Ultimate Warrior Interview/Post Recent Comeback

[The Buzz 0]

I don't know if anyone else was interested in what the Warrior was doing since his one-off comeback last year, but I found a short little interview on a blog that he must have done at the signing he did prior to the Great American Bash.

 

 

Ultimate Warrior Interview

Credit: The Steel Cage blog

 

I had the opportunity to briefly sit down with the Ultimate Warrior this past Sunday and talk to him about his recent return match with the European promotion New Wrestling Evolution, as well as his fitness regimen, and his thoughts on returning to WWE or TNA.

 

Here's is the first half of our short interview, along with some photos from the NWE match last month. You can also see video highlights of our conversation here.

 

I'll be back tomorrow with the second installment.

 

Warrior on how his first match in ten years with the NWE came about:

 

"It was just the timing of things. I've been doing a lot of different things in my life entrepreneurly. I have a family, a couple of young children - a couple of beautiful young girls. I've been living in New Mexico keeping myself busy doing a bunch of other stuff other than wrestling. This company had contacted me a couple of years ago and told me some of their ideas they had about what they wanted to do. Actually they’re a media company and they wanted to do wrestling as part of what they do. They’re a huge print publisher of magazines and stuff and I guess they started printing and publishing their own wrestling magazine and it became very popular.

 

The producer, Roberto Indiano, actually worked with WWE a few years ago and then he left there and wanted to stay there in Italy. They’ve been doing shows there for the last three or four years. When they contacted me a few years ago, it just didn’t work out. They didn’t have their act together. They basically just presented me their ideas of what they wanted to do. And then they called me a few months ago and said they were ready to reach out and develop television programming. They wanted to get attention and they wanted to see if there was a chance we could work something out for me to make a ring return.

 

So it was all good. Me and my family take a vacation every summer typically for a month. So I negotiated as part of the deal that we would go over an spend a whole month there and be able to train and stay in Barcelona where I was going to perform on June 25.”

Warrior on staying in shape:

I still continue to be very intense with exercise. I love exercise. I wouldn’t say I’m a muscle head at heart, but I love to get in the gym and bang it out. And I’ve been around physical fitness and exercising and weight training and bodybuilding since I was 11 or 13 years old. And I’ve seen the chances in the health and fitness industry. It’s just all very mediocre – the way people train today compared to the way they used to train and what they needed in a gym to get their training done... people have always been curious about the way I train and how I stay in shape. People write me all the time - "How can I get in shape? How can I get on an exercise program?" And you know, I was just getting ready to turn 49... Every morning I wake up and affirm to myself that I’ve only lived one third of my life and 50 years of age. “

 

 

Warrior on his reasons for making a return:

“You know the challenge of it all. After 10 years, could I still do it? Could I still get in the ring?… Age wasn’t the factor that prevented me. That was never something that I thought about, but as far as an opportunity presenting itself here in the states and stuff – No, I didn’t see it on the horizon. I had forgotten about (wrestling) totally until NWE contacted me a few years ago.”

 

Warrior on his past life as a WWE superhero:

“I don’t spend a lot of time sitting around thinking about those glory days if you will. My kids know they’re dad did the Ultimate Warrior as a wrestler. We don’t do any of that. I have some unique licensing deals where stuff shows up in the mail with Ultimate Warrior stuff. Intellectual property is always being used. People are very surprised when they come into my office. There’s hardly anything in my office that represents (my wrestling career.) There’s boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff going back to the Dingo Warrior days - stuff I have. But my office isn’t set up like a showcase piece for the Ultimate Warrior.”

 

(Note: Thanks again to Jared at PSI Marketing Group for setting up the interview and for the photos.)

 

Here's the second, and last (I promise), part of my recent interview ith the Ultimate Warrior. You can read the first part here.

