The Ultimate Warrior vs. Ravishing Rick Rude (Jan 1989 – Aug 1990)

Background

Both men came to wrestling from the weight room. Warrior, born James Hellwig in 1959 and raised in Crawfordsville, Indiana, moved to Georgia to chase bodybuilding and won the 1984 Mr. Georgia title.[13] At Gold's Gym in Venice Beach he joined a would-be wrestling team that included Steve Borden, the future Sting, and the two turned pro together in Memphis in late 1985, first as the Freedom Fighters and then as the heel team the Blade Runners.[13]

Rude came out of Robbinsdale, Minnesota. He worked as a bouncer and won a national arm wrestling title before trainer Eddie Sharkey saw something in him and enrolled him in wrestling school.[19] Barry Darsow, who worked with him at a Minneapolis bar called Gramma B's, remembered them all powerlifting and training together.[8]

The Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude knew each other before either reached the WWF. In World Class Championship Wrestling in Texas in 1986, the Dingo Warrior and Rude wrestled each other in August and teamed against Kevin and Mike Von Erich in October.[1][2] Warrior built a sizable following in World Class before moving on.[13]

Warrior debuted in the WWF in 1987.[13] Rude arrived with Bobby Heenan as his manager and a gimmick that had him stripping off his robe on the way in and calling the men in the crowd "fat, out-of-shape, sweat hogs."[19]

By early 1988 both men were on the same cards. On January 9, 1988, at a matinee at the Philadelphia Spectrum, Warrior filled in for Paul Orndorff against Rude, and the match went to a double count-out at 16:25 when they started brawling on the floor.[3] Later that month in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Warrior came to ringside during Rude's match with Ricky Steamboat and threw Harley Race into the ring, causing a double disqualification.[3]

Rude spent 1988 feuding with Jake Roberts after kissing Roberts's wife, Cheryl, in the crowd.[19] On an October Prime Time Wrestling, Rude pulled down his tights to reveal another pair with Cheryl Roberts's face on the front, and Roberts attacked him.[3] Warrior, meanwhile, won the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam 1988 at Madison Square Garden, subbing for Brutus Beefcake and pinning the Honky Tonk Man in 27 seconds.[3]

By the start of 1989, Warrior was the Intercontinental Champion. He beat Rude on house shows in Birmingham, El Paso, and Lowell that January, before any angle had been shot between them.[4] Rude came to those matches with Bobby Heenan as his manager.[3][4]

Build-up

The on-screen issue started as a bodybuilding contest. Before the matches at the Royal Rumble on January 15, 1989 in Houston, Rude and Heenan came out and explained the rules of the "Super Posedown" to come later in the show.[4] Gene Okerlund oversaw it. Both men went through a series of poses, and Warrior won the crowd every time.[4]

Rude answered by attacking Warrior and choking him out with a steel bar. After Rude and Heenan left, Warrior came to, attacked the referees, Shane McMahon, Nick Bockwinkel, and the others who had come to check on him, and ran to the back looking for Rude.[4] Later in the show, Okerlund caught Rude and Heenan backstage for an interview about the attack, and they appeared to leave the building.[4]

The title match for WrestleMania was set on WWF television within weeks. On the February 18 Brother Love Show, Rude and Heenan talked about the champion, and the same broadcast announced Rude against Warrior for the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania V.[4] Two days later, Prime Time Wrestling ran a series of "Face to Face" podium interviews, hosted by Vince McMahon, that put each WrestleMania pairing side by side, including Warrior and Rude with Heenan.[4] On house shows Rude cut insert promos on the match while he wrestled other opponents.[4]

WrestleMania V was held on April 2, 1989, at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, before 18,946. A video package recapped the feud before the match.[4] Rude won the title at 9:36.[21][22] As Warrior tried to suplex him back into the ring, Heenan swept Warrior's leg out from under him and held his foot down during the cover.[4]

After the bell Warrior attacked Heenan, gorilla-pressed him, and chased Rude to the back.[4]

The rematch came at SummerSlam on August 28, 1989 at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in front of 20,000.[4] The pre-match interview with Rude and Heenan was a near-disaster. The SummerSlam sign behind them fell down, Okerlund swore on live TV, and the broadcast cut away before they tried again.[4]

The match went 16:02. Roddy Piper was at ringside and mooned the champion. Warrior won the title back with a back suplex and a splash.[4] Piper and Rude kept going after SummerSlam; on a September Brother Love Show, Rude attacked him.[4]

