WWE: Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe (Blu-ray)

The Ultimate Warrior (originally Jim Hellwig), a wrestler who achieved greatness and then walked away from the industry. For years he was a pariah with the WWE with the company sinking to incredible lows by releasing The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, a one disc DVD of WWE Superstars burying the company’s former top star. The Warrior retaliated with a lawsuit and things never seemed any more heated. And then suddenly in 2014, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as its headline inductee. He appeared on Monday Night Raw two days later, making an unforgettable speech to his fans. The following day he collapsed from a heart attack and was gone.Fans looking back at the Ultimate Warrior’s career may have difficulty appreciating his impact on the sport. The biggest reason for this is the Warrior’s short run in the business. While his run was relatively short, he was incredibly over. His size and physique, his short squash matches and his off-the-wall interviews quickly won him over to wrestling fans. Vince McMahon took note of the Warrior’s popularity and groomed him to take Hulk Hogan’s place as World Wrestling Federation (WWF) champion with the idea of making Hulk Hogan continuing on as a special attraction, much as Bruno Sammartino had done after Bob Backlund became WWWF champion. Unfortunately the Ultimate Warrior and McMahon butted heads over pay. When the Warrior refused to wrestle at the 1991 SummerSlam PPV unless he received a pay raise, McMahon reluctantly gave in only to suspend the Warrior after the show (In McMahon’s eyes, the Warrior had held him up). While Vince McMahon continued to acknowledge the Ultimate Warrior’s appeal to the fans, their business relationship was troubled at best. Two brief returns to the WWF in 1992 and 1996 were welcomed by the fans but again, the Warrior’s behind the scenes squabbles with McMahon led to premature departures both times.Last year, the WWE released Ultimate Warrior: The Ultimate Collection, a Blu-Ray collection of some of the Warrior’s biggest matches along with occasional comments from Hellwig. This year it’s released even more matches and promos along with a documentary on Jim Hellwig. The video begins with a recap of the Warrior’s career, going back to his early days where he teamed with Sting to his time in the territories prior to his entry into the WWF. While the Ultimate Warrior is usually mentioned as one of the top stars of the late 1980’s and early 90’s, his career was incredibly short compared to other stars such as Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. Thus it’s no surprise that the video feature doesn’t have a lot of time to cover. However the feature is fairly lengthly because it spends considerable time focusing on the Ultimate Warrior’s last days and the incredible reconciliation between him and Vince McMahon.Some may feel this is the WWE’s way of apologizing to him for the truly rotten way they treated him. Some may even claim that the WWE is cashing in on his death by releasing this video. Looking at the timing of the video’s release and the way that the documentary goes out of its way to show that the higher-ups at the WWE (including Vince McMahon, daughter Stephanie, and Stephanie’s husband Triple) reached out to Hellwig, the documentary does seem a bit exploitive to me. When the documentary goes on to show us how the Warrior’s family was helped in its grief by the WWE, you can’t help but see the documentary as more of a celebration of how great the WWE treats its past and current employees rather than a celebration of a wrestler’s career and legacy.For those unfamiliar with the Ultimate Warrior’s relationship with the WWF, let me bring you up to speed. In 2005, the WWE released a one disc DVD entitled The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior. The DVD featured a documentary on the Ultimate Warrior, basically burying him as a no-talent bum who was in the right place at the right time but who proved to be a flash in the pan. The DVD featured WWE Superstars mocking the Warrior’s interview style and recalling how no one really liked him (According to stories I have heard, the WWE was prepared to make a similar hatchet job DVD covering the career of Bret “The Hitman” Hart but changed it to a glowing piece upon Bret’s reconciliation with the WWE). As one might expect, the Warrior did not take kindly to the DVD.Many WWE Superstars have burnt bridges with Vince McMahon only to patch things up however in the case of the Ultimate Warrior it seemed “highly unlikely” (as Gorilla Monsoon might have said). That changed in 2013 when the Warrior spoke positively about McMahon on an episode of his YouTube channel. Behind the scenes, the WWE began to reach out to the Ultimate Warrior with Triple H taking the lead. The documentary shows the long road that led to reconciliation and the Warrior’s agreement to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. For me, the fact that cameras were around so much throughout the various steps of the reconciliation made the documentary seem a bit plastic. Obviously no one had any idea that the Ultimate Warrior would die so unexpectedly but at times, the proceedings seem like something out of a bad reality show.Another part of the feature deals with the Warrior’s family dealing with his death. We see many WWE Superstars helping the family with wrestler Nattie Neidhart taking a very personal interest in helping the Warrior’s family deal with their grief and start the healing process. It’s nice to see this side of the WWE but again, I can’t think of other stories such as how CM Punk claims he received his release papers from the WWE on his wedding day. It’s great that the WWE has helped the Warrior’s family through a difficult time but the WWE should know better than to pat itself on the back in a video release.With the documentary focusing more on the WWE’s goodwill towards the Warrior and his family, the real question becomes whether or not the rest of the product is good enough to justify purchasing it. The rest of the video features more matches from the Ultimate Warrior’s career (thankfully, none of them are duplicates from his previous video) along with a ton of Warrior promos. The only drawback with the matches is that they feature way too many squash matches. The Warrior was known for quickly dispatching of his opponents (much as the Road Warriors did in their heyday) and it’s good to see a couple examples of what got the Warrior over. However the video really didn’t need so many squashes. The video would have been better served by showing more matches from the Warrior’s pre-WWF days along with some house show matches from his time in the WWF.Die-hard Warrior fans should enjoy the matches and promos included on the video. Casual fans may not be so thrilled by the matches and promos. The Ultimate Warrior’s promos are not for everyone. Some people enjoy his maniacal esoteric style while others think he’s simply spouting gibberish. If you’re a casual fan and haven’t purchased the Warrior’s previous video, Ultimate Warrior: The Ultimate Collection, go with that one rather than Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe.

