10 WWE Wrestlers Who Lived Their Gimmicks
2. The Ultimate Warrior
The Ultimate Warrior
It takes precisely three seconds of exposure before you figure out that The Ultimate Warrior is crazy. From the bulging muscles and endless energy to the rope-shaking and nonsensical promos, the character was intense, over the top, and utterly preposterous.
So was Jim Hellwig.
The Ultimate Warrior was supposed to be a being from another world who yelled to the gods for help on his crusade, but Hellwig himself was just as nutty. He legally changed his name to “Warrior” in 1993, which means his widow Dana and daughters Indiana and Mattigan now have the honour of going through life as part of the Warrior family, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Warrior’s backstage instability saw him booted from WWE twice, and it wasn’t until 2014 that he and WWE finally made good. He took the company to court in 1996 to battle their continued use of his character’s name on-air, and when the court ruled in his favour, Warrior went down as the only man in wrestling history to successfully sue his own gimmick.
Warrior became a motivational speaker in his retirement, and caused a stir by broadcasting a series of extreme, borderline totalitarian viewpoints through the media. By all accounts, being “Warrior” was far more than just an act for him, and at the height of his mania, he was as unpredictable as his character suggested. Fortunately, he was able to put this aside and mend fences with before before his untimely death in 2014.