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Well That Didn’t Work: The Warrior Joins WCW

Posted: Sep 18th 2026 By: Craig Wilson - RingTheDamnBell.com

In 1998, the WWF were beginning to pull away from the WCW after fans had begun to grow weary of the product with the nWo having all but run its course and no new stars being created. In a sharp contrast, the WWF was in the Attitude Era with Stone Cold Steve Austin, a former WCW talent, being their main player.

The WCW brought in a man they thought could turn things around the Ultimate Warrior, ironically the guy that the WWF had gone to in 1996 when the shoe was on the other foot. Both paid a heavy fee, and price, for bringing him in in moves that yielded no positive results.

Warrior – his legal name now, of course – was brought in by Hulk Hogan who had creative control over his character, to restart his 1990 feud that culminated in the main event of Wrestlemania 6. This time, however, the results were vastly different.

To continue the early 90s theme of this, the feud begun with Warrior kidnapping Hogan’s pal Ed Leslie, the former Brutus Beefcake and now Disciple, and leading him around arenas in what looked very much like various S&M positions. And it would only get worse… In what must be one of the few wrestling cases of Stockholm Syndrome, The Disciple turned his back on Hogan and joined forces with Warrior and joining the One Warrior Nation. A play on nWo, geddit?

Warrior would enter the ring via a trapdoor and a cloud of smoke but the trapdoors are perhaps best remembered for causing Davey Boy Smith an injury that would nearly paralyse him. The mind games continued with Warrior setting Hogan’s dressing room on fire and on another occasion appearing on his dressing room mirror – with everyone being able to see him except, bizarrely, Eric Bischoff who was interviewing Hogan at the time.

And the payoff to all this nonsense? A horrific match at Halloween Havoc 98, a match that has been rightly panned and described by Eric Bischoff as the worst main event in wrestling history. While the Hogan v Warrior match at Wrestlemania 6 was planned to the most minute detail. Hogan v Warrior II was not…

After what seemed like an eternity of mid 80s style wrestling, including rest holds a plenty, the end of this one was nigh with the ending to involve Hogan lighting a fireball in Warrior’s face. The problem here, and there are certainly many that can be covered, was that the fireball wouldn’t light. So Warrior was left for a few minutes fumbling about in the ring until Hogan could light it. When it was eventually lit it went off in Hogan’s face and nowhere near Warrior.

Of course, even the fireball – which bear in mind went off nowhere near the Warrior – wasn’t enough to put him down. No, for that Horace Hogan was needed and he knocked him down with a steel chair, as Bischoff distracted the referee, allowing Hulk Hogan to avenge his Wrestlemania 6 loss and even the score at 1-1.

Warrior left the WCW soon after and announces his retirement within a year. He’s since claimed that the only reason he was brought into the organization was for Hogan to make up for his loss at Wrestlemania 6.

So could this have worked? No, whatever skills Warrior had in the early 90s – and they were limited even then – were gone by 1998 as was fans interest in him. The focus should certainly have been on developing young talent instead of rehashing early 90s feud. But we all probably know that by now, huh?