Wrestlers Who Couldn't Stand The Ultimate Warrior

One of the most hated men in the professional wrestling industry during his time in the squared circle and beyond was none other than the Ultimate Warrior. Born James Hellwig, he was originally a bodybuilder before he signed with the then-WWF in 1987. Before signing, he trained in promotions such as the Universal Wrestling Federation and World Class Championship Wrestling. Hellwig, who would eventually legally change his name to Warrior, spent years in WWF before leaving for WCW during the Monday Night Wars. He left Vince McMahon's company in a messy situation; his contract was terminated after he missed house shows before signing to the rival promotion.

Warrior didn't just portray a character in the ring. Over the years, he reportedly grew more and more to personally become the Ultimate Warrior behind closed doors. He was known to work stiff in the ring, borderline injuring opponents with his hard strikes, like his signature clothesline, and was admittedly a heavy user of steroids before a government crackdown on the performance enhancing drugs. It was due to his working style and how he carried himself backstage that led to numerous wrestlers, managers, and bookers to detest the future WWE Hall of Famer. Things got so bad in Warrior's lifetime that WWE even released a DVD titled "The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior." 

After years of resisting working with McMahon's company, and even fighting WWE in court, Warrior agreed to become an ambassador to the company toward the end of his life, in 2013. Just days after being inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame in 2014, Warrior died of a heart attack at age 54. While he attempted to mend fences with many prior to his passing, Ultimate Warrior made many enemies throughout his career.

Two of the biggest stars in wrestling history are Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior, and their paths crossed multiple times throughout their careers in both WWF and WCW. They would face off in a dream match at WrestleMania 6 and would even team up, including during a tag team match at SummerSlam in 1991, one that Warrior threatened to no-show. However, there was backstage tension between the two larger-than-life stars.

According to Bleacher Report, Warrior began to resent Hogan for the amount of money he made. Warrior would demand what he thought was back pay ahead of their SummerSlam match, as he thought he was not making as much as much as his tag team partner for the main event of the show. That's when Warrior threatened to not show up for the match. Vince McMahon noted in the infamous "Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior" DVD that he paid Warrior what he needed to, but couldn't wait to send him home at the end of the day. 

Throughout the years that followed, Hogan would call Warrior an "a** clown" and a "loser," with Warrior throwing barbs at Hogan in several videos, calling him a "malicious backstabber." Despite the animosity, Hogan and Warrior made up prior to the latter's death. Hogan has said that during WrestleMania 30 weekend, he apologized to Warrior and said he wanted to be friends. He said Warrior was hesitant to accept his apology, and WWE cameras caught the entire interaction. Hogan said he was blindsided when McMahon told him of Warrior's death a few days later.

Greg Valentine is another WWE Hall of Famer who was not fond of Warrior or his working style in the ring. Valentine worked several untelevised matches with Warrior, and spoke about them on Wrestling Shoot Interviews in a 2024 appearance, where he made his distaste for the late legend's working style known. Valentine said working with Warrior was awful and called it his worst week in the business. Valentine explained he and Warrior worked against Hercules and Jake "The Snake" Roberts in small towns in Florida and Georgia during that awful week, but the crowds were still large.

Valentine said Warrior never tried to hit him during a match, but he believed he could have taken him in an actual fight. When asked why he thought Warrior never got better as an in-ring performer, Valentine said he believed he simply wasn't good at wrestling. He said in the interview you couldn't teach Warrior "s***" and he was worse than Hulk Hogan, in Valentine's eyes. 

"He'd get in the ring and he'd wanna run back and forth, so I just stood there until he got tired, and then I'd kick him and hold him down, but he didn't know how to sell," Valentine said. "I'd make him [sell] and I'd hit him hard, but he didn't know jacks*** about wrestling. He was f****** horrible." [H/T Sportskeeda]

Bret Hart is not known to mince words when it comes to his hatred for other wrestlers, and Ultimate Warrior is one of the guys he never got along with. His hatred stems from a backstage incident involving a Make-A-Wish child and Warrior in Omaha, Nebraska. In his autobiography, "Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling," Hart wrote about the time the child was stationed, on a stretcher, a few feet away from the WWE locker room. Hart wrote the boy looked so ill, it was like he only had hours left to live. The child was also an Ultimate Warrior fan, complete with face paint and tassels. His family was waiting with him so he could meet Warrior for his Wish, and was greeted by Hart and other wrestlers on their way back to the locker room.

