Vince and Warrior (as Jim Hellwig would legally change his name to) had had their ups and downs many times over the years. Some of these were related to in-ring issues or drug test failures. Some were due to lies or personality clashes. And some were due to two very prominent lawsuits. The first was in the mid-1990's. With Hellwig having legally changed his name to Warrior, the WWF filed a lawsuit stating that they owned the rights to the name and the moniker. Warrior filed a counter suit, stating that he should have the rights to the character, and the court found in his favour. But as we know, Vince has a long memory..... Fast forward to 2005. WWE wanted to release a DVD on Warrior, but he wouldn't take part. The DVD then became a complete character assassination, entitled 'The Self-Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior'. As someone who owned the DVD, I can attest to the fact that it left no-one in any doubt as to how much Vince loathed Warrior. He filed another lawsuit against the WWE, but in 2009 it was dismissed. Vince had seemingly won and got his own back on Warrior. But as they say, time heals all wounds, and in April 2014 Warrior was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, just a few days before he would tragically die of a heart attack. Warrior has also been included in the last two WWE video games and WWE released another DVD, 'Ultimate Warrior: The Ultimate Collection', which was more flattering and really pushed him as a WWE legend. He also made up with Vince and Hulk Hogan in the weekend before his death. In the end, there were no real winners in this situation, but at least eace had been made.
I am a teacher, but also write about all things wrestling. I have been writing/interviewing wrestling personalities for over 7 years for both the Wrestling Observer site, as well as The History Of WWE site.
