Ask Erik Episode Fifty-Nine

Here at Ask Erik, we're always willing to dive into the obscure facts from our past and provide a (hopefully) unique outlook at the things you want to know about.

To Erik:  Ultimate Warrior.  Go.

Man.  If this story doesn't somehow become a movie in the next thirty years, I'll be flabbergasted.

When I was young, and wrestlers wore outfits even more racist outlandish than they do now, you had clearly divided lines telling you who was good, who was bad, and you could typically tell which was which just by their outfits and gimmicks.

Hulk Hogan wore red and yellow and was everybody's hero.  The Undertaker had a name connected with death, so he was obviously evil.  George Steele acted like a beast and had more back hair than Robin Williams, so he was evil.

Now, for some reason every international wrestler I can think of was also evil.  Yokozuna, Iron Sheik, and even the Mountie (those dastardly Canadians!) we're all heels.

The Ultimate Warrior, on the other hand, was always a bit of a puzzle to me.  I could never tell if he was supposed to be a hero or not (he had a regular feud with Rick Rude, but would also antagonize Hulk Hogan), and while he got played up quite a bit with huge (and I mean HUGE) industry pushes, he never really seemed to reach the same level of stardom as a lot of the other big names.

He was also notorious for being difficult and unpleasant to work with, didn't have a lot of stamina to keep his matches going too long (look back at some of his fights, you can clearly see him run out of steam and need his opponent to do the heavy lifting), and made absolutely no sense when he did promos or speeches (see: destrucity)...and yet he was insanely popular.  The man had charisma dripping from him, had a unique and distinctive style, and was memorable in all the right ways.

Now, I don't know the whole story about why the Warrior had his falling out with the various wrestling organizations, but this past weekend he finally was inducted into the wrestling hall of fame and got to give a pretty great speech.  It seemed a lot of bad blood was put in the past (even if it was just for the sake of the show) and it seemed a key figure in wrestling history was finally getting his proper recognition.

And on Tuesday, he died.

It's really hard to explain the kind of role he played in my life, since I was always more of a Hulk Hogan fan.  However, I did read his bizarre comic, and I've watched some of his public speaking speeches (which are often just as unintelligible as anything else), and while he may have been a bit off, I find it both strangely poetic and very tragic that he would die that quickly after getting his recognition.

In a way, it's nice he got to go out on such a public high note, but I do wish he could have had the time to enjoy it.  It's better than getting a posthumous bit of recognition, but still....I wish he could've been around to receive all the accolades he deserved.