Hart said Warrior was sitting in the locker room and when a WWE employee asked him if he was ready to meet the Make-A-Wish child, Warrior replied, "In a f***ing minute. I'm busy," which astounded Hart. "The Hitman" came back to the locker room after his own match, and noticed the family was no longer there. He later found out they had been moved out of the backstage area to make way for Warrior's entrance.

Hart wrote that was when he lost the little respect he had left for Warrior. Hart called him "a phony hero" in his book.

Even when it came down to his final feud of his WWE career, Ultimate Warrior was still not making friends in the industry. Warrior feuded with "The King" Jerry Lawler in 1996, and it was the last major storyline the former was involved in for McMahon's company. Lawler, another legend to write about Warrior in a book, wrote in "It's Good To Be The King... Sometimes" that the pair had worked a spot involving a picture frame numerous times before actually performing it in the ring, and both knew it was perfectly safe. The spot would see Lawler present Warrior with some artwork in the frame, then smash it over Warrior's head.

Lawler wrote that he believed Warrior blew their spot, however, by coming out to the ring wearing a baseball cap – something Warrior had never done and would never do again. It was a big tell to fans that something was going to happen, and Warrior was protecting himself from the glass in the spot he already knew to be safe. The pair had a match at King of the Ring that year, but the match was never going to be noteworthy with Lawler past his prime and Warrior never being very impressive when it came to in-ring action.

The late Iron Sheik, like fellow WWE Hall of Famer Hart, was also not one to hold back on anyone he disliked within the WWE, and that stood true for his hatred toward The Ultimate Warrior. In a video posted to Boston Wrestling's YouTube channel promoting a "studio shoot interviews" DVD, Sheik ran down Warrior after he made comments about him, saying that his then 6-year-old daughter threw harder slaps than Sheik. Sheik went on to make obscene comments about Warrior's daughter, and challenged Warrior to a fight. The shots were fired between the pair for years, and things seemed to culminate during a signing in the 2000s.

The video, posted to the SquaredCircle subreddit, shows Sheik screaming profanity at Warrior, who stands behind a table. Sheik takes off his suit jacket, ready to fight, before he's led away and Warrior continues to sign autographs for fans. The comments in the subreddit explain that Sheik approached Warrior and tried to shake his hand, but the latter refused, and said Sheik used to tell people he was on drugs. Warrior told him to get out of his face. Warrior would later write about the confrontation on his website.

There's no clear information on whether Sheik and Warrior ever buried the hatchet before Warrior's death in 2014. Sheik died of heart failure in 2023. Sheik was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005, well before Warrior's induction year, but there are no reports of the two interacting before Warrior took the stage in 2014.

It wasn't just wrestlers who didn't like Ultimate Warrior during his career; some managers in the business weren't his biggest fans, either. That included Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. Even though Heenan wasn't an in-ring performer, he was no stranger to taking bumps in WCW, and disliked Warrior for working stiff. Heenan was also said to not like Warrior because he felt he only joined the wrestling business because he thought it was easy money. During an interview, Heenan recalled an incident in WCW that put him off Warrior completely.

Heenan recalled a segment in WCW where he was supposed to be attacked by Warrior. Heenan told him specifically the night the attack was supposed to happen that he was suffering from an injured neck, so not to hit him there. Warrior went out to the ring and did exactly what he was told not to do, hitting the manager with a clothesline from behind. When confronted, Warrior said he didn't know where he was going to be, whatever that meant at the time. Jim Ross stated, following the incident, that Warrior was the only person backstage that Heenan didn't get along with.

"Ravishing" Rick Rude was no fan of The Ultimate Warrior, and he made that known backstage in a fist fight with the future Hall of Famer. Rude helped Warrior look good in the ring in their matches due to Warrior's shortcomings between the ropes. Warrior was involved in the Intercontinental Champion scene when Rude held the gold.

