Columns - Online World of Wrestling (original) (raw)

Who's Telling The Truth"
October 1, 2005 by Jacob Kuhn

I was at Best Buy today and I have the DVD in my hand. I almost bought it, not really knowing what to expect. My whole plan was to sit down tonight and watch it and then write some sort of column based on it. Eventually, I put it back and left the store without buying anything. Part of me still wants to see "The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior." It will be the next chapter in the long story of my least favorite wrestler in history. Though when it comes down to it, I can't see spending $20 on something about the Warrior, even if it's trashing him. Before I go on I should explain that this will be biased to a degree. Even when I was younger I couldn't stand the Ultimate Warrior. When he was arguably rivalling Hulk Hogan for popularity in the WWF, I hated him. I can't say exactly why, unless it had to do with the fact that he could barely wrestle and had no charisma. Still at about 13 years old, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to notice that or not.

The main reason I didn't buy the DVD, though, is the fact that I seriously doubt I would be getting the whole story. My friend (and OWW Columnist) Joe L. sent me a very interesting email detailing Warrior's side of the whole argument. It's interesting not in the fact that I believe a single word of it, but that it shows irony in one of its truest forms.

It's nothing new that the WWE is known for skewing history in their favor. One needs to look no further than the "Monday Night Wars" DVD to know this. I can accept this for two reasons. The first is that WWE has been doing it for as long as I have been a wrestling fan. During the 1993 Royal Rumble, Randy Savage became the first person to knock Yokozuna off of his feet. Nary a week later when this was brought up on a Monday Night Raw broadcast, Vince McMahon said that it never happened. It was relatively harmless and added to a match where Hacksaw Jim Duggan attempted to be the first person to accomplish this feat.

The other reason that WWE can be faulted for doing that because there is an old adage that says "To the victor goes the spoils." In the spoils of war, history has always been included as a prize. In the WCW/WWF war, Vince McMahon won and there is not anyone powerful enough to challenge him on the subject of what happened.

So we come to the Warrior. Anyone who knows anything about him knows that he would not remain quiet about such an affront to his character. Surely McMahon anticipated this when the idea for the DVD was brought up. In just the few excerpts that I have seen it's clear that McMahon wants to raise the ire of the Warrior. One needs to read no further than the Warrior's website to see that Vince has accomplished his goal.

What we get in result is a playground fight. Two children are hanging out in the local park and they get into a fight for stupid or no reasons. They fight, they get hurt and it becomes the other one's fault. Both participants have their own views on who was right and who was wrong. This continues usually indefinitely.

I can't say much for the Warrior's side of this argument. His retort to the DVD had many literary fallacies in it. Plus he seemed to have trouble staying on topic. Instead of just focusing on Vince McMahon, he takes little side notes to needlessly insult other members of the wrestling community. What we are left with, in basis, is an unfocused rant that resolves nothing.

Can I blame the Warrior for defending himself against WWE's attack" Of course not. If Vince and company attacked me (which would actually be kind of cool) I would definitely shoot back at him. Unfortunately, WWE wouldn't even pay attention to my response because I am no one of consequence in the wrestling world. Unfortunately for the Warrior, he isn't anymore either.

Generally when someone attacks, they want their object of attack to become defensive. It shows that the attacker has succeeded in his goal. Although I doubt Vince reads Warrior's website, I think he would get a personal satisfaction out of doing so. It's clear that in Warrior excessive use of "attacking the strawman" that he has little in way of true defense. This is a tactic the Warrior uses to an extreme. When he has no defense, he instead attacks the person he is arguing with. It's easy to do and once upon a time it was very effective. However, nowadays it gets very old and one needs to look no further back than the 1992 Presidential Election to see how "strawman" defenses did the first President Bush in.

Consistently in Warrior's retort, he refers to a comment Vince made about how he couldn't wait to 'fire' the Warrior. He goes on to say that what Vince meant was that he couldn't wait to 'hire' the Warrior.

In this instance I would have to believe that Vince is the one telling the truth. McMahon didn't have to like Warrior in order to have him working for him. Several times in the 90's Vince had to work with people he didn't exactly care for because his company was taking a downward spiral. Like it or not, the Ultimate Warrior was a possibility for ratings during this time period. I would assume Vince truly wanted to fire the Warrior but realized for certain periods of time that he couldn't.

In this instance I don't think we'll ever get 100% of the correct story. As in many cases, we have to rely on what we know of those involved in the conflict to decide who is telling us more of the truth.

McMahon and the WWE are not known for telling the truth all the time. They use their resources to continue to make themselves seem spotless and squeaky clean. In this case we can call it public relations. Generally everyone in public scrutiny does it. Our politicians, athletes and movie stars all have PR people to handle these things for them. It's nothing new and it's not going to go away.

