Remembering The Ultimate Warrior’s strange 1996 WWE run

The Ultimate Warrior is perhaps one of the most controversial characters in professional wrestling. There are a lot of people who remember a psychopath running into the ring faster than anyone can blink their eye. Many people loved the Warrior’s colorful tassels, facepaint, mannerisms of vigorously shaking the ropes, and crazy promos.

That is how The Ultimate Warrior fans remembered him from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. But in 1996, we got a different Warrior. It was slightly different than Hulk Hogan’s 1993 WWE run but just as counterproductive. It just makes you question why the company brought him back in the first place.

Ultimate Warrior’s brief, pointless return to WWE in 1996.

Warrior returned to WWE at WrestleMania XII to face a young Hunter Hearst Helmsley. During the match, he no-sold Triple H’s Pedigree, got right back up, and pinned him after delivering his running splash in less than two minutes.

I get it. Helmsley was a rising star at the time and Warrior was a marquee name. But could that match have been more competitive at least? Nope. Instead, fans got this glorified squash match, and it put a bad taste in my mouth. Triple H made several comments on The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD about how Warrior was unprofessional from the start to the finish of the match. Even though Triple H revised his statements since then, what he said at the time was accurate to what was coming for the rest of this Warrior run.

His first big program upon his return was against Goldust, still a relatively new character at the time. This is when he started to refer to his fans as “the voices of the warrior” during his promos. But during that same segment, Warrior responded to Goldust’s remarks about him with the line “Whatever you’re into, I don’t give a ****. Brother, if you’re looking for a full-length action-packed adventure, I got a full-length movie for you. Me kicking your ass from beginning to end.”

Sure the crowd popped and the promo did its job. It also made me wonder what Warrior would have been like during WWE’s Attitude Era a couple of years later, especially given Warrior’s well-documented, abhorrent views on the LGBTQ+ community.

Goldust put his Intercontinental Championship on the line against Warrior at In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies. The match ended by countout, proving that lame inconclusive finishes to keep two wrestlers from getting pinned has always been a WWE trademark, but for 10 minutes for PPV time, they had a segment where Goldust convinced Warrior to put on his robe and sit on his director’s chair. Warrior proceeded to burn the cigar on Goldust’s hand, which led to the countout victory. Trust me, the image of Warrior smoking a cigar is a sight to see.

Also around this time, Warrior opened a wrestling school (Warrior University) — I highly doubt anyone signed up to join, let alone learned anything from the school — and launched his own comic book series. I will not go into detail about his comic, but think of all the ridiculous looks and scripting of most comic books during the 1990s and add Warrior to the mix. There you have it!

Back to Warrior’s in-ring exploits, did you know that it took a full month after his return before he had a match on Raw? That’s right! His first match was against Isaac Yankem (the future Kane). Tell me who became a bigger star in two years and come back to me with an answer. He had squash matches on house shows as well. At least he showed up.

Warrior’s next program was with Jerry “The King” Lawler. During their segment on Raw, Lawler smashed a painting of Ultimate Warrior over his head. But here is another scary sight. Ultimate Warrior in full costume with a baseball cap on. I am surprised that Mattel has not released a WWE action figure of this look. They released one of The Shockmaster as a joke figure at Comic-Con a few years ago, so why they cannot make a figure of this moment or, at least, a double pack? Nonetheless, Warrior defeated Lawler at the 1996 King of the Ring.

His next match scheduled for PPV was supposed to be a six-man tag team match alongside Ahmed Johnson and Shawn Michaels against Vader, Owen Hart, and Davey Boy Smith at In Your House 9: International Incident. WWE set this match up by having Warrior make the save for Michaels following “The Heartbreak Kid’s” successful WWE Championship defense against Smith at King of the Ring.

However, Ultimate Warrior was fired prior to the match due to no-showing several house shows that he was advertised on; the returning Sycho Sid took his spot in the six-man tag. Warrior said that he missed those shows to grieve the death of his father. But this statement is disputed by Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, and everyone in creative, as Warrior did not have a good relationship with his father.

Ultimate Warrior’s 1996 WWE run is remembered as a huge waste of time. I cannot blame WWE for bringing him back to boost ratings and house show attendance at all. Warrior was difficult to work with according to Jim Ross and others that worked with him. That said, his 1998 WCW run was far worse than his 1996 run and I remembered both of those awful runs when I was younger!