:47He started staying on the road, which he never did before.
22:50He was disconnected.
22:52Something was off.
22:53You call his behavior erratic.
22:55What do you mean by that?
22:58He seemed altered.
23:01I mean, I didn't see anything, but he definitely was not.
23:06He was not well.
23:09He was on the road, and I tried to call his room, and he didn't answer.
23:14So I had them do a wellness check on him.
23:16You ask any wrestling wife out there, when you don't hear from your husband, you get scared.
23:24And when I called back, the guy goes, he's there.
23:27He was asleep.
23:29And that was the end of it.
23:30I thought back to something somebody told me a long time ago.
23:34There's always going to be women that want to sleep with your husband, but it's the ones that
23:38want to steal your life that you have to worry about.
23:41So I called the room.
23:43He answered the phone.
23:45And I heard a girl's voice.
24:02And I immediately thought, oh my gosh, I'm devastated.
24:09And I started going through his things, and I found this day planner.
24:13And I looked at page one, and page two, and page three, and it would be a girl's name.
24:19And the town.
24:27And I told him, I said, when you come home, you're going to be served papers.
24:35And I'm divorcing you.
24:37I didn't wait for a response.
24:39You know, my worst fear had come true.
24:41I just lost my husband.
24:52By 1991, Jim Hellwig's nine-year marriage to Sherry comes to an end.
25:00And to make matters worse, he loses the WWF Championship.
25:08Feeling betrayed, his relationship with his boss, Vince McMahon, begins to deteriorate.
25:15I was in Orlando, and Vince came to me and said, we're going to put you in Warrior together.
25:21And give you your championship run.
25:25Which I had been waiting for for years.
25:28But before we can put you and Warrior together, you need to go and get the okay from him.
25:34I'm like, what?
25:36What do you mean?
25:38You're the effing boss, man.
25:40He goes, Jake, it's just the way we have to do these things.
25:44So I went to his private dressing room and knocked on the door a couple of times.
25:49What? Come here.
25:51So I came in, and he got right in my face and said, let me tell you something.
25:55I don't care anything about your family.
25:58I don't care anything about you.
25:59I don't care anything about wrestling.
26:01I just want to do my shit.
26:03Here's the deal.
26:04You better not miss a show.
26:06Because if you miss a show, you're missing my money.
26:08And if you mess with my money, I'm going to get you.
26:11End of story.
26:12Get out.
26:13I walked out, and I was in shock.
26:16For this jackass to come to me like that was like pissing in my mouth.
26:21But I had to do it if I wanted that championship run.
26:25After SummerSlam, it'll be me and Warrior head to head.
26:29Making more money than I ever thought I'd make.
26:33Plans for Jake the Snake Roberts would soon be derailed as tensions between McMahon and Hellwig begin to boil over.
26:41Desperate to remain at the top of the card, Jim plans a drastic move.
26:48At this point, he moved into his home that he bought in Arizona.
26:52He decided he wanted to live the big life, so he bought himself a million-dollar mansion in Scottsdale.
26:59He called me up because of our history, and he needed somebody that he could trust, somebody that he could
27:05talk to.
27:06He wanted me to come out.
27:09He had decided, in his mind, in his paranoid mind, that he wanted everything that Hulk had.
27:16He wanted the same money, he wanted the same cut of the merchandising, he wanted it all.
27:23So he's like, I'm gonna give, you know, Vince this letter, and if he fires me, he fires me.
27:29I was like, you can't do this, like, you can't hold up TV.
27:33And he's like, well, I've lost my whole life, and I feel like I deserve what he has.
27:39And at that point, there's absolutely no getting through to him.
27:45And I knew that this was gonna end really bad for him.
27:51I'll be right back.
27:54Leading up to the SummerSlam pay-per-view in 1991, with 20,000 fans in attendance and millions more watching
28:02at home,
28:03Jim delivers a letter to Vince laying out a list of demands.
28:07He threatens that unless he is treated creatively and financially in line with Hulk Hogan, he would refuse to show
28:15up.
