Warrior's title reign

[muda345 0]

I know this has been discussed many times, but I'd like to get everyone's opinion here on it. Why do you think the Ultimate Warrior's title reign bombed as bad as it did? The consensus view tends to be that it was simply because Hogan never left the scene and was thrown into all the money feuds that should have gone to Warrior (Perfect, Earthquake), leaving him with matches against Rick Rude, whom he had already defeated before over a year ago and then stuck in limbo teaming with LOD against Demolition for the rest of the year

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

There are many reasons. As mentioned, Hogan was still around and was still presented as the real star of the show; Warrior was never really pushed as the promotional figurehead. He also didn't have any strong heels to face. His main house show foes were Mr Perfect and Rick Rude, two heels who nobody took seriously as WWF title contenders as it is, plus Warrior had already vanquished Rude the year before, so nobody expected him to win anyway. After those two were done with, Warrior was put in six-man tags with LOD against Demolition, which didn't help. Ironically, it was only in the last few months of his run, when the decision would already have been made to take the belt off of him, that Warrior got a real 'name' house show opponent in the form of Randy Savage. But that didn't work too well for Warrior, as Savage beat him a bunch of times, albeit by count out. It also didn't help that Warrior was all ring entrance and nothing else. Hogan wasn't great in the ring, but he was charismatic enough and smart enough to still engage the people and cover up his limitations. Warrior lacked the intelligence to cover his flaws and his charisma didn't do it either, probably because he just too terrible in the ring that even his charisma couldn't cover for it.

[Diamonddust 0]

I remember a telling sign as a kid (Not that I understood at that point what it meant):

 

When they came out with the Wrestling Buddies, both Hogan's and Warrior's had the title belt as part of the design.

[King Kamala 0]

Yeah, I think the reason why Warrior's title reign was such a relative failure (I use the term relative because he did hold the title for 10 months or so) is because WWF never really seemed to fully commit to him being the guy in the promotion. As HTQ said, Hogan was still that guy even with Warrior ostensibly on top.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

It would have made sense to push Dibiase as a main event threat again fresh off of his victory over Jake Roberts in their feud, but for some reason they decided to waste him on Bossman instead.

[FroGG_NeaL 0]

The same thing happened to goldberg too.

[Beto Chavez 0]

It didn't help that Warrior was an asshole to his co-workers backstage either.

[White Stripes Sabin 0]

When I was a kid and Warrior won the title. I marked, I thought it was cool and it looked so historic and important. After he won the belt and the reign was officially kicked off I watched as he competed in matches that not even Hogan would do. I wasn't a smark then but I saw Warrior going after guys Hogan wouldn't even touch and so it just came off as second rate and a fluke. The 1k clotheslines during matches did not help either. The music was cool and so was the look, but once he got into the ring it was just 1k clotheslines, no selling, and just an all around bore to me. Even now Warrior matches don't interest me.

[spman 0]

The problem with Warrior was that he was all sizzle and no steak. He had a lot of energy, and the crowd liked that, but he would be blown up before the match even began, and even then he wasn't capable of holding his own in the ring.

 

Another big factor was the total lack of heels, just about everyone Warrior could have conceivably faced as a top heel had been soundly vanquished by Hogan and / or Warrior throughout the year prior to his title win. The Warrior / Earthquake feud from '89 never really went anywhere, and I've always felt that that could have been a money main event if it had been built up correctly, but that was clearly the program they were holding out on for Hogan. Other than that however, DiBiase, Perfect, Rude, Savage, etc. had all been jobbed out big time, and no one saw any of those guys as a credible threat. Maybe if they had introduced Crush as a heel singles wrestler and had him work with Warrior right out of the gate? I really don't know what else they could have done.

 

Finally, once he came back from filming Suburban Commando, Hogan came back and made it clear that although Warrior had the belt, he was still the star of the show. Even while he held the belt, Warrior never got top billing, it was all about Hulk and Earthquake, Warrior and Rude was essentially treated as an undercard match at Summerslam '90, and after that he was just dead in the water.

[strummer 0]

The main problem was the lack of heels to work with. In the beginning of his reign he was touring the circuit against guys like Haku and Dino Bravo. That was obviously a lost cause as no one was going to buy them as having a shot at winning. Rude and Hennig were a step up but they didn't have the typical WWF main event look and no one bought them as legit contenders.

 

Plus I don't even think the most loyal WWF employee at that time would have thought that the Hogan/Earthquake program was going to get over so well. On paper it was just a retread of the "big fat heel takes out Hogan, Hulk looks for revenge" angle but Hogan's sell job on the Brother love show was so effective that it became the focus of the promotion (yes Hogan knew what he was doing) The post attack "friendship bracelet" angle was of course so campy and corny but worked with the marks.

 

The fans could not connect at an emotional level with the Warrior like they did Hogan

[Fartsauce 0]

Bret Hart also tells a story in his book about Warrior refusing to sign a dying kids autograph backstage.

[The Buzz 0]

I think Warrior was a bit underrated in the ring, it takes two to dance. Regardless of whether Rude, Hogan, Savage, etc. were better workers than him when they had those good matches. Warrior was still competent enough to do his part. I think Warrior bombed on a combo of his own lack of technical talent(yes I admit he's not a good worker except for big matches), dying interest in wrestling was slowly creeping up, weak opponents, Hogan overshadowing him, and his supposed bad attitude. Although I've been hearing more and more that he was just eccentric and all about making his money and getting out, rather than a straight up asshole.(Shoot interviews)

 

To finish this off, as a mark kid growing up I never viewed Warrior as a weak champion, and he always seemed bigger to me than Hogan. I know I'm not alone on that one, it wasn't until I came online that I read about how he was such a "failure".

[cabbageboy 0]

The big problem was the timing issue. Warrior could work a big match enough to get over but the thing is he got the belt in April 1990, almost a perfect signal to the end of the 80s wrestling boom period. But the fact remains that Warrior wasn't a big enough draw on his own merits to carry feuds against guys like Haku and Bravo. Hogan a few years earlier could have sold out arenas against similar foes.

 

The question is this though: Was Warrior really that much of a flop? As in what was business like before and after his title run? I don't really know. Keep in mind as well that the economy was tanking in the early 90s, which couldn't have helped matters when they tried a new champ.