How Good Was Ultimate Warrior Actually?

2. Drawing Power

Warrior’s ability to draw money is very much a tale of 2 halves. For his first few years in the WWF, the Warrior was a phenom. Making crowds go crazy and parting with their cash, Warrior is the only wrestler of the 1980s who got close to drawing money on the same level as Hulk Hogan.

You can’t blame Vince McMahon for wanting to try pushing Warrior to the moon as the 90s dawned, especially when his tried and trusted red and yellow formula started to wane. Ultimately, he just didn’t have the skillset to take WWE to the heights of Hulkamania. Worse than that, Jim Hellwig got ideas way above his station and began to make obscene financial demands.

He famously (and retrospectively) demanded $550,000 for his WrestleMania VII match vs. Randy Savage, and he wanted financial parity with Hogan for all appearances and merchandise moving forward. Further, Warrior threatened to pull out of the SummerSlam '91 main event (in which he’d team with Hulk vs. Sgt. Slaughter, General Adnan, and Colonel Mustafa) if his demands weren't met, and nobody threatens Vince McMahon and gets away with it.

After failing to ignite the same level of excitement and interest around the WWF Title during his first and only title reign as the company's leading man, it was an outrageous demand for Warrior to make. Fueled by real-life jealousy of Hogan’s fame and fortune, Hellwig would be granted his request, only for Vince to suspend him indefinitely directly after coming back through the curtain following his SummerSlam match.

The Ultimate Warrior only headlined 2 WWE PPVs in his whole career. His return to WCW was a nostalgia-tinted disaster at a time when the company would've been better served by elevating the likes of Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Jericho. He's rightfully considered a wrestling icon of the 1980s, but the reality is that his run at the top lasted less time than Goldberg’s streak.

3/10