28:16His relationship with Vince is the most complicated thing.
28:20He loved Vince.
28:22And I think that he looked at him as kind of like a father figure in a way.
28:28I actually believe that a lot of it was he just wanted more attention from him.
28:33And anytime he asked Vince for something, Vince gave it to him.
28:36You know, I want my own locker room.
28:38I wanted a limousine all the time.
28:40I want the Learjets. I mean, he just, he wanted it all.
28:42And I think at that point, Vince had grown tired and weary of the demands.
28:48And it came to the point where, I mean, what do you do?
28:51It's a business and you don't hold up a show.
28:55Vince is infuriated, but he has one rule.
28:59Get the match in the ring at all costs.
29:02Vince temporarily placates Warriors demands, but he has no intention of honoring them after the event.
29:09I was there at SummerSlam, man. It was in Madison Square Garden.
29:13I'm so amped up because, man, I am going to start making thousands and thousands of dollars every time I'm
29:20going to do that curve.
29:21I was standing next to Vince when Warrior came out of the ring.
29:34And Vince put his hand out and stopped and he goes, by the way, you're fired. Now get the out
29:40of my building.
29:42And Vince looked at me and he goes, you got the worst luck of any human being I've ever met.
29:47To say that I wanted to kill that son of a bitch would be putting it lightly.
29:52I carried that anger for years.
29:57This is the letter from Vince McMahon to the Warrior.
30:01Dear Jim, as you know, on September 23, 1987, you signed a booking contract with Titan Sports.
30:06At the time you signed the contract, you were a relatively obscure wrestler with an enthusiastic, professed desire to succeed.
30:16Unfortunately, it now appears the fame that you have obtained through the efforts of Titan Sports has gone to your
30:21head.
30:21Frankly, you've become impossible to work with.
30:24You have become a legend in your own mind.
30:27You are certainly entitled to your opinion.
30:29However, you are not entitled to vent your feelings by breaching and threatening to breach your contract.
30:35This was a serious mistake on your part.
30:39Jim's greatest downfall of all time was his inability to see things from somebody else's perspective.
30:47He just always thought that his way was the right way.
30:57After threatening to no-show SummerSlam, Jim Hellwig is suspended by Vince McMahon.
31:03Over the next 18 months, both engage in several legal battles, leading to Jim's eventual firing.
31:10Feeling powerless, Jim makes a bold move to regain control of his life and the character he left behind.
31:18Warrior's run with the WWF came to an end in 1992, and Warrior went home and changed his legal name
31:24to Warrior
31:25because they owned Ultimate Warrior, and they were mad at each other for several years.
31:30The Warrior became Warrior. Not the Warrior. Not Jim the Warrior Hellwig. He changed his name legally to Warrior.
31:40You know, I changed my name because they were saying, look, whatever you did for the last 15 years, we
31:44own it.
31:45You can't even refer to it.
31:46So, I started using my character that I spent all those years developing, creating an entrepreneurial project.
31:54Why do you think he legally changed his name to Warrior?
31:58This is just my opinion because I was not his wife then.
32:02He had to reinvent himself. You have to make a living. You have to have a career.
32:06You know, he built the character and he just felt like that that's probably what he was going to have
32:10to do.
32:11By 1996, Hulk Hogan and other WWF wrestlers have jumped ship to their arch competitor, WCW.
32:22In order to recapture WWF's former success, Vince decides to approach Warrior for a second chance.
32:29Along with members of his executive team, Vince flies to Warrior's new home in Arizona to make amends.
32:37During this talk and during this lunch, all the Warrior talked about was his concepts and his visions and his
32:46ideas for spreading destrucity.
32:51You're probably wondering out there in TV land, what the fuck is destrucity?
32:59Destrucity was the truth in between destiny and reality where you could stay true to yourself while achieving your goals
33:08because he thought in his demented mind he was going to be some kind of motivational person for children and
33:15beleaguered people across America.
33:18As I got on with the entrepreneurial projects and started thinking about public speaking, got interested in reading and writing,
33:24Ultimate Warrior always represented like a true to life superhero comic book character.