Let me just start by saying, I don't follow the WWE or watch any wrestling for that matter. However, when I was a kid, I used to watch the WWF all the time. Back in the day, the WWF was full of crazy, cartoonish like characters and no one was better or more entertaining to me than the Ultimate Warrior. Hulk Hogan hooked me on the WWF first, but the first time I saw the Ultimate Warrior as a kid, he quickly became my favorite and the reason I kept watching. After he left the WWF I kind of lost interest and grew out of my fascination with the WWF.With all of that said, when I saw this documentary, I had to check it out. It is a great tribute to one of the most entertaining wrestlers that the WWE/WWF ever had. It was great to see how he got his start and his rise to being one of the most well known and beloved wrestlers/entertainers of all time. I also love how much they involved his wife and two daughters in the documentary. These characters were larger than life, but to see a personal side to him was interesting.I have to say at the end of the documentary, it kind of drags on a little bit too long and a lot of the content (after he passed away) is more about the wife and kids and how they are coping with their loss. I'm not saying it shouldn't be part of the documentary, but from an editing perspective, should have been added as extra features. This is just me nit picking a bit on how I would have done it.The extra content is great. You get to see a large collection of his WWF interviews where he's yelling at the camera, spouting out threats and nonsense in the Ultimate Warrior kinda way...Some of them are hilarious in a good way and they brought me back to my childhood. I always thought he sounded like a barbarian from the dark ages or something...great stuff.There are also some full matches that are included as well.I highly recommend this documentary to anyone who was a fan of The Ultimate Warrior...even if you're not into watching this stuff anymore (like me). I also recommend it to anyone who is into wrestling now, but maybe the warrior was before your time. This is a great history lesson on one of the great entertainers in wrestling history.

Simply fantastic. Loved the in depth look at Warrior and his time in the WWF (Now WWE)Get this!

A greater view into the life of ultimate warrior rip he will be missed I highly recommend purchasing if your a fan.

Quick delivery great Job

I got my copy of Ultimate Warrior always believe yesterday and after watching it the one thing I really took from it is that you need to bury the past and look to the future. If someone wronged you forgive and move on. Watching Vince crying was something I had never seen before. I couldn't believe how much Warrior and Vince cared for one another despite the problems they had over the years. I'm just glad they moved past all of that before he passed away. But it's a shame it didn't happen sooner. Steph taking the last picture of Warrior before he died and it was with Vince and his smile on his face was massive. The match listing is awesome and I'm so happy to finally have Ultimate Warrior with LOD vs Demolition. That is a treat in itself as it had never been released before. Such a great tribute to the Ultimate Warrior I recommend this to any fan of the Warrior.