SHoCK
07-30-2005, 05:36 PM
some of you may or may not know, but the wwe is planning on releasing an ultimate warrior dvd, wich sounds good....however....it seems it may be a possibilty that they will use the dvd to mock the warrior. that would be so gay. here is what warrior posted about the situation on his site. its a LONG read.
Hello warriors.
WWE is releasing an Ultimate Warrior DVD set. Two prominent rumors are on the street. One is that the title will be “The Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior.” The other is this, supposedly a WWE insider’s anonymous post put up at Warrior Central:
"Hi everyone,
I know there is a great deal of BS and lies on the
internet, so I understand if you do not believe me
during this post, but I will go ahead anyway. I do not
want to disclose my name, as I know the company
monitors the internet quite tight, but I have been
working as an intern at the production department of
Titan Television (WWE's studios). I have been involved
in the making of several DVD projects these past few
months, one of which was the forthcoming Ultimate
Warrior 2 disc set.
While I can't give out too many specifics on the set,
I can tell you a few things that may upset you as
Warrior fans, and would like your feedback which I
will happily return to my supervisor, Mr Chambers.
First off, Vince McMahon and Warrior have actually
spoke several times regarding this DVD. Those of you
who have purchased WWE 'Legends' DVDs will know how
they work...there is a documentary on the wrestler,
and fellow superstars and office staff will talk about
that wrestler - memories, favorite moments, opinions,
backstage stories, etc. We recently released a DVD on
the Road Warriors, which featured Animal tracing the
roots of the characters and giving insights into their
careers as superstars, wrestlers, and men.
Vince wanted Warrior to do the same, and called him at
home. Warrior apparently has his own documentary film
coming soon and said to Vince he would like to do a
deal where they could have flyers inside each DVD to
help advertise the other one. Mr McMahon said he
didn't want to do this, as it wouldn't be a 50-50
beneficial deal(it would benefit Warrior much more
than WWE), and that the shareholders wouldn't like
advertising with a former talent.
Warrior was worried about being seen as a hypocrite if
he appeared on the DVD, and when Vince refused
advertising and a smaller fee than what Warrior
wanted, Warrior refused steadfast to participate in
it. Negotiations ended there on the phone, and I was
told by my supervisor that Vince told Warrior "Well
then, we'll see what happens."
I can reveal to you that this DVD is not going to be
one that fans will want to see. Many talents have
appeared on this disc to talk about Warrior - Bobby
Heenan, Pat Patterson, Paul London, HHH, JR, John
Cena, Batista, Hogan, Eddie, Benoit and others - and
every single one of them has painted him a negative
light. All the comments make fun of Warrior, and talk
about what an idiot, flash in the pan, and lucky guy
he was.
There are also two bonus features on disc 2. The first
is "Ultimate Impressions" in which current WWE
superstars do their best impersonation of Warrior. It
is sad to say the least - Benoit foams at the mouth
and yells at the top of his voice...HHH messes his
hair all up and pretends to be Warrior shaking the
ropes, and Batista ties some bootlaces around his arms
and talks to his hands. More insulting, there is a
"Warrior Calamaties" montage of times when Warrior has
made mistakes - slipping over, bloopers during
interviews, botched moves, etc.
Basically, the whole thing is made to have the message
that Warrior was intense and powerful, but also a bit
of an idiot. He is painted in the same light as Doink,
Repo Man and Duke Droese, rather than as a legend next
to Randy Savage, Bret Hart and André. Sad - because
the majority of people who would buy this would be UW
fans from the 80s...and once they know that this is a
giant farce, they will boycott it and the DVD will
fail to sell.
Good business sense Mr McMahon!! It looks like another
desperate attempt to bury UW."
Tellingly, and as is typical, this is a combination of small truths and fat lies. Specific advertising promotions were not discussed, money was not discussed at all -- let alone a proposed smaller fee causing disgruntlement, shareholders wouldn’t like advertising with a former talent? -- ple-e-ase, WWE is practically a f’ing nursing home for former talent, and advertising and bilking it for all its worth all the time; negotiations didn’t end on the phone -- I have more than a handful of voicemails from Kevin Dunn, and other communication, to prove it.
I do believe this was spawned in-house over at WWE, and that the writer was instructed to speciously concoct it and get it out, beginning with placing it at Warrior Central.
