Mathew Browne

I’ve got 137 of 150 stars on Mario 64 DS. I should never have started playing it - all other games I ever play on it will seem crap by comparison.

Saw the new WWE Ultimate Warrior DVD tonight. Unlike other DVDs that WWE puts out, the sole reason they’ve released this is to bury the guy. A generation of guys like me grew up watching the Ultimate Warrior on Saturday mornings, and everyone of those will tell you he was awesome. Or that he knew a good pharmacist.

To the uninitiated, the Ultimate Warrior was this massive wrestler in the WWF (as it used to be called before the pandas and wildlife people took the initials back…) who used to have this killer rock entrance music, wearing war paint, leg it down to the ring, beat the shit out of his opponent, and leg it out of there. All in about two minutes. The guy only ever lost once that I can recall.

Of course, I’m older and wiser. I realise that, for a wrestler, refusing to lose is not good business - it makes everyone else look weak. Especially when you beat each of them in the time it takes your Average Joe to make a cup of tea.

Also, his interviews were longer than hs matches by a considerable margin and made fuck all sense. Actual quote: “I only breathe the air that smells of combat”. Indeed. Sounds like an Iron Maiden lyric. Maybe his arm bands were cutting off his circulation that day and making him feel a little woozy. Or maybe it was the daily fistful of steroids he chowed down.

So, this DVD I’m watching tonight tells the “other” story of the Ultimate Warrior - that he was a self-confessed steroid abusing homophobe, who was such an screwball that he actually changed his full, legal name to Warrior. No surname, just Warrior.

EDIT (24-Sep-05): I read on the Wrestlecrap message boards that he has a daughter called Arizona. Arizona Warrior. It must suck to have a fruitcake for a Dad and a name that sounds like a shit Western.