33:28So I wrote the story around this graphically created Ultimate Warrior comic book character.
33:34So now he wants to be a motivational speaker. He wants comic books.
33:38Look, there's nothing wrong with any of that stuff if you're qualified to do it.
33:42This is time in my life I could never get back. It was a total waste of a trip.
33:50Although his staff has major apprehensions, McMahon takes a risk by hiring Warrior once again and his big return is
33:58scheduled for WrestleMania 12.
34:00WrestleMania!
34:04Warrior's opponent is rising star Hunter Hearst Helmsley, better known today as Triple H.
34:11He basically sold nothing.
34:13He took Triple H's finish and stood right back up and looked at him, beat him up and beat him
34:22in a minute and a half, flat.
34:26Just trashed him, just destroyed him because he was the warrior and he was the most important thing in the
34:30world.
34:33The pop was huge, but only for a few weeks. When the 1996 WWF fan saw the guy that he
34:42remembered as being the big star from 1990,
34:47he really wasn't as good as I remember him because things had changed.
34:51He was not going to sell lots of merchandise. This trucity was not going to become a household word.
34:56The comic book was not going to be on all the shelves. Things were not going to be going his
35:00way.
35:01And so Vince made the decision, we don't need him on our roster.
35:08Warrior's career in the WWF is over and it isn't the storybook ending everyone was hoping for.
35:15Defeated and disappointed, Warrior retreats back to Arizona.
35:20Years later, he goes back to his bodybuilding roots and opens his own gym.
35:24It was there he would cross paths again with his ex-wife, Sherry.
35:29I think that's probably one of the times where he was very, very, very happy.
35:33He had built this from the ground up and I don't know, I just saw like a new energy in
35:39him that I hadn't seen in a long time.
35:41And he and I were friends at that point and he was dating and I was dating and it wasn't
35:47like weird or anything.
35:48It was just nice just to have him in my life and have him as a friend.
35:52And then I met my now husband there and he met his wife.
35:58And then when I got pregnant with my daughter, it got to the point where he and I decided that
36:05it was not a good idea for me to be in the gym anymore.
36:08Because I had fallen in love and he had fallen in love with somebody else.
36:14And it was going to make our significant others, you know, very uncomfortable for us to be around each other.
36:20And he stood in front of me and he took my hands.
36:25He said, I want to thank you for all these years of being my wife.
36:31And I'm so sorry for all the pain that I've ever caused you.
36:39And I wish I could have been a faithful husband.
36:41And just the fact that he acknowledged that meant a lot to me.
36:46And know that I always loved you.
36:50And I wish you nothing but happiness and the best.
36:53And I know you're going to be a great mom.
36:56And that conversation ended our relationship.
37:00And that was the last time that I saw him.
37:08With Warrior's wrestling career in the rearview mirror and his relationship with Sherry officially over, he was not done creating
37:17controversy.
37:17And would spend the next decade using his fleeting celebrity status to become a conservative motivational speaker.
37:25The woman who would become my wife walked into my life.
37:28She was conservative.
37:30And through her I realized I had been, without knowing directly, all along living by a conservative philosophy of life.
37:38You know, I was in my mid-30s.
37:40I wasn't just going to sit or retire and just not do anything.
37:44So I started with the real simple idea.
37:47Just going out talking to young people all different ages.
37:50And I don't pull my punches about anything.
37:52He thought he was going to be a motivational speaker and a coach.
37:55He was actually a far right wing nutcase who hated gay people.
38:01Let me come down off my politically correct horse.
38:08Because queering doesn't make the world work.
38:16And said, you know, really horrible things about a variety of cultures and peoples.
38:23His political rants or his anti-gay rants or his right wing rants or his homophobia.
38:29I've never yet understood the first fucking thing about how this guy's head worked.
38:34And then he would say a variety of things about a lot of the guys in the business that may
38:42or may not have been true, but coming from him was the most unpalatable of all.
38:46Folkomania is entwined in society by the example you set of how to fuck up a life.
