Like I'm sure a lot of you did, I grew up watching WWF wrestling, and the colorful and enigmatic Ultimate Warrior was one of the standouts of the organization in the early 90's. The way he'd shake the ropes, run around like a loon, and his bizarre promos always made him a joy to watch, resulting in my choosing to play him more often than not whenever I could get to an arcade that happened to house WWF Wrestlefest.
Following his departure from the organization in '93, Hellwig had some interesting ups and downs to say the least that kept him in the public eye and pop culture: - legally changing his name to "Warrior" (for licensing and trademark purposes, resulting in some legal situations with his former employer)
- a batshit crazy comic book
- a questionable speech illustrating why former wrestlers might not make for the best color commentators on political / sexual agendas.
But somehow or another, he managed to mend fences and return to the re-branded WWE sans the Van Halen hair as a DLC character in the latest game, WWE 2K14, and even being inducted into the Hall of Fame this past weekend, just days before he would collapse walking to his car outside of an Arizona hotel.
Many wrestlers' lives come to a close far more rapidly than the rest of us, but Helwig was only 54 when he passed. By comparison, other wrestlers he once shared the stage with are still alive and well, like Ted DiBiase and Hulk Hogan at 60, or Ric Flair and Robert "Sgt. Slaughter" Remus at 65.
During the Warrior's brief time on the planet, he may not have reached the same levels as Hulkamania, but the wrestler's colorful getups and bizarre promos caught the attention of fans, and extended his appeal well and beyond the WWF...or WWE, whatever the hell you wanna call it. This being a video game site, we're going to look at how his legacy is perserved by the medium.
Obviously, there's all the licensed WWE / WWF games, too numerous to name. I mostly recall the Flying Edge games from the 16-bit era like WWF Super Wrestlemania. Warrior's departure would leave him out of WWF Royal Rumble and WWF Raw, but he'd show up in the next console generation with WWF In Your House for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, a poor follow up to. He'd also appear later down the line in WWE All-Stars and WWE Legends of Wrestlemania, but my personal favorite will always be the afortementioned Wrestlefest, a follow up to WWF Superstars, both of which could only be found in the arcades of yesteryear.
These were all direct appearances of the Warrior, but given his persona, he would inspire the creation of a number of other characters in video games beyond the wrestling genre.
Jesse the Body Ventura was a clear inspiration for Final Fight's wrestler turned Metro City mayor Mike Haggar, who oddly enough took to politics long before Ventura. But he wasn't the only wrestler to inspire a character in a side scrolling beat 'em up.
With Capcom licensing the arcade smash to the SNES, the Sega Genesis had its own take on the genre with its Streets of Rage series, also known overseas as Bare Knuckle. The first game dropped in 1991, when Warrior fever was in full swing. Like most beat 'em ups, SoR's gameplay was nothing terribly special. It would evolve as the series progressed, but the first featured the usual array of nameless goons and odd bosses for players to beat on. 'Til level 3 that is.
When players came to the end of the beach level, they would be confronted with a towering, maniacal wrestler who'd come rushing right at the player from out of nowhere. Despite his monolithic stature, this character was mighty quick, and could easily catch players off guard with his one clothesline attack. Nameless at first, the character would eventually come to be known as "Abadede," (perhaps a subtle jab at Double Dragon's hulking Abobo) and his moveset would evolve with each appearance in subsequent games. But even as far back as his first appearance, he looked somehow...familiar.
The face paint, long hair, and same shithouse rat lunacy, it's fairly easy to see who inspired Abadede's look. While he never could muster the gorilla press slam like Hellwig, Abadede was a dead ringer for the Warrior.
Unfortunately, not all "interpretations" of the Warrior could, or would be as good. Maybe you've heard of a fighter series called Hiryu No Ken. It was relatively obscure series through the 80's and into the 90's until Flying Dragon hit the Nintendo 64. One of the selectable characters featured went by the name of Powers, and the "top wrestler of the NCW" was a clear copy of the Warrior.
Awkward to say the least, but things had been worse.