The last Ultimate Warrior match I witnessed was during his brief stint in WCW. They brought him in to face Hogan at Halloween Havoc (97 or 98 I think).
The whole thing was horrible.
Everybody’s timing was off, and most of the things that could go wrong did.
Hogan’s nephew, Horace, did a run-in. He was supposed to jump up on the ring apron and hit UW with a chair to the back. Well, I don’t know if Horace wasn’t on cue, or if Warrior just wasn’t paying attention, but Horace delivered the chair shot, and Warrior sold it…a good 2 seconds after the blow.
And that wasn’t the only thing that blew in that match.
Even worse was when the Hulkster went to “throw fire” in UW’s face ala the Sheik.
First off, the camera angle was horrible, as it almost perfectly framed Hogan reaching into his tights and pulling out the plastic baggie with the props.
Now I don’t know if the lighter was bad or maybe the flash paper got wet with perspiration, but Hogan couldn’t ignite it.
He made several attempts, and you could see the sparks from the lighter each time courtesy of the camera that just stayed on him while the PPV audience must have wondered WTF they were watching.
The worst was when the paper finally lit and he threw it at UW. Unfortunately, it burned up about halfway there. Hogan barely got it out of his hand in time.
So to everyone watching, it appeared as though Hogan lit a piece of paper on fire, threw it at his opponent, only to have it burn up well before hitting him.
I’ve seen little kids pretending to fight who could work better than that.
Supposedly, Bischoff had big plans for the Warrior. He was going to redesign and update the character for the new millennium. Strangely enough, after Halloween Havoc, Warrior was never brought back.