The feud came back bigger in 1990. At WrestleMania VI on April 1 in Toronto, in front of 64,287 at the SkyDome, Warrior pinned Hulk Hogan to win the WWF Championship in a title-for-title match.[5]

Rude moved into line for the world title. Before a house-show match in Toronto on May 27, he cut a promo in the ring pointing out that Warrior had won the title in that city and saying he would lose it there too.[5] On the Brother Love Show in June, he said there would be no more "Rude Awakening" kisses until he took the WWF title from Warrior.[5]

Then Rude got hurt. In June he tore a muscle in his triceps, and for more than a week of house shows Haku and Heenan wrestled Warrior in handicap matches in his place.[5] Before that, Dino Bravo had filled in for him against Warrior on a few dates in late May and early June.[5]

On Saturday Night's Main Event, taped in Omaha on July 16 and aired July 28, Warrior beat Rude by disqualification.[7] The same broadcast announced their rematch at SummerSlam, this time inside a steel cage.[5] In a match from the same Omaha taping, Heenan broke up Warrior's pin after his shoulderblock and splash at 9:43, and Warrior threw him to the floor after the bell.[5]

The Matches

The three pay-per-view matches drew very different numbers. WrestleMania V, with Hogan and Savage on top, drew 18,946 to Trump Plaza for a $1,628,000 gate and a 5.9 pay-per-view buyrate.[22] SummerSlam 1989 drew 20,000 to the Meadowlands, $350,000, and a 4.8.[23] SummerSlam 1990 drew 19,304 to the Spectrum, $338,452, and a 3.8.[23]

The Wrestling Observer gave the SummerSlam 1989 match three and a quarter stars.[24] Their WrestleMania V match was short, at 9:36, and the cage match was shorter still.[21][22]

SummerSlam 1990 came to the Philadelphia Spectrum on August 27, 1990, a sellout of 19,304, with 18,703 paid.[5] Warrior and Rude met in a steel cage for the WWF Championship.[17] Two weeks earlier Warrior had been a guest on the Brother Love Show to talk about the match.[5]

The match went 10:05.[25][23] Warrior jumped Rude with a double axehandle and drove him into the cage. When Rude went for an early escape, Warrior grabbed an ankle to stop him.[18] Rude came back with a spinning backfist and ran Warrior into the steel, but couldn't get the Rude Awakening.[18]

Heenan kept trying to help from outside. When Warrior went for the door, Heenan slammed it in his face, and Rude got a two count.[18] After Warrior missed a splash, Rude hit a neckbreaker and made for the door with Heenan pulling on him, and Warrior dragged both of them back into the cage.[16][18]

Warrior ended it with three clotheslines and a gorilla press slam. Then he climbed over the top and dropped to the arena floor to win.[16][5]

It was their last big match. Rude's WWF career ended within months; he failed to win the title inside the cage and soon left for WCW.[10]

House Shows

The feud drew on the road for more than a year, and the results show how the WWF protected both men. From April to late July 1989, while Rude held the Intercontinental title, surviving results list at least 39 house shows where Warrior beat him by count-out or disqualification, which kept the belt on Rude.[4] In Salisbury, Maryland, on May 4, and on at least seven more nights that spring and summer, Rude won the same way.[4]

Some of the finishes were spelled out. On May 1, 1989, Warrior won by count-out at 12:04 when Rude started walking to the back. On May 16, the count-out came at 7:40 after Warrior attacked Rude on the floor.[4] On April 8, the Big Bossman interfered and pulled the referee, giving Warrior a disqualification win at 9:30.[4]

In 1990 the finishes changed. Once Warrior was world champion, he pinned Rude at least 26 times on the road between April and September, starting in Syracuse on April 3.[5] In Toronto on May 27 he used the shoulderblock and splash; in Boston on June 2 it was five clotheslines and a shoulderblock.[5] In March, before WrestleMania VI, Warrior beat Rude by disqualification in Indianapolis when Rude tried to use a steel chair.[5]

In the last week before SummerSlam, the two worked tag matches. Warrior and Kerry Von Erich faced Rude and Mr. Perfect on Long Island on August 20, where Warrior pinned Perfect at 15:25, then in Savannah on August 24 and Charleston, South Carolina, on August 25.[5]

Aftermath

Rude left the WWF within months of SummerSlam. In WCW he led Paul Heyman's Dangerous Alliance, beat Sting in 1991 for the U.S. title and held it for more than a year, and later beat Ric Flair for WCW's world title.[10] A back injury in a match with Sting in Japan in early 1994 all but ended his in-ring career.[10]

