Warrior - Who? What? and Why? (con't...)

Each day new visitors to Warrior Web write comments to me similar to this: “I started to read what you had to say; at first I was under the mistaken impression that you were quite possibly still running around doing your character from the ring. But, after reading further reading, I found that you had deep insights, you had used your experiences to shape and strengthen you.”

Well, for starters, if you came here expecting that the guy who created and performed the Ultimate Warrior gimmick would not be intense, I guess you’re going to be in for a surprise. After all, the intensity and physical explosiveness Ultimate Warrior displayed is the most fixed impression you and the Sports Entertainment industry will never, ever forget. (Witnessing how so many others have so pathetically tried, many even under the duress of management instruction, to replicate it sadly informs all of us of the hard-nosed reality of this.)

Yes, wrestling is choreographed. But there are just some personality aspects of the business and its talent that can’t be faked.

Ultimate Warrior ran because I was running him. He was intense because I already was. So mind your manners and be thankful that I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy who believes there are some traditions better left unchanged. My natural personal intensity is one. It never will. Whatever I am doing - wrestling, writing, working out, speaking, even weaving pot holders — I am going to do it with action and intensity.

It also seems very natural to me that I have allowed my experiences to shape and strengthen me. Frankly, I am always a little surprised others are surprised that I have. I just don’t think it is a thing to be surprised by. It should be expected. I think it is better that we save ourselves to be surprised, and ashamed, of others who don’t.

It’s also just as natural that my philosophy of life was forged and has subsequently evolved throughout the years by experiences that are entirely unique to my life. I am who am I today, and in the past been who I’ve been, in direct relationship to the sum total effect of the experiences I've thus far encountered had at any distinct moment along the timeline of my life. I wasn’t the same whole person after I had the experience of my wrestling career as I was before; and the same holds true, now, 20 years after my beginnings in that industry and 12 years removed from it altogether. Why is it surprising or strange to not be the same person I was 10, 20, 30 years ago? Shouldn't we save those reactions for people who are the same? Christ, our culture is shot all to hell.

Believe whatever revised history that's been put out there you want, but “Ultimate Warrior” as a “persona” didn’t just drop from the sky and create itself out of thin air. Neither did I show up one morning on the doorsteps of WWF and they felt charitable enough to give me a total makeover. I created and performed and evolved him, creatively, out of who I was and what I believed at the time.”Persona’ is, after all, Latin for “the psyche behind the mask, the soul behind the exterior of one’s character as one presents it to the world, masking one’s inner thoughts, feelings.” How uncanny is that considering my Ultimate Warrior gimmick and his trademark logo mask painted on my face.

Ultimate Warrior was simply and purely an exterior amplification of my own character, creativity, and charisma — my OWN ideas and my OWN beliefs; all of them attributes which a character like The Ultimate Warrior would have to be made of. There was no one to hold my hand or nobody who handed me the gimmick and instructed me about how to portray and evolve him. Yes, "no one" and "nobody" includes Vince McMahon and his sycophants.

For twenty-five years before I ever crossed paths with the unusual proposition of getting in the pro-wrestling business, my “character” was inevitably shaped and strengthened by my other life experiences that had already well-forged the philosophy of life I entered the business holding.

Ultimate Warrior’s philosophical core paralleled my own — and that is what, I believe, contributed in largest part to his success.

The Ultimate Warrior “persona” embodied energy, strong work-ethic, unconquerable determination, self-discipline, self-responsibility, self-accountability, and self-belief. He was inspired by great acts and ideas and believed in time-honored virtues like integrity, honor, loyalty, and heritage. He was interested in actualizing the potential of his life, being the best as much as he was created to be, and believed in earning what he got by his own merits.

He (creatively) engaged inspiration and guidance from the warriors of the past. He believed in the worthiness and honor in seeking challenge and making sacrifice. He believed in an immortal spiritual existence, a continued karmic interaction and connectedness with the souls and spirits of warriors who had already lived and warriors yet to live; time past working energetically with present time and time yet to come.

