Here’s an excellent chat between two excellent people about an excellent book. The book is Ultimate Warrior: A Life Lived Forever, by my friend Jon Robinson. Jon is a longtime videogame journalist and lifelong pro-wrestling fan. We’ve been on many road trips together and I’m amazed by his transition from videogame writer to best-selling author. The interview is a PaulSemel.com exclusive. Paul is also a longtime videogame journalist and former writer for the magazine Gene Simmons Tongue.
Since many of you RPadholics are WWE fans, I thought the interview and book would interested you. The Ultimate Warrior was one of the biggest stars in WWE history, but he was also an enigma. Chosen to carry the torch after Hulk Hogan, there was a point where Ultimate Warrior was the top guy in pro-wrestling. Unfortunately, he was a bit of a nut job and bought into his own gimmick, going as far as to legally change his name from Jim Hellwig to Warrior. He could have had it all, but pretty much self destructed.
Here’s an excerpt from the PaulSemel.com interview with Jon Robinson:
The Ultimate Warrior was one of the most fascinating characters in the history of professional wrestling, and the book breaks down everything from how he started out just hoping to make enough side money wrestling to open his own chiropractic business to how he ended up headlining WrestleMania against Hulk Hogan. Everything about Warrior was intense, from his face paint to his crazy physique, and all those aspects are detailed and displayed in full color.
When Warrior was growing up, he wasn’t even a wrestling fan. I just thought that was funny because he is such a memorable character, I would’ve thought he grew up watching the greats. But he was such a comic book fan, he found his inspiration for The Ultimate Warrior in the pages of DC and Marvel instead. I think that actually helped make him stand out even more.
When you have a chance, please check out the interview. If you dig the book, please buy it here.
That was my guy right there! I’d been a fan of the Ultimate Warrior since he was in a tag-team duo with Sting (they were then called the Blade Runners).
Kudos to you Sir for bringing up the Blade Runners. They were a bad-ass tag-team. For those of you that didn’t see them, the Blade Runners were paired together because they looked awesome but were still green in the ring. Sting was known as Flash, while Warrior was known as Rock. On a related note, I’ve always hated the “Crow” version of Sting. The punk, rat-tail, neon-wearing Sting was best.
Yes, man, you are on! LOL. I loved Rock and Sting (Flash), but I am with you on not liking the new version of Sting. But then again, they are all trying what they can to say relevant. I mean, Jerry Lawler (the last that I saw) was even still breathing. haha. I rarely meet people that used to watch more than just WWF, so this is cool to know someone that used to have a subscription to PWI. Wait, I guess I just assumed that. LOL
p.s. My favorite wrestler, likely, of all time was the man, Brusier Brody!
I watched any and all wrestling I could back in the day — WWF, NWA, WCCW, UWF, AWA, etc. I also read the magazines. Ha! And Brody was definitely a legend. What happened to him in Puerto Rico still baffles me.