The fifth episode of Dark Side of the Ring's third season aired this week covering the life and career of the Ultimate Warrior. One of the most iconic WWE Superstars of all time, Warrior's time at the top of the business was short-lived but has left a legacy that will last forever. However, as his inclusion as a subject for Dark Side of the Ring implies, Warrior wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. This episode covered both sides of his life, diving a little deeper into the darker times than Sunday's night's A&E doc on Warrior.
Becoming Warrior
This week's episode is titled Becoming Warrior, and the first part of the episode is very fitting of that name. After introducing some of the people who spoke about Warrior on the episode, the WWE Hall of Famer's ex-wife is introduced. Shari Tyree is someone many wrestling fans might not be familiar with. She and Warrior divorced in 1991 and she stayed out of the limelight when married to the former WWE Champion.
Tyree detailed how she and Warrior met, describing their first date and how even then, she could see how insecure he was. Warrior had an incredible physique even then as he dedicated his life to bodybuilding. However, once he realized how much he had managed to transform his body, he went about doing the same with his mind. That's when he started to train as a chiropractor.
Those plans changed when Warrior met Steve Borden, better known to wrestling fans as Sting. Sting convinced Warrior that the two of them could make a living together in wrestling. That's when they formed a tag team called the Freedom Fighters and debuted in Memphis. The two would later be renamed The Bladerunners in the UWF. It was already becoming clear that Sting was willing to train and learn to improve, whereas Warrior believed he could get by on his look and charisma alone.
Eventually, Warrior wanted to go it alone and that's when he became Dingo Warrior. He was clearly on Vince McMahon's radar at this point and despite Warrior's lack of ability between the ropes, it was a match made in heaven waiting to happen during that era. A larger-than-life superhero-type character who had little interest in being a wrestler. He just wanted to use that world as a vehicle to becoming a star.
Drop The Dingo
Warrior didn't change much of what he was doing at first when arriving in WWE. His ex-wife would sit in the crowd and clock fan reaction, but at the time, there wasn't much to clock. Vince McMahon had dropped the Dingo from his name and added an Ultimate instead. From that point it was all about creating the persona Warrior remains famous for today.
Paul Heyman is often credited with being the best at hiding a wrestler's weaknesses and exposing their strengths when ECW was at its peak. However, the work McMahon did with Warrior years before might be the best example of that in wrestling history. Warrior's matches were short and usually pretty terrible. His promos were nonsensical. However, his character was undeniable.
Warrior began getting pushed at a rate that rubbed his fellow Superstars the wrong way. He was passing by people who had been with the company for years, patiently waiting for and working towards their shot at the big time. The way he spoke to those same people backstage also didn't go down well, not to mention his less-than-stellar work in the ring hurting his peers.
Less than three years later, Warrior found himself in the main event of WrestleMania VI. A title versus title match against Hulk Hogan. Warrior was told prior to the match not only would he be beating Hogan, which was pretty much unheard of at the time, but he would be taking his spot. Between McMahon feeling like WWE needed a fresh face leading the charge and Hogan being worn out from the road, it all made sense.
Jim Helwig Left And Warrior Came Home
It was after his iconic win that maintaining his status and becoming an even bigger star changed Warrior. Tyree became worried about her husband, asking police to check on him while he was away one time and then calling his hotel room herself. Tyree heard a woman's voice and deduced Warrior had been cheating on her. Upon discovering his day planner Tyree found that Warrior was actually cheating on her with multiple women in various cities. She would divorce him shortly after that.
Warrior's status in WWE continued to go to his head, and one day he decided it wasn't enough. He invited his ex-wife to his new home and showed her a letter. The letter was addressed to McMahon and effectively read like a list of demands. Demands asking that Warrior be treated the same as Hogan in terms of dates, pay, and merchandise. Tyree told Warrior not to give the letter to McMahon, but he did.
McMahon responded by writing Warrior a letter of his own. However, with a big match against Jake Roberts at SummerSlam already advertised, the chairman held onto it until after the event had passed. Well, actually, he informed Warrior of how he felt as soon as he came back through the curtain, suspending him.
Warrior would eventually be fired by WWE as the two went to war in court. Still Jim Helwig away from the ring at this point, he legally changed his name to Warrior. Just Warrior as the name Ultimate Warrior was owned by WWE.
Four Years Later, Nothing's Changed
Despite the messy ending to his time with the company, McMahon decided to hire Warrior back in 1996. Jim Ross, who made the trip for the meeting with Warrior, could see nothing had changed and thought the meeting was a waste of time. Warrior would compete against a young Triple H in what has become an infamous match. It lasted 90 seconds and featured Warrior selling absolutely none of The Games's offense, including the pedigree. Warrior would be gone from the company later that same year.
Years later, after remarrying, Warrior used lectures and the internet to go on very public rants about some very sensitive subjects. Speeches and posts that were riddled with incredibly racist and homophobic comments. The episode features clips and quotes from some of the things Warrior said during this time. For a more extensive look at some of the awful things he said during this part of his life be sure to check out our feature on why WWE shouldn't be allowed to ignore this chapter in Warrior's life.
Rebuilding The Final Bridge
Despite leaving WWE under messy circumstances not once, but twice, Warrior was invited back into the fold once again in 2014. It was on that weekend that he was inducted into the HoF, and demonstrated to many of those he had wronged that he had really changed. Roberts describes waiting backstage to beat him up, only to be taken aback by Warrior's apology. Warrior would show off his daughters at the ceremony, and give a speech on Raw the following Monday that has gone down in wrestling lore.
Not because it was a great speech necessarily, which it was, but because what happened just hours later has given it more meaning than Warrior ever intended. The next morning, when leaving his hotel, Warrior suffered a heart attack and died. As JR says in the episode, the sort of thing you couldn't write, and if you did, people would dub it farfetched. Tyree mentions early in the episode that both Warrior's grandfathers died in their 50s, and the HoFer was adamant the same would happen to him. He passed away at the age of 54.