He also believed in that basic, classic battle cause, the singular reason to stand up and step in and fight for what you believe, even if you had to give your life for it: Good vs Evil. There was one or the other, just like there was either right or wrong, true or false. And he had no tolerance for any forms in-between.

Ultimate Warrior believed that life meant more than just a purposeless passing of time, an insignificant trek from its birth to its death. He believed in destiny, not coincidence, and ideals that were greater and longer living than just the time period of his one life.

These creative expressions were not scripted and given to me — they came from inside.

Like it or not, believe it or not, accept the reality of it or not, nothing is more clear: One cannot do what one is not capable of. Ex nihilo nihil fit (Nothing is created from nothing).

The disciplines, traits, virtues, and beliefs that made me capable of creating and performing Ultimate Warrior were the same disciplines, traits, virtues, and beliefs that would later give me the strength and confidence to reject certain behaviors and business practices of people in the business. And form there, I used them over and over again to move on beyond Sports Entertainment and achieve other goals. Looking back now, 20 years removed from the beginning, it’s clear to see that it was inevitable that sports entertainment would only be a chapter in my life, not a whole book. I didn't know it then, no. But it's easy to see now.

And looking at it all today provides great insight and an incredible perspective of how we see the world and others when we are young and how we see these differently as we age.

It’s so eerily ironic. When all I’d been given in 1987 was the opportunity to prove what I had to offer, I was praised and awarded great success for exploiting my unique personality, disciplines and beliefs through the performances of the Ultimate Warrior persona. Then, the business owners got behind the self-disciplined goal-setter and serious soulsearcher and introspective person I was. Then, the popularly embraced character (by a huge fanbase that still survives today) and indisputable success of the character never bothered those who owned and operated the company.

Yet today (and for the last 12 years), I’m vilified, ridiculed and portrayed as being “Self-Destructive” and as having “confused fantasy with reality.” In truth, all I have done is continued in my life to emgage the belief, discipline, courage and confidence of using my OWN creativity, making my OWN choices, and taking my OWN risks to pursue success at life challenges and goals other than the one of pro-wrestling. Someone is committing perversion, all right. But it isn’t I who needs counseling or needs to apologize.

The truth about me is much more than what you think you know. I am a man who likes to have his head where his life actually is. At 50 years of age, I am a man who believes it is a natural expectation that a male should rise up to the different phases of maturity, masculinity and mentoring that he comes to stand before in his life. And he should do so with dignity and a wiser life perspective, not whining and complaining, and certainly not by morally stooping down, in a pitiful, immature attempt, to psychologically fit in with youth 20- 30 years younger. It’s a long time adage of mine: when one grows up, one should think and act like it. It’s my personal belief that this tradition is not being put into practice enough by people who are of an age to abide by it.

Although being involved and highly successful in sports entertainment by creating and performing a persona like the Ultimate Warrior is not your typical experience, make no mistake, it is certainly not the only experience that has made me the man I am today. Warrior Web exiist, mostly for me, to explore what has. If you came with any preconceived, silly ideas you should probably set them aside for the time being and get ready for the lesson of your life. Around here, childish misconceptions are accustomed to being destroyed.

Imagine having the physical intensity and creative energy to perform Ultimate Warrior practically day in and day out, throughout the year without fail, year after year. Now imagine you aren’t doing that anymore. That energy has to go someplace. I didn’t let myself down. I got busy pursuing other goals. Warrior Web is about those.

Throughout the site you will recognize more than a few common charateristics and themes:

1) I can be a sarcastic SOB at times. My sense of humor leans to the wicked side. This sarcasm is too often mischaracterized and has people believe I am a bitter, angry, and mean person. This is simply not true. I just happen to put the fleetingness of our lives in its proper perspective and figure our Creator has to have a pretty wicked sense of humor himself. In instances where hypocrites, liars, enablers, frauds, and other people who generally screw up their lives but never look in a mirror to see who is responsible (which I absolutely loathe) suffer tragedy due to their irresponsibility, I am absent tolerance and sympathy and my sarcasm can be its most biting. Frankly, I think the brilliance of my sarcastic sense of humor really shines in these “cultural battle” pieces, kinda like a full moon’s reflection radiating off a Great White’s tooth right before he chomps his victim’s bodypart off. Shocking, but lethally tranquilizing. I don’t do it to intentionally upset anyone, but if it does, I don’t care.

