‘Load the spaceship with the rocket fuel!’: The quotable Ultimate Warrior, dead at age 54

Born James Hellwig, the Warrior (he legally changed his name in 1993) began his WWE career in 1987 – adopting his signature coloured face-paint, mystifying metaphors and heated trash-talk. This is a promo for WWE’s SummerSlam event in August, 1989.

“Take the intercontinental belt back! Take it back to parts unknown! Load the spaceship with the rocket fuel! Load it with the words! Because after SummerSlam, the belt will be mine!”

Ultimate Warrior’s rivalry with Hulk Hogan came to a head on April 1, 1990, at WrestleMania VI – held at Toronto’s SkyDome, the first such event held outside the United States – where the Warrior defeated Hogan and took the championship.

“Look, Hulk Hogan! Look into nothingness! Look beyond your fears as you take that step, Hulk Hogan, and make the sacrifice so that the power of the Ultimate Warrior shall live!”

In 1996, he broke into the world of comic books with the short-lived series Warrior, which added the phrases “destrucity” (as defined below) and “foked” (focused) to the lexicon of Ultimate Warriorisms.

Destrucity: Tri-fold in its definition, therefore meaning...

1. The name of the Galaxy in WARRIOR wherein the “Terrain of Testament” lies.

2. The Living of one’s life in the Way of a Warrior according to a Warrior’s 8 Disciplines. Those are as follows: 1) Physical, 2) Beliefs, 3) Moment of Mastery, 4) Attitude, 5) Commitment, 6) Association, 7)Integrity, 8) Wisdom.

3: The creating of a truce between one’s Destiny and one’s Reality. Promising to stay true to what one is destined to be, yet accepting what is the now … one’s reality.

On April 7, Ultimate Warrior returned to the ring on Monday Night Raw, the day before his death and only two days after being inducted into the World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.’s Hall of Fame. Donning a mask, he gave an impassioned and eerily prescient speech in the ring about wrestling fandom.

“Every man’s heart one day beats its final beat, his lungs breathe their final breath, and what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others, makes them bleed deeper in something that’s larger than life, then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalized ...”