 

In this part, the Warrior discusses getting into "ring shape" for his return, and rumors of him getting involved with TNA or being part of WrestleMania:

 

Warrior on training for his return alongside RVD:“That was one part of the deal too that was workable, too - the timing of it. I had three months to get ready. So in my head, I know what my self discipline is. I know what I continue to do. Of course, I’ve taken some long hiatuses in the past. The longest one was from 1992 to 1996. I didn’t get back in the ring and get any training before then. I knew I definitely needed to do that this time.

 

I didn’t really do any training with Rob (Van Dam). I hadn’t met Rob. He lives in California. I live in New Mexico. It was an easy trip over to there. There was a great place to do some training that I wish I had known about before hand. Jesse Hernandez - one of the old WWF referees and one of the old jobber guys, a super great guy – has a place out there at American University in San Bernadino. It’s just an incredible place – just awesome. And he’s got a ring set up. So we got together for a day. And that was my plan – to get together with those guys more often. I did have a ring set up in Barcelona, but it was outside under the pretense that the weather was going to be good. And when we got there, it was only sunny for two days. It rained every other day. So that put a damper on being able to get in the ring, and doing the stuff I needed to do.”

 

Warrior on getting motivated for his return match:“That’s the thing that drove me the most - the challenge of it. I was inspired by the challenge. I want to be inspired. I’m not inspired by much, or what going on in culture today. And that directly connected to wrestling. I don't watch professional wrestling. I don’t watch it at all. When I say that to people. They don’t believe it. I don’t watch any television hardly at all. I’m not really interested or inspired by any programming. I’ve never watched a television serial show, I’ve never watched an episode of Survivor or Lost or the most popular shows - the Sopranos. Never once. I just don’t. I’d rather read or do something, get out, get in sports, or get active myself. I find a lot that I’m always motivating myself. very rarely am I motivated by other people. So this was an opportunity to do that.”

Warrior on the possibility of a more extended ring return: “Oh, I don’t know. A lot people immediately started talking. All the experts. David Putz-ner started talking that there was a discussions going on (with TNA). There was never a discussion with TNA about anything. There wasn’t any larger plan to try to stir the interest or curiosity of TNA or WWE.

 

Warrior on rumors of him being involved in WrestleMania XXV:

I was doing some media stuff on the radio and some long time fan of wrestling and WrestleMania (and I)... had an exchange about WrestleMania 25. I was basically saying sarcastically, “Yeah, they’ve used all the other bums up. On a silver anniversary WrestleMania, they need to do something special. So how about something between me and McMahon?" I think the better match would be between me and Shane McMahon. That would inspire me more to do some more serious training. I think Shane is a real go-getter. I think he’s a real inspiring kid.”

 

[johnson316cane 0]

"Every morning I wake up and affirm to myself that I’ve only lived one third of my life and 50 years of age. "

 

So he's planning on living to 150?

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah, I don't know what he meant by that. Unless he was trying to be philosophical and say that he still has 2/3s of his life experiencs to go through yet, or something.

 

Either way, all I think of now when I hear about the Warrior is that clip wrestlecrap had of his workout tape, where at the end it had the audio of a collection agency calling his business.

[haws bah gawd 0]

Yea, I remember the "Is Mr......Warrior.....or whatever you call him there?" clip. Can't believe he didn't bother to edit that out or something.

[Steviekick 0]

How much of a train-wreck do you think a current Warrior vs. RVD match would be?

[Mos_Def 0]

Nice little Shan-O-Mac ass kiss at the end.

 

Homeboy is batshit crazy. Loves to talk about himself, tho.

[The Niggardly King 0]

Oh man, Shane/Warrior would be epic... Warrior can gas himself on the way down running to the ring and then have to deal with the Flurry of Fury from Shane.

[haws bah gawd 0]

RVD vs Warrior would definitely be interesting. RVD would probably make Warrior's punch-clothesline offense look like death's icy hand, but Warrior would have a hard time working with RVD's flippidy-floppidy kick-based offense.

[Enigma 0]

Warrior didn't look that great in his match. Yeah, it was Orlando Jordan, but he still didn't look good. He was very stiff and aged.