2) I’ve taken “warrior” and used my unique awareness of it and given it serious thought as a concept; and I have then further used it to develop a personal philosophy, life, and career that have nothing to do with a wrestling career.

3) My belief in the potential of every human life. Whatever else I discuss during the course of a writing, whatever direction a writing takes, it begins and ends with this: the potential of human life. Ironically, much of the mischaracterization there is about me stems from my positivity about this powerful potential and my unemotional unwillingness to give people who misuse theirs a break. Frankly, my position is, if you don’t use the potential you have to live, you don’t deserve to. I believe there is a potential from life that is to be fulfilled. Many people find that my enthusiasm about it is overdone and my lack of sympathy for others who fail at living up to their life responsibilities too harsh. I simply have none to give to those who won’t think and act for themselves to help themselves. Every life is full of potential. Life is not always the way I’d like to have it either but I don’t sit around feeling sorry for myself, begging to others that life is not fair and would someone please mend the broken parts. My quick fix is: Quit crying and feeling sorry for yourself. Get up, get moving and get doing. For Christsakes, do something — don’t just sit in your own pile of poop. For starters, you have life — that is what is awesome to begin with!! And that alone is an always-forgiving starting place to make great things in your life happen, over and over, again and again.

4) I am not p/c. (What is true never is.) You will not find any here. I hate it; the only thing I hate more are people who know it is destroying the World we live in but have not the integrity and courage to speak up against it. In fact, to counterbalance the pervasive, destructive p/c out on the street, I press the politically-incorrect envelope to the MAX. I can’t stand phonies and two-faced hypocrites. I have no tolerance for purposeful ignorance or stupidity. Herein there is no hesitation to say so. You will find huge doses of moral prejudice for these types here.

5) I do not live my life second-handedly. I am not, first, interested in impressing others above making a lasting impression with my own life. I get my self-esteem from the inside, huge gobs of it, not by desperately soliciting the praise or approval of others. I have no interest in developing empty, phony friendships or wasting my time indulging silly life dramas and gossip just to make nice. It is not that I am mean-spirited. It is that I am indifferent to it all. I could care less and I don’t feel the need to act like I do. My life is my life, and my life is equal to time and I don’t trade my time (life) for wasteful, meaningless experience.

6) I have incredible self-discipline and self-control. I am sure about what I decide and believe and I do not seek or need the advice of others to reach those conclusions. I do not make wrong moral choices. I am not modest about how I conduct myself in regard to all of these. This is off-putting to many people. I do not care. The world is very black and white to me. I know there cannot even be gray unless there were, first, the knowledge of what is black and white. Gray is middle of the road. Gray is wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Life does not work that way. I don’t try to live it that way. I judge people, including myself — HARD. I do not pull my moral punches. If you are put-off by this, then what I have to bluntly state may not sit well with your stomach. Take some Alka-Seltzer or just simply leave.

7) I don’t let my spiritual beliefs pull me around life by the nose. I use the Creator’s gift that I am Endowed with to deal effectively, successfully and happily with my life here on this Earth. I do not use the Creation of my life to make excuses; I use it as an empowerment. I don’t pray for help; I pray for greater challenges. I didn’t come into this life owing anything to anyone and I certainly don’t owe anything to anybody who will not use their OWN incredible Creation of life to do for themselves. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN ORIGINAL SIN. Morality for me does not come from a Bible; it comes from the nature of the Being I am Created. After all, HE Created us just as we are long BEFORE the Bible was created.

8) I don’t practice my philosophy of life or its principles, piecemeal.

9) MOTIVATION is a part of ALL that I do.

You want to know more about the Man behind the facepaint?

READ and listen. Just READ and listen.

I am Your Founding Father of Ring Intensity,

Always Believe,

Warrior