Ultimate Warrior

[Stiva]

Yeah, that was a good post from Marvin and I will say that one aspect of this GOAT list that I really like is the potential re-evaluation of guys who you've perhaps never really liked or haven't watched for a while. I would have never even considered Warrior for that kind of re-evaluation, especially with so much other wrestling to watch but fuck it if that post hasn't almost convinced me.

[Grimmas]

I'll consider Warrior and Goldberg. I don't see how I could fit them in, but I do really enjoy them.

[funkdoc]

To Jerry's point that he was a bad person, Warrior certainly said some ugly things in his life, but I am not considering things that happened outside the show. The other nominees include murderers and thieves, which I am not holding against them. My working number one Flair is a guy that defrauds people and harasses women, but that doesn't change his greatness as a wrestler.

 

i know parv clarified his position later, but this is still a really really important point that bears a lot of repeating

 

honestly, one of the main reasons i won't be taking part in this project is that i have a hard time taking "yeah, he may have been a pedophile, but got DAMN was he good at making fake punches look real" to that degree. i may throw in an isolated post praising someone's work without touching on the other stuff, as i have with lawler & surely others, but i don't like lionizing them to this sort of level.

 

and yes, i have the same issues with sports and other fields. i would have never let ty cobb in a HOF in the first place if i had any say. i just see sports & "sports entertainment" as small fry in the grand scheme of things, and try to prioritize the bigger-picture issues. not expecting much agreement here, but i'd like to at least see people stay consistent with this stuff.

 

anyway, apologies for the sidetrack. great post marvin, exactly the sort of thing i'd love to see more of on this forum! waiting on that one guy to post his magnum opus for shawn michaels as #1...

[goodhelmet]

Shining Wiz made me take this topic seriously. I am going to rank Warrior ahead of Richards. I enjoy things that Warrior did like the Rude matches and the Hogan Mania match. I love that him and Rude had a posedown and did an impromptu arm wrestling match in World Class. I don''t like anything Davey Richards does.

[TRMD]

Yes, great post and I appreciate you sharing it. But I better not see you pimping Mongo McMichael anytime soon.

 

 

Speaking of Mongo, I was recently going through all of Goldberg's '98 PPV matches, and it struck me how unbelievably bad Mongo was. Beyond terrible.

[Matt D]

I enjoy the energy of the Warrior. His character was a barbarian from another dimension and I feel like in his run from 1988 to 1991, he played that character well. His matches feel wild and out of control. They very well may have been falling apart at times, but I think that can be an enjoyable thing to watch at times. I see Warrior as a genre of wrestler that I would call the monster face that would include guys like Goldberg and I think he was the best of that group of wrestlers that destroyed their opponents.

 

 

I'd sort of like to see you do a detailed breakdown of Warrior vs Brody when it comes to this.

[TravJ1979]

Really found his stride with WWE and was my favorite childhood wrestler. From '88 to '92 was his peak with a handful of fun/great matches, but not enough for a GOAT. Nothing of note on his resume before or after the initial run. Nothing against him, but for me he does not qualify.

[Moonsault Marvin]

Matt, I don't really see a Warrior-Brody comparison. They do have the superficial similarities like their fondness for the looping overhead blows. Brody is supposedly a wild man, but does not work that character. He works in a fairly constant, slow, deliberate style. Meanwhile, Warrior has more frenetic bursts in matches. His exuberance is what undoes him, so the heels can take over, such as when he goes running into a turnbuckle or misses the Warrior splash. Warrior's work matches his character better.

 

Brody isn't necessarily treated much as a monster at times. If we look at Flair, an opponent common to both of them, he works them differently. Flair doesn't really seem scared of Brody and endures his punishment. Flair is much more cowardly in working Warrior with lots of begging off.

 

I think the Undertaker would be the more proper wrestler to look at in comparison to Brody, as they work a more similar style. Warrior is more a mix of the Road Warriors with the native american style comeback, and he has the '50s throwback energetic rope bouncing.

[JerryvonKramer]

Some of the differences in how Flair worked with each of them was down to environment though. If you watch Flair during that 92 run, he worked much more chickenshit than he did in NWA/WCW, because WWF almost booked him like the Honky Tonk Man. He was an uber-weak champion against practically everyone apart from Savage.

 

Brody would have worked Flair 83-4 sort of time and possibly even during one of his babyface runs, when he would have worked stronger. Also, if memory serves the Brody-Flair matches mostly took place in St. Louis where they would have put on a more no-nonsense match anywhere to suit the tastes of that Muchnick-trained crowd.

 

Not completely trying to invalidate your point, but I do think you have to look at the environment as well as the opponent.

[DylanZero]

While I do think it was definitely brave to nominate Warrior and also very nice to actually say why rather than just to be vague, I kind of agree with what Matt D said earlier. I feel like there are at least 100 people nominated that are clearly better than Warrior purely in terms of in-ring careers regardless of criteria and I'd be surprised if you thought otherwise by 2016. I'd love to see your thoughts on some of these other guys, Marv.

 

Personally count me among the haters for this guy. Not personally or anything, he didn't seem that much worse than a bunch of other guys, and even have a certain soft spot for his schtick, just not in the ring for all the reasons said a gillion times.

[Moonsault Marvin]

Jerry, you're right. I probably overreached with my example.

[Exposer]

Warrior won't be anywhere close to my list, but I do find his best matches to be legitimately great and they weren't all his opponent doing the work for him. Of course, WWF match layouts may have been a part of that as well, but he did well in those matches if you ask me. He's far from my list though.