I did speak to Vince - one time only, not several times. He did call me at my house and left a message and I called him back. His call to me was prompted by a series of previous phone calls others had. Beginning with some phone calls Andrew Wright, a young man pursuing a film documentary on my life, made on his own to the WWE seeking 1) film footage of UW and 2) WWE personnel participation in the documentary (Vince or Linda preferably), possibly in exchange for my participation in their DVD project. Frankly, I wasn’t high on this last idea. For obvious reasons, all of them vehemently expressed over the years, I would have potentially more to lose than gain even if there was transparent, straightforward, and effective reciprocation of some promotional sort.
Yet, Andrew is free, as the producer of the documentary, to make all the phone calls and have all the conversations he wants, so I told him he to go ahead and explore any possibility, but I would ultimately have final say so. I would make no promises. My initial thoughts, knowing I would have to contemplate the idea much more seriously, were simply that my well-known beefs with WWE diminishes none of the reverence and appreciation I have for the specialness of the Ultimate Warrior persona and unique quality of my career creating and performing him while I was there. The fans of the character who’ve followed my other pursuits over the years see it the same way, and they are able to differentiate between the respect and interest they find in my views today, including my anti-WWE views, and the wonderful, exciting time while I performed Ultimate Warrior in the WWF. I was told that the DVD projects were ostensibly reminiscences of the persona’s career and I thought that if there was a way to positively participate in that, for the sake of Ultimate Warrior fans as well as achieve other business goals, then I would, at the very least, be open to exploring it.
Somewhere in the middle of Andrew’s own going back and forth with underlings at WWE, WWE’s Kevin Dunn called and left me a message informing me of the DVD project and that they were interested in having me participate in it with commentary. I called him back, thinking his call was directly prompted by discussions Andrew had instigated at WWE. Kevin denied this and said he had no idea of the documentary project, which wasn’t true of course, but I went ahead to fill him in, telling him, again without any promises, that there might be a simple, conditional way to collaborate this one time here and “bury one hatchet,” all the while realizing I had still had some very serious thinking to do before reaching a final decision.
Vince and I spoke about a week later -- for that one time only. The phone call lasted about 15 minutes. It was cordial and I got right into the reason for our talking to one another. All the details aren’t necessary and I will save telling any of them to wait and see if any more little white lies are attempted on WWE’s part. He did tell me that there would be others on the DVD who had criticisms. I didn’t have a problem with that. In fact, my idea for my own documentary was to do a controversial point/counterpoint with either him or Linda. But he said absolutely nothing about how vengeful the criticism was or anything about the ridiculing spoofs, nor did he reveal any such title for the project as has been recently made public. We simply concluded the conversation agreeing that he would instruct Kevin Dunn to follow up with me to do all they could on their end to make my involvement happen.
Four or five days later Kevin called. He began the conversation pitching a whole “Legends” thing WWE was now doing. I told him that Vince mentioned it, but not in any great detail for me to entertain it intelligibly, and I urged him to stay focused on the DVD project alone.
He told me he would fax me the basic, to-start agreement, and I placed specific, conditional inquires I would need satisfactory answers to, particularly 1) I would get to see what had been done thus far, because I was not interested in watching it and responding in commentary extemporaneously, 2) the meat of my commentary would be left unedited, 3) WWE would provide royalties on all the copyright film ventures they intended to do throughout the future, not just this DVD project, 4) I could use all my own commentary in my own documentary project.
He spoke confidently that he foresaw no difficulty in fulfilling these requests, but that he would have to check to be sure and would get back with me with concrete answers asap. In the meantime, he would go ahead and fax over the basic agreement for my immediate review.
Two or three more days passed and no fax had yet arrived of the basic agreement that I needed to review. At about that same two or three day mark Kevin called, leaving me a message saying, oddly, he could fax me the agreement if I was interested in doing the commentary on the project, acting as if he never told me he would send it right over when we first spoke. He also stressed concern that they were now working against the clock; and he left no answers to the inquires I had made. I attempted to call him at the two numbers I had. He has no office voicemail and his cell phone voicemail was always full. I reached his assistant at the office on one work day only, she attempted to call his cell and reached the same dead end, but told me that he would be in later that day. He called again, not that day, but two days later. Still no fax, still no answers -- but with a hyper warning that time was running out. I tried to call him back, with no result. A couple days later he called and said time had run out and he needed to know my decision by day’s end. All these years building a big corporate identity, and here it was all over again, typical, old-school WWF headgames. I called Beth Zazza, Vince’s secretary, and got her email address and sent this correspondence over within 24 hours:
“I am just writing to update Vince on follow up with Kevin Dunn on DVD issues. Please forward this to him. Thank you.
