Warrior

What an eerie week this has turned out to be.

On Saturday night, the Ultimate Warrior returned to World Wrestling Entertainment and was the headline star of its Hall of Fame ceremony, the following night he was given a round of applause along with the rest of the 2014 Class at WrestleMania XXX. A day after that, he made his return to WWE Monday Night Raw for the first time since 1996 and did a short promo in the ring.

Then yesterday, he died after collapsing outside an Arizona hotel.

Shocking.

I was an Ultimate Warrior fan back in the early 1990's,  so this is another one of those times where a part of my childhood is lost.

I had some incredible moments following his matches. Yes, you may laugh because - to be fair - a majority of his bouts were not masterpieces.

His match with Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania VI was awesome (I wanted Hogan to win that one, though!), the bout with Randy Savage a year later was also great.

The match that I liked best, and it had more to do with the build up and where it was being held, was the SummerSlam 1992 WWF title match where he challenged Savage for the belt. I was jumping up and down when it looked like he was about to win the strap.

A number of months after that, I came home from school and remember my father jokingly telling me to sit down as he had some bad news. He then proceeded to tell me that the Ultimate Warrior and Davey Boy Smith had been fired from the WWF.

I then went on a crusade to get him back. This crusade culminated in writing a letter to Vince McMahon ordering him to bring back the Ultimate Warrior.

Did I get a reply?

Yes. However, it wasn't from Vince McMahon and it had nothing to do with the Ultimate Warrior.

At the end of my note, I also wrote something like 'And by the way, why don't you ever tour Cardiff?'

The response was from a lady (Ann or Anne Bojack) who worked at Titan Tower telling me that the company were always looking for new venues to tour in the UK and will keep Cardiff on record.

Later that year, Cardiff had its first WWF event.

But, that's beside the point. I had to wait another three years before the Ultimate Warrior returned.

And it wasn't the return I had expected. It didn't last long and I had moved on as a wrestling fan. I was more into the styles of Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart. The cartoon characters had passed me by.

Still, it was really nice to see the Warrior back in the fold this past weekend. He managed to deliver a few blows back to the people who had done him wrong in the creation of The Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior DVD that came out a number of years ago.

He got his closure which makes his death a few days later surreal.

I feel really sorry for his young daughters who walked to the podium with him on Saturday. So sad.