Ultimate Warrior's 11 Losses - From Cleanest To Screwiest
10. Vs. Rick Rude - House Show, December 28, 1987
Vince McMahon is ruthless.
He had his eyes set on Hulk Hogan's replacement months before WrestleMania III, the night on which the Hulkster etched himself into the lore of Americana. But Tom Magee did not work out.
He was quite infamously a dire and unconvincing professional wrestler Vince confused for a great one because Bret Hart was a genius. The Hitman in their trial match of sorts treated Magee like a proximity mine, knowing full well the match would fall apart the more Magee did in it. Hart used the spaces between to sell the imminent threat of Magee for most of it.
Vince, entranced, soon realised that the Hitman had cast a spell.
Which makes it all the more surprising that he booked his next muscle-head, the Warrior, to lose clean in the middle to Rick Rude at the precipice of a year in which he made his unassailable run to the tippy top. Warrior was primed for the Intercontinental Title eight months later. And yet, he lost months into his proto-Goldberg run in which he smashed through all and sundry in a matter of minutes from day one. Perhaps Rude's body was looking particularly fantastic that day.
And what a day that would have been.
Clean rating: Cleaner than his piss, put it that way.