Vince, I spoke with Kevin 4-5 days after we talked. The conversation digressed somewhat into a whole "Legends" program type of thing, which I told him you did not bring up in any real detail and I would have to know much, much more about before I could address it intelligently as a businessman.
Getting back on track, I made a couple of specific inquires about the DVD project to help me decide whether or not I would participate in this project alone and also gave him my fax number to immediately forward potential agreement info for my review. He said he'd fax it over (last week), and get answers to my inquires. I've received neither the fax or the answers. He's called about every third day since then, but left no other message than to call him back. When I do, he has no office voicemail and his cell phone voicemail box is always full. Time concerns have been stressed, but neither of us can to do this if there isn't an agreement in place. That's not being difficult, it's being prudent and practical. I'm just writing to let you know that my own schedule, now, will make me unavailable for the next few weeks, and that, since you and I spoke, I've done all I can on my end to explore the possibility of involvement. At the end of the day, I may have ultimately decided not to be involved. I'm not sure, but I never got the info or answers I needed. Therefore, I must pass.
Hello warriors.
WWE is releasing an Ultimate Warrior DVD set. Two prominent rumors are on the street. One is that the title will be “The Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior.” The other is this, supposedly a WWE insider’s anonymous post put up at Warrior Central:
"Hi everyone,
I know there is a great deal of BS and lies on the
internet, so I understand if you do not believe me
during this post, but I will go ahead anyway. I do not
want to disclose my name, as I know the company
monitors the internet quite tight, but I have been
working as an intern at the production department of
Titan Television (WWE's studios). I have been involved
in the making of several DVD projects these past few
months, one of which was the forthcoming Ultimate
Warrior 2 disc set.
While I can't give out too many specifics on the set,
I can tell you a few things that may upset you as
Warrior fans, and would like your feedback which I
will happily return to my supervisor, Mr Chambers.
First off, Vince McMahon and Warrior have actually
spoke several times regarding this DVD. Those of you
who have purchased WWE 'Legends' DVDs will know how
they work...there is a documentary on the wrestler,
and fellow superstars and office staff will talk about
that wrestler - memories, favorite moments, opinions,
backstage stories, etc. We recently released a DVD on
the Road Warriors, which featured Animal tracing the
roots of the characters and giving insights into their
careers as superstars, wrestlers, and men.
Vince wanted Warrior to do the same, and called him at
home. Warrior apparently has his own documentary film
coming soon and said to Vince he would like to do a
deal where they could have flyers inside each DVD to
help advertise the other one. Mr McMahon said he
didn't want to do this, as it wouldn't be a 50-50
beneficial deal(it would benefit Warrior much more
than WWE), and that the shareholders wouldn't like
advertising with a former talent.
Warrior was worried about being seen as a hypocrite if
he appeared on the DVD, and when Vince refused
advertising and a smaller fee than what Warrior
wanted, Warrior refused steadfast to participate in
it. Negotiations ended there on the phone, and I was
told by my supervisor that Vince told Warrior "Well
then, we'll see what happens."
I can reveal to you that this DVD is not going to be
one that fans will want to see. Many talents have
appeared on this disc to talk about Warrior - Bobby
Heenan, Pat Patterson, Paul London, HHH, JR, John
Cena, Batista, Hogan, Eddie, Benoit and others - and
every single one of them has painted him a negative
light. All the comments make fun of Warrior, and talk
about what an idiot, flash in the pan, and lucky guy
he was.
There are also two bonus features on disc 2. The first
is "Ultimate Impressions" in which current WWE
superstars do their best impersonation of Warrior. It
is sad to say the least - Benoit foams at the mouth
and yells at the top of his voice...HHH messes his
hair all up and pretends to be Warrior shaking the
ropes, and Batista ties some bootlaces around his arms
and talks to his hands. More insulting, there is a
"Warrior Calamaties" montage of times when Warrior has
made mistakes - slipping over, bloopers during
interviews, botched moves, etc.
Basically, the whole thing is made to have the message
that Warrior was intense and powerful, but also a bit
of an idiot. He is painted in the same light as Doink,
Repo Man and Duke Droese, rather than as a legend next
to Randy Savage, Bret Hart and André. Sad - because
the majority of people who would buy this would be UW
fans from the 80s...and once they know that this is a
giant farce, they will boycott it and the DVD will
fail to sell.
Good business sense Mr McMahon!! It looks like another
desperate attempt to bury UW."