[Phil Schneider]

I agree, he had some good performances in his best matches, there just aren't nearly enough of those matches to place him near a list, and they are outweighed by a lot of bad performances. I do like him more then some of the other guys nominated so far though

[rvd356]

He's on my list somewhere for sure. Warrior-Rude at Summerslam 89 is as good as any match, ever. Misawa, Flair, whoever.

[Grimmas]

He's on my list somewhere for sure. Warrior-Rude at Summerslam 89 is as good as any match, ever. Misawa, Flair, whoever.

So, Warrior-Rude from SummerSlam is the greatest match ever?

[rvd356]

 

 

He's on my list somewhere for sure. Warrior-Rude at Summerslam 89 is as good as any match, ever. Misawa, Flair, whoever.

So, Warrior-Rude from SummerSlam is the greatest match ever?

I didn't say that. I said it's as good, which means it's on "the level" as the other best. That level is the [ ***** ] match level, and while I think there are a lot more of those than most people, in reality its a small group.

 

But no, it's not the best match ever, I'm not even sure that it's the best match of 1989. Or even in WWE in 1989. Like Luger/Steamboat GAB, the Flair/Steamboat trilogy, Flair/Funk "I Quit", Tenryu/Jumbo 06.05.89, Zangiev/Hashimoto 04.24.89, Doom/Steiners Havoc, Flair & Sting/Mutoh & Funk Havoc ThunderDome, and Rockers/Brainbusters(pick one).... And hell I could go on, and everyone knows the great ones, but I mean damn just 1989 had so many great matches that were ***** or pretty close.

 

But Warrior v. Rude at SummerSlam 89 is one of those matches that most marks and smarts find to be a great one. I think it takes a certain kind of worker to produce such a classic. And this thread is about Warrior and why he's definitely on my "100 Greatest Wrestlers" list.

 

If there's one positive almost every fan can say about Warrior is that he cared immensely about his character(um, renaming yourself Warrior legally?). And 75% of the time that meant being crazy, not selling and destroying people. AND he was perfect at that which is a point in his favor. Including SummerSlam 88 where he did just this to Honky Tonk Man, which was the absolute right move. But also part of that character was having these epic battles with the big heels of his time. And I think when that time came he almost always delivered on this.

 

vs. Rick Rude - SummerSlam 89/90 & SNME 07.28.90

vs. Heenan Family - Survivor Series 89

vs. Andre the Giant - 10.28.89, 11.25.89

vs. Savage - 02.11.89, WM7

vs. Curt Hennig - WWF 03.19.90

vs. Sgt Slaughter - Royal Rumble 91 - I think this really delivered as an "Epic". Even though it wasn't nearly as good as say Barbarian/Bubba from earlier in the night as far as in ring work, the American superhero Warrior with the colors against the American Drill Sgt. Soldier turned Jihadist was damned entertaining. Especially when Warrior rips up the Iraqi flag and the crowd goes so crazy the camera starts shaking which always gives me goosebumps. Also I would have to look it up, but when they went back to Japan in 91(this time to SWS) these too had a fun as hell brawl all over if I remember correctly. I have only see it once though.

 

In fact the only times he failed to deliver in these epic encounters with big heel characters was

 

vs. Hollywood Hogan - Havoc 98 - Hogan sandbagged him BAD here, not all his fault.

 

vs. Jerry Lawler - King if the Ring 96 - I think Warrior was game, but Lawler almost always looked like garbage when they gave him a shot at being a big heel wrestler. I'll get to that when I post in the Lawler GOAT thread, but Piper, Bret, Warrior, Foley in 4 consecutive KOTR PPVs, 3 of them main events, and never did he have anything remotely good. In fact I'd say downright embarrassing and I wouldn't rate any of them above [ * ].

 

vs. Ted Dibiase - Tokyo Dome 04.13.90 - Yeah well first this was going against Hulk Hogan/Stan Hansen, the 2 biggest gaijin in the history of Japan, so. And Warriors style doesn't work in Japan in 1990 too well. But god damn Ted dogged it so bad here. I mean take some big bumps or something? Earn your check.

 

A lot of guys I will have in my 100 are unique and possibly the only wrestler like them (Also thinking Steiner, Lo Ki, Sabu, RVD, Goldberg, Mick Foley and possibly Sandman and Necro haha) and they were great in their own way.

 

EDIT: added Foley to the unique "One of a Kind ®" list

[TravJ1979]

Warrior is less of a candidate and more of a guy who lends credence to the nomination.of a wrestler who got a good/memorable match out of him,

 

i.e Rude, Savage, Slaughter

[DR Ackermann]

If you are unable to call a 10 minute match and come up with something good in your prime then you don't belong anywhere near this list. Does anyone think Warrior was capable of that?

[Judy Bagwell]

Not a single hope in hell and I'm even actively opposed to others including him on their top 100s. Terrible wrestler, terrible promo, terrible person. Probably in my bottom 5 wrestlers behind Chief Jay Strongbow and Road Warrior Hawk.

 

Hated him as a kid, hate him even more as an adult. His death changed nothing about how I feel about him.

he had more top tier matches in the WwF than your golden boy Dibiase. Even when paired with Savage Ted couldnt put on a better match than Hellwig

[thebrainfollower]

Oh no.............

 

 

Warrior is definitely a great PPV big match worker in WWF no doubt about that. Only his Hercules and Lawler matches aren't great as far as his singles matches go.

 

Whether that's enough to put him in a top 100 I am unsure.

[elliott]

I think he's better than Goldberg. 

[Mr JMML]

The bad outweights the good in his case, there isn't nearly enough good matches to consider him as a Greatest Wrestler Ever candidate.