Ric Flair claimed on an episode of his "Woooo! Nation" podcast that Warrior believed Rude wasn't a big enough draw to hold the Intercontinental Champion gold, and had no business being in the title picture. Flair said that tensions between the pair boiled backstage, and the "Ravishing" one confronted Warrior in the locker room, and beat him up. Flair wasn't in the company at the time, but likely heard the story secondhand.

In a better-known recollection of the backstage fight, Smash, of Demolition, told The Hannibal TV, that Warrior was beaten up by Rude due to his reckless work in the ring. Rude cautioned Warrior for working dangerous, and Warrior responded he didn't have to, because of who he was. Smash said Rude then "decked" Warrior, possibly knocking him out cold. No one backstage at the time who has told the story disputed that Rude walked away the victor.

Both Kevin Nash and The Ultimate Warrior worked in WWF and WCW, but the pair weren't friends in either promotion. Nash is a stickler for respect when it comes to backstage etiquette, and respect is something that Warrior appeared to lack during his time in the wrestling business. The "Kliq" member said on an episode of his podcast that when he left for WCW, he would do anything that Vince McMahon wanted him to do or put over anyone McMahon needed. Anyone, expect for The Ultimate Warrior.

"[McMahon] said Warrior. I said, 'No. Like, I'm not doing him a favor,'" Nash said. "To me, he wasn't one of the boys."

Nash also once challenged Warrior to a fight on X (formerly Twitter) when he was high. Nash said Warrior took several days, and went through several post edits, before he crafted and posted an official response. "Big Daddy Cool" said that he challenged him to a shoot fight with $100,000 on the line, but he was stoned and writing "whatever." He said Warrior came back with a post with over 30 edits, and he spent three days of his life crafting a response, to which Nash just laughed.

One of, and possibly the only, person to put the Ultimate Warrior in his place when it came to working stiff and being full of himself was Andre the Giant. Warrior and Andre worked together as the latter was winding down his career and Warrior was well on his way to the top due to his superhero persona. Andre repeatedly warned Warrior against working stiff, as Andre's health wasn't the best and he was having issues moving at that point. Warrior would still hit the larger man with his stiff signature clothesline off the ropes.

Once Andre had decided enough was enough, when Warrior went to hit the same spot, Andre stuck out his fist, and Warrior ran straight into it in the middle of the ring, knocking himself out. Andre didn't pin Warrior, but rather walked out, humbling Warrior. After knocking himself unconscious, Warrior began to not only work less stiff with the legend, but would bring him gifts backstage and praise him for all he had done for the industry. Jacques Rougeau, formerly known as The Mountie in WWE, recalled the backstage interactions between the pair, and recalled that Warrior was much nicer when Andre was around. 

Warrior would mention in later years that Andre said he liked working together, and he respected Warrior. He dismissed reports that Andre hated working with him, and said the big man had no problem saying he didn't want to work with someone.

Outside of himself, Ultimate Warrior's biggest enemy likely was the WWE and its owner, Vince McMahon. Warrior had drama all throughout his career with the company, including failing a drug test in 1992, to threatening to not appear for his scheduled SummerSlam main event. He would be fired and rehired several times before finally signing with WCW in 1998. 

His legal name change from Hellwig to Warrior came in 1993, when he was continuously at odds with WWE. Warrior and the company were involved in a series of lawsuits in 1996 and 1998, where both parties sought to declare they were the rightful owners to the Warrior character. The court ruled in favor of Warrior, the man, and said he was legally entitled to use the gimmick, face paint designs, mannerisms, and more of his character.

WWE released its infamous "Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" DVD in September 2005, which Warrior was asked to be a part of, but refused to work with WWE. The DVD featured clips of those who worked with Warrior throughout his WWE career, including Triple H, who called Warrior one of the most unprofessional guys he had ever worked with. Following the DVD's release, Warrior filed another lawsuit against the company in January 2006 over the depiction of his character, but the suit was later dismissed.

Warrior was able to reconcile with a majority of the wrestling industry prior to his passing. WWE paid tribute to Warrior on an episode of "WWE Raw," featuring a 10 bell salute and video package highlighting his career. An award was established in his name, the Warrior Award, and is given yearly to honor those who, according to WWE, "exhibit unwavering strength and perseverance and who lives life with the courage and compassion that embodies the indomitable spirit of the Ultimate Warrior."