All I can say is that if he expects to be taken seriously, Warrior needs to hire himself a PR person. Yes, I admit that I am biased in the matter, but from reading his comments it's clear that he can't do this for himself. In trying to make himself seem right, he ends up making himself look like a fool. If he ever read my article, I am sure I would get a nonsensical reply saying that I was "a queer" or a "cripple" (Words he used to talk about wrestling broadcasters) or something of the sort. It's sad because he has been rendered incapable of an intelligent argument.

So, in this case I am going to steer towards believing the WWE. With respect to my friend Joe L. and his recent article on Vince Russo, I have to concede that the Ultimate Warrior is indeed the biggest idiot-but not in wrestling. If we're lucky we'll never see him in the sport again.

by Jacob Kuhn ..

Aaron Tolles wrote:
I do agree WWE tends to put things in their favor.But I will say that I did get the chance to borrow the DVD from a friend and need I say it's not as negative as the spots lead you to believe.As a matter fo fact the Warrior gets plenty of positive remarks as well.I too could not stand the Warrior,being a Hogan and Savage fan.I really didn't know what to expect in the DVD but I can honestly say that my feelings towards it were neutral.Pretty much everything that was said were things that have circulated in the rumor department for years.But I will leave by saying if you want to see Grade A 100% Horrible interviews,you can thank the Warrior.He won't be missed.

Jeremy R. Thompson wrote:
Ahh!, The Ultimate Warrior. Maybe I don't speak for everyone when I say this but I am so sick and tired of the ignorantly negative comments made about the Ultimate Warrior. He did what he was paid to do. Ok. He wasn't expected to be a "technical" wrestler. It would not have fit his gimmick. You have all these wrestlers like Undertaker, Jake Roberts, Bobby Heenan,etc. just regularly saying the "same" comments about Warrior. Geez, since they all say it, it must be true. Put on the brakes here, nope. They're just being Vince's little bitches. They don't like the warrior because he was himself, he had the fans that they wanted to have root for them, and he had the balls to stand up to Vince and speak his mind. HHH's comments on the Self Destruction DVD, hahaha, if it hurts him that bad, he needs to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. He's suppose to be all big and tough and there he's crying like a little bitch. Aww, poor thang. I guess it's ok because not everybody is capable of handling such issues as being upstaged by an established, and selling, gimmick. You know here's a concept. They've done all they can to down the man, and he'll still be remembered longer than they ever will be. They all don't want him back. Well here's another concept, he didn't want to do it anymore. Where's your argument" They've all been busting their asses over a goal they won't never accomplish. They want to be respected for "wrestling technicalities" and such. Here's a clue.. The audience who is watching could give a damn. So how could anyone expect to be respected. Besides, it's all staged, coreographed and whatever. I think the funniest comment though was from Bobby Heenan calling the warrior stupid. Lets see. Hmm!!! The Ultimate Warrior was an established bodybuilder and chiropractor. Bobby Heenan, a 7th grade education at the max. Sounds to me like someone's a little jealous that they weren't blessed with the genetic superiority to do the same as Warrior, so he's just trying to use politics to make him look better. Well there's the stupidity right there. When you do stuff like that, nobody likes it exept for other insecure, self-confident insufficiant pussies like yourself. There's the clue as to why the Warrior was and always will be more popular and revered than any of those oversized bitches behind the wwe stages. Ok I've spoke my mind enough now. Just one question. I heard all this hype between the WWE and Warrior Shoot videos is all promo for a match between Warrior and Vinve McMahon anyway. Is this accurate or just a rumor. Thanks for your time.

Stef wrote:
I have to say that in the brief time I was familiar with him as a wrestler, I liked the Ultimate Warrior - he had an amusing gimmick, was pretty talented as a power-style wrestler, and in my opinion his particular wrestling style tended to be pretty exciting to watch even if he himself wasn't especially charismatic. He was never my favourite (that would be Jake Roberts back in the day) but he was fun.

I've also seen that Vincent Kennedy McMahon has a habit of being...ruthless, to put it charitably, in his business dealings. I'm tempted sometimes to call WWE the Wal*Mart of sports-entertainment, and at other time to analogize McMahon to Bill Gates - though in all fairness, I think that would be a bit unfair to Gates. Regardless, he also has a long-established pattern of putting his own desires (which may or may not coincide with his company's interests) before those of his employees, even when giving them what they want would make little difference in the long run - one need look no further than Bret Hart for evidence of that.

Of course, from all I seen, Warrior is also (to borrow one of JR's lines) crazy as a pet coon. Or maybe even moreso.

All that being said, I have to say that it seems like both sides are in the wrong here: Vince had no right to fire him unless Warrior violated his contract in some way I'm not aware of, but Warrior's seemingly-random personal attacks are also completely unwarranted, not to mention showing even less maturity than the acts which engendered them. Barring something like a miraculous victory in a defamation-of-character lawsuit, the only "victory" available to him in this warped war is a moral one, and...well, so far, he's missing that badly. He definitely needs a PR guru, stat.

wrote:

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