He stayed in the business in other roles. When he died, he was managing Curt Hennig in WCW.[11] He died on April 20, 1999, of heart failure, at 40, and was survived by his wife and children.[10][11][20] His son Colton Rood died in a motorcycle accident in Georgia in 2016, at 19.[20]

Warrior held the WWF title until the Royal Rumble on January 19, 1991 in Miami, where Sgt. Slaughter pinned him with an elbow drop after Randy Savage smashed his scepter over Warrior's head.[6]

Before he left, Rude was moved into a program with the Big Bossman. Within days of SummerSlam, Rude and Heenan were insulting Bossman's mother on WWF television, and in September Rude was announced for Survivor Series on a team against Hogan and Bossman.[5] On October 9, 1990, WWF President Jack Tunney announced that Rude had been suspended indefinitely, and Heenan and the Barbarian took his house-show dates against Bossman into November.[5]

The real reason, as Bret Hart told it in his autobiography, was money: Rude was outraged when he learned how much Warrior had been paid for SummerSlam compared with his own payoff, after carrying their match.[20]

The WWF inducted Rude into its Hall of Fame in 2017, with Ricky Steamboat, his old WCW rival, doing the honors.[10] Warrior's own WWF career went on and off after that: he was suspended in the summer of 1991 in a contract dispute, again that November, and was fired outright in 1996 after missing dates.[13]

Behind the Scenes

The feud is remembered almost as much for what happened away from the cameras. The complaint about Warrior from the people who worked with him was that he hit too hard. Bret Hart wrote that Rude "was carrying Warrior through every match" and that one night he wrestled Warrior down to the mat and whispered in his ear that if Warrior "potato-ed him one more time, he'd rip his head off and shove it up his ***. Warrior, who never showed much regard for his fellow wrestlers, melted like putty."[8]

Referee Earl Hebner has described the stiffness from the other side of the ring. At WrestleMania VI, he said, Warrior clotheslined him so hard that when he hit the mat he didn't know where he was. "Warrior was the worst one," Hebner said. "He just didn't care whether it was me, you, Katie, or anybody."[8]

Bushwhacker Luke remembered a lumberjack match in Texas where Warrior kept clotheslining Rude across the mouth. The next time Warrior came off the ropes, Rude stepped in and hit him on the jaw. "Rick was a Golden Gloves boxer when he was in his teens, and it laid Warrior out," Luke said.[8]

The best-known confrontation came in Savannah, Georgia, the Friday before SummerSlam 1990. Hebner, who refereed the match, said Warrior had cut a promo on Rude that Rude didn't like. "Rude beat the hell out of him all the way in from the ring," he said. "Warrior left the ring, went through the curtains, and jumped in a limo. Rude jumped in right behind him and continued the beating inside."

Hebner said Warrior was screaming for someone to tell Hebner to stop him.[8]

Other accounts differ on the details. Demolition's Barry Darsow remembered the fight coming out of Warrior working too stiff, with Rude ending it quickly.[9]

Ric Flair, who wasn't in the WWF in 1990, later described a longer beating after Rude heard Warrior talking about him in the locker room.[9] Rude's son, Rick Rude Jr., has told a version he heard from Flair that places it in Toronto: "My father came into the arena and almost ended Warrior's career backstage in a real fight. He beat the brakes off him." He added, "Vince almost fired my father over this."[8]

Darsow knew Rude from long before the WWF. They had worked together at a Minneapolis bar called Gramma B's, and he called Rude the toughest of that group: "He was the nicest guy. But boy, if you crossed him, he'd be the first one to throw the punch."[8]

Warrior, for his part, spoke well of Rude in a shoot interview before his death. "I liked Rick," he said. "He was meticulous in what he wanted to do. He knew he wanted to make the match work."[8]

Legacy

Rude's son has called it the defining feud of his father's career. "The Ultimate Warrior feud was the absolute best," he said. "There was so much energy on both sides, and there was a real hatred between the two of them." Looking back on the promos and matches, he said, it was "the one that really had all the fireworks."[8]

The WWF's own Hall of Fame write-up of Rude leads with it: Rude "beat The Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania V, then lost the championship at SummerSlam 1989," and "failed to win inside of a steel cage at SummerSlam 1990" before leaving for WCW.[10] WWE has posted both the WrestleMania V and SummerSlam 1989 matches on its own YouTube channels.[14][15]

Rude died in 1999 at 40.[10] Warrior went into the WWE Hall of Fame on April 5, 2014, attended WrestleMania XXX the next night, and spoke on Raw on April 7.[13] The next day, April 8, he collapsed in Scottsdale, Arizona, and died at 54. Authorities later said he died of cardiovascular disease.[12][13]

