Bruce Prichard on The Ultimate Warrior: “From the very first interaction with him, he was a first class asshole”
While speaking on his Something To Wrestle podcast, WWE executive director Bruce Prichard reflected on working with The Ultimate Warrior (Jim Hellwig) in professional wrestling…
“I first met Jim Hellwig when he was three months in the business in Mid-South, and from the very first interaction with him, he was a first class asshole. He was not a good person. He was difficult to work with, thought he knew it all, and he was just a real jerk.
Then he ran out when Bill Watts cracked him in the head with a baseball bat and he literally ran away and left the territory in the middle of the night. So I didn’t have good experience with him.
When he was calling in the summer of ’87 to come in for WWE at the time and I was asked, ‘Uh, do you ever work with him?’ I said, ‘Yes. Didn’t have good a experience.”
And Vince [McMahon] said, ‘well, you know, sometimes you have to look at the surroundings and the environment in which someone is in, and does the environment contribute to their demeanor and and and how they are.’
I think that once Jim came in, he was on his best behavior when he first came in. And then once he he got over, and he did get over, I think it was his theme music that got him over, and his entrance and the enthusiasm.
And just, you know, say what you will about Jim Hellwig, and I did not like the the human being. Okay. The character of the Ultimate Warrior, man, had charisma and just he just like oozed charisma. And the guy had intensity and was frenetic and exciting.
So it was, you know, hard to hard to deny that. No one can deny that. No one can deny the fact that this guy could not command an audience and that this guy couldn’t get a reaction going out and doing what he did. And so to that, kudos, man. I give him credit for that.
And Vince, man, Vince just honed in on on the positives of what he saw. And you know, that was that.”