10 Times WWE Stopped Promoting Its Own Products
2. The Self-Destruction Of The Ultimate Warrior
Ever since the early 2000s, WWE has been no stranger to behind-the-scenes documentaries. Whenever the company has appreciated a performer's contribution to the business, they have ended up producing something like The Last Ride, in which The Undertaker was revered for hours. It has taken a special kind of wrestler to be reviewed in the opposite light, but if one person pulled it off, it was The Ultimate Warrior.
Although Bruce Prichard alleged the original idea was to produce a standard documentary on Warrior, what WWE ended up releasing in the fall of 2005 was a 3-disc slam piece that included Vince McMahon himself expressing how he couldn't wait to fire Dingo. Leading up to its release, the DVD was pushed on weekly episodes of Raw and SmackDown, but shortly into 2006, it was as though the overhyped documentary never actually happened.
In addition to a slew of other lawsuits regarding the creative use of Warrior's name, the Hall of Famer sued WWE in January 2006 over its depiction of his run in the company. While the libel lawsuit was ultimately dismissed three years later, the sports entertainment company shoved the work aside early into legal rumblings.
Interestingly enough, Warrior was originally invited to be part of the DVD. No longer wanting to be associated with the company, Warrior declined, leaving one to wonder how the DVD (and business relationship) would have turned out if the legend had just bit the bullet during its production.