38:56I mean, you didn't care if your wife slept with other guys.
39:00I mean, you're a real piece of shit, Terry.
39:03Here was the most unprofessional, argumentative, hard to work with, egotistical, untalented guy that all these people had a hand
39:13in making a star.
39:15And then all he did afterwards was trash him.
39:20After spending years publicly disparaging his contemporaries and embroiled in lawsuits with the WWE,
39:27it was unlikely that Warrior would ever find himself face to face with any of his former opponents.
39:33That would all change in 2014 in a move that shocked the wrestling world when it was announced that the
39:40Ultimate Warrior would be headlining the Hall of Fame ceremony
39:44at WrestleMania 30.
39:46One of his longtime enemies would be lying in wait for his return.
39:51I had a roll of quarters in my pocket.
39:54I was gonna beat his ass.
39:56And I'm waiting on him, looking for him.
39:59Of course, Warrior being Warrior, they had him in a private area and security guards and all.
40:05I had to wait.
40:06And I had to wait.
40:07And I had to wait.
40:08And I'm boiling, and I'm boiling, and I'm boiling.
40:11And then all of a sudden, somebody tapped me on the back.
40:15I turned around in the Warrior.
40:18He put his hands up.
40:19He goes, please, just let me do this.
40:21I need to apologize to you and your family.
40:24That's who I was then, but that wasn't me.
40:27But if it means anything, just know that I'm sorry.
40:32He disarmed me.
40:36Another lesson in life, man.
40:38That's what I got.
40:40A lesson.
40:42At the Hall of Fame weekend, Warrior went around.
40:45He made amends with some of the talent that was there.
40:47I think it probably warmed Vince's heart more than anyone,
40:51because he just always likes to bring people back into the fold.
40:55You look great. Congratulations.
40:57You always look great. You look better than anybody.
40:59He was on his best behavior, and he did what everyone considered to be a fine speech.
41:05I've never interacted with anybody in this business that hasn't taught me something.
41:11The inductions were made, and his family was there, and it seemed like an improbable storybook ending for this multi
41:20-decade contentious relationship.
41:26The next night, he comes out on Monday Night Raw live on television and cuts another promo,
41:32and it's a very inspirational speech that people actually understood.
41:36I am Ultimate Warrior.
41:39You are the Ultimate Warrior fans.
41:43And the spirit of Ultimate Warrior will run forever.
41:52Warrior didn't look healthy that night.
41:55Like he had really got fatigued or hadn't been able to sleep or something was off.
42:02My sister called me, and she's like, I'm so sorry about Jim.
42:06And I'm like, what are you talking about? What do you mean?
42:14Somewhere around 12 hours after that final Monday Night Raw appearance,
42:18he was leaving his hotel room, walking to the car the next morning, had a heart attack and died.
42:28One of the biggest pro wrestling stars of the 1990s.
42:31We learned overnight that the Ultimate Warrior has died.
42:35It's probably one of the most startling things that ever happened in wrestling.
42:41After almost 20 years, a guy finally comes back, has a chance to at least resurrect his legacy,
42:47if not his career, gets started, drops over dead.
42:54He does his promo, and he gets a standing ovation, and he goes home, and he dies.
43:01He couldn't write that story.
43:03It was sad. It was sad.
43:06I was sad for his family. The children weren't going to have a father.
43:10I mean, just everything about it, and just so bad.
43:13Nobody should ever have to see their loved one die like that.
43:18I mean, I was sad for the fans.
43:20I was sad that people had lost something that meant so much to them.
43:25This character, this gimmick, the Ultimate Warrior.
43:28Like, everything about it was so horrible.
43:30I would say that Warrior never said anything any more truthful than his last words on Raw.
43:36Every man's heart one day beats its final beat.
43:41His lungs breathe their final breath.
43:44You're gonna breathe your last breath.
43:46Your heart's gonna beat its last time.
43:47It's just we never suspected it'd be that quick that soon for him.
43:54Rest in peace.
44:03Subtitled by
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