Rude followed him into the Hall of Fame three years later.[10]

Earl Hebner, who refereed both of them, put it this way: "Warrior was an okay guy as far as friends go. He just didn't care about anybody in the ring except himself."[8]

See Also

Sources & Further Listening

1. "The Dingo Warrior vs. Rick Rude: WCCW, August 30, 1986" — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/videos/the-dingo-warrior-vs-rick-rude-wccw-august-22-1986
2. "Kevin and Mike Von Erich vs. Rick Rude and Dingo Warrior: WCCW, October 11 1986" — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/videos/kevin-and-mike-von-erich-vs-rick-rude-and-dingo-warrior-wccw-october-12-1986
3. WWF results, 1988 (house shows and TV) — The History of WWE. https://thehistoryofwwe.com/wwf-results-1988/
4. WWF results, 1989 (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania V, SummerSlam, house shows and TV) — The History of WWE. https://thehistoryofwwe.com/wwf-results-1989/
5. WWF results, 1990 (WrestleMania VI, SummerSlam, house shows and TV) — The History of WWE. https://thehistoryofwwe.com/wwf-results-1990/
6. WWF results, 1991 (Royal Rumble) — The History of WWE. https://thehistoryofwwe.com/wwf-results-1991/
7. "Saturday Night's Main Event, July 28, 1990" (results) — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/shows/snme/history/1985to1992/july281990
8. "Ultimate Warrior vs Rick Rude: How A Classic WWE Feud Turned Into Real Backstage Fights" (quoting Bret Hart's autobiography Hitman, and interviews with Earl Hebner, Bushwhacker Luke, Barry Darsow, Rick Rude Jr. and Warrior's shoot interview) — Pro Wrestling Stories. https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/ultimate-warrior-and-rick-rude-feud-brutally-real-backstage-fights/
9. "What Really Happened In The Ultimate Warrior And Rick Rude's WWE Backstage Fight" — Cultaholic. https://cultaholic.com/posts/what-really-happened-in-the-ultimate-warrior-and-rick-rudes-wwe-backstage-fight
10. "Rick Rude joins WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2017" — ESPN. https://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/18837588/wwe-rick-rude-join-wwe-hall-fame-member-class-2017-march-orlando
11. "Rick Rude dies" (Apr 21, 1999) — Slam! Wrestling. https://slamwrestling.net/index.php/1999/04/21/rick-rude-dies/amp/
12. "Ultimate Warrior Died From Cardiovascular Disease" — CBS News Sacramento. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sacramento/news/ultimate-warrior-died-from-cardiovascular-disease
13. "Ultimate Warrior: Death, Career & Facts" — Biography.com. https://www.biography.com/athletes/ultimate-warrior
14. "FULL MATCH: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude | Intercontinental Title Match: WrestleMania V" — YouTube (WWE Vault). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIIo-EIeXxY
15. "Ultimate Warrior vs. 'Ravishing' Rick Rude: SummerSlam 1989 - Intercontinental Championship Match" — YouTube (WWE). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NESY1J8fW7A
16. SummerSlam (1990) — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SummerSlam_(1990)
17. SummerSlam 1990 full event results — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/shows/summerslam/1990/results
18. Scott Keith, "WWF SummerSlam 1990 Rant" — Scott's Blog of Doom. https://www.blogofdoom.com/rant/wwf-summerslam-1990-rant/
19. "Rick Rude" (Slam! Wrestling Hall of Legends profile) — Slam! Wrestling. https://slamwrestling.net/legend/rick-rude/
20. "Rick Rude: A Ravishing Wrestler with a Tragic End" (citing Bret Hart's autobiography Hitman) — Pro Wrestling Stories. https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/rick-rude-wrestling-legacy-tragic-end/
21. WWF WrestleMania V (card and times) — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1760
22. WrestleMania results, attendance, gates and buyrates — Pro Wrestling History. http://www.prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/usa/wwf/mania.html
23. SummerSlam results, attendance, gates and buyrates — Pro Wrestling History. http://www.prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/usa/wwf/summer.html
24. WWF SummerSlam 1989 (card, Wrestling Observer rating) — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1761
25. WWF SummerSlam 1990 (card and time) — Cagematch. https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1765

Further Listening

• Bret Hart, Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling (2007) — his account of Rude carrying Warrior on the road
• Earl Hebner's interviews on refereeing Warrior and the Savannah fight
• Rick Rude Jr. on The Hannibal TV — his father's career and the Warrior feud
• Barry Darsow on The Hannibal TV — Rude's toughness and their Minneapolis days