WWF WrestleMania XII, Anaheim, CA
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This is Warrior’s much-hyped return to the WWF. He’d had his last match with the company in Nov. ’92, working house shows with Kamala and Nailz for a bit, and was supposed to be in a co-main event tag team match at the Survivor Series, teaming with Randy Savage against Razor Ramon and Ric Flair. Instead, Warrior was released just weeks before the event, resulting in Mr. Perfect coming out of retirement to sub in. One story is that Warrior, along with Davey Boy Smith (who was also released), had failed a drug test, and Titan was feeling the heat on steroid issues, which would become a huge story in time.
Warrior did deny that, but either way, he was gone. He worked some indie dates with Hercules, mostly in Europe, in the spring of 1993, and a couple more matches in 1995, then a match with Jimmy Garvin in West Virginia at Princeton High School in Feb. ’96, after reports of his return to the WWF had started spinning on WWF TV.
Young Hunter Hearst Helmsley was assigned the task of facing the Warrior in his return at WrestleMania XII. Helmsley was a clear house favorite, a guy who ticked a lot of boxes and also was in with “The Kliq.” Sometimes people confuse the timelines and think Helmsley getting squashed by Warrior here was part of the punishment for the “Curtain Call” incident, but that happened a couple months later on May 19. Reportedly slated to win the ’96 King of the Ring, Helmsley would have to endure, instead, not winning the ’96 King of the Ring. Terrible! Awful! Instead, the WWF accidentally made a monster star in Stone Cold Steve Austin, Helmsley won the King of the Ring the next year, and eventually wound up marrying Vince’s daughter and becoming a very rich man, currently heading “creative” 27 years later.
Poor him.
(Look, I’m filling space here, it’s a 96-second match.)
Helmsley is accompanied to the ring by an Unusually Beautiful Valet, they’re told her name is “Sable,” and they spend plenty of focus on her.
There is also the question of the Ultimate Warrior’s condition. He hasn’t been seen in years in the WWF, and it’s a cute little bit, because the last time he returned at WrestleMania in ’92, following months sidelined in a dispute with McMahon after SummerSlam ’91, he was thinner, his hair was a little different, and this led to children and probably even some real adults with child brains speculating that the Ultimate Warrior had done a drug death, and was replaced by someone different.
Man, listen, I was freshly 10 years old, and I could see it was clearly the Ultimate Warrior but thinner, he looked and sounded the same, it was obviously him, I was not having it with these fools. But now I am in my early 40s, and there are people who will watch Raw and start screaming that Trish Stratus still looks like she’s 27, and I’m not trying to be negative here, but nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno. C’mon, man. Also Billy Gunn has clearly “aged a day.” They’re both in great shape, no question, but what are you doing? Do you have eyes that work? What are you getting from this? What is the purpose? Are you that afraid of your own aging? Because it’s gonna happen to you, I tell you what. Your hair’s gonna thin in annoying spots and all kinda shit.
Anyway, Lawler says that he heard a hot tip that the Warrior weighs 400 lbs and his head is shaved. AHH! HAHA! HA! AHH!
Once Helmsley’s entrance is over, there is a buzz in the crowd, the music hits, Vince starts screaming like it’s even louder, and then the Warrior crosses the threshold of the entrance and zips on down to the ring. The lights are out apart from some flashing colored lights shooting around, some pyro, and they do a good job not showing Warrior’s face too clearly or for very long, leaving the mystery as long as they can.
But then you get a clear shot, and yeah, that’s no 400 lb bald sack of shit, that is the Ultimate Warrior, jacked to fuck, because the U.S. government failed to take Vince McMahon down in ’94, so get on that gas, y’all!
The crowd isn’t exactly going nuts, to be honest. His ’92 return amounted to fuck all and the world has, quite frankly, passed the Warrior by. The crowd are silent as the match starts with Helmsley on the attack. Hunter hits the Pedigree immediately, but the Warrior pops right back up, and the crowd respond to that a little bit. Big clubbing right, clothesline, clothesline, clothesline. Boy is he tan.
Shoulderblock, press slam dropped, splash, ballgame.
The experiment would last three months, and then he was gone again, another dispute with McMahon, who may have, in all honesty, been itching to find a way to get out of it, because it just wasn’t working and wasn’t gonna.
Also, on the topic of the “Warrior died, replaced by new Warrior at WrestleMania VIII” deal, WWE did a YouTube video eight years ago that talked about that a bit, and they presented it as rumors that “most likely stemmed from Mean Gene Okerlund’s ‘hotline reports’,” which would be a terrific theory except for the fact that Okerlund still worked for the WWF in 1992, and in fact worked for the WWF until the fall of 1993, so his WCW hotline would not be the source of these things.
They also blame WCW’s Renegade, which didn’t happen until 1995, and like Okerlund and his hotline, had absolutely nothing to do with the source of the “two Ultimate Warriors” rumor. The “source” was he was thinner, different hairdo, and people are stupid. That’s all it was.
You can watch the match for free! All of it! Except entrances.
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