Tellingly, and as is typical, this is a combination of small truths and fat lies. Specific advertising promotions were not discussed, money was not discussed at all -- let alone a proposed smaller fee causing disgruntlement, shareholders wouldn’t like advertising with a former talent? -- ple-e-ase, WWE is practically a f’ing nursing home for former talent, and advertising and bilking it for all its worth all the time; negotiations didn’t end on the phone -- I have more than a handful of voicemails from Kevin Dunn, and other communication, to prove it.
I do believe this was spawned in-house over at WWE, and that the writer was instructed to speciously concoct it and get it out, beginning with placing it at Warrior Central.
I did speak to Vince - one time only, not several times. He did call me at my house and left a message and I called him back. His call to me was prompted by a series of previous phone calls others had. Beginning with some phone calls Andrew Wright, a young man pursuing a film documentary on my life, made on his own to the WWE seeking 1) film footage of UW and 2) WWE personnel participation in the documentary (Vince or Linda preferably), possibly in exchange for my participation in their DVD project. Frankly, I wasn’t high on this last idea. For obvious reasons, all of them vehemently expressed over the years, I would have potentially more to lose than gain even if there was transparent, straightforward, and effective reciprocation of some promotional sort.
Yet, Andrew is free, as the producer of the documentary, to make all the phone calls and have all the conversations he wants, so I told him he to go ahead and explore any possibility, but I would ultimately have final say so. I would make no promises. My initial thoughts, knowing I would have to contemplate the idea much more seriously, were simply that my well-known beefs with WWE diminishes none of the reverence and appreciation I have for the specialness of the Ultimate Warrior persona and unique quality of my career creating and performing him while I was there. The fans of the character who’ve followed my other pursuits over the years see it the same way, and they are able to differentiate between the respect and interest they find in my views today, including my anti-WWE views, and the wonderful, exciting time while I performed Ultimate Warrior in the WWF. I was told that the DVD projects were ostensibly reminiscences of the persona’s career and I thought that if there was a way to positively participate in that, for the sake of Ultimate Warrior fans as well as achieve other business goals, then I would, at the very least, be open to exploring it.
Somewhere in the middle of Andrew’s own going back and forth with underlings at WWE, WWE’s Kevin Dunn called and left me a message informing me of the DVD project and that they were interested in having me participate in it with commentary. I called him back, thinking his call was directly prompted by discussions Andrew had instigated at WWE. Kevin denied this and said he had no idea of the documentary project, which wasn’t true of course, but I went ahead to fill him in, telling him, again without any promises, that there might be a simple, conditional way to collaborate this one time here and “bury one hatchet,” all the while realizing I had still had some very serious thinking to do before reaching a final decision.
Vince and I spoke about a week later -- for that one time only. The phone call lasted about 15 minutes. It was cordial and I got right into the reason for our talking to one another. All the details aren’t necessary and I will save telling any of them to wait and see if any more little white lies are attempted on WWE’s part. He did tell me that there would be others on the DVD who had criticisms. I didn’t have a problem with that. In fact, my idea for my own documentary was to do a controversial point/counterpoint with either him or Linda. But he said absolutely nothing about how vengeful the criticism was or anything about the ridiculing spoofs, nor did he reveal any such title for the project as has been recently made public. We simply concluded the conversation agreeing that he would instruct Kevin Dunn to follow up with me to do all they could on their end to make my involvement happen.
Four or five days later Kevin called. He began the conversation pitching a whole “Legends” thing WWE was now doing. I told him that Vince mentioned it, but not in any great detail for me to entertain it intelligibly, and I urged him to stay focused on the DVD project alone.
He told me he would fax me the basic, to-start agreement, and I placed specific, conditional inquires I would need satisfactory answers to, particularly 1) I would get to see what had been done thus far, because I was not interested in watching it and responding in commentary extemporaneously, 2) the meat of my commentary would be left unedited, 3) WWE would provide royalties on all the copyright film ventures they intended to do throughout the future, not just this DVD project, 4) I could use all my own commentary in my own documentary project.
He spoke confidently that he foresaw no difficulty in fulfilling these requests, but that he would have to check to be sure and would get back with me with concrete answers asap. In the meantime, he would go ahead and fax over the basic agreement for my immediate review.
Two or three more days passed and no fax had yet arrived of the basic agreement that I needed to review. At about that same two or three day mark Kevin called, leaving me a message saying, oddly, he could fax me the agreement if I was interested in doing the commentary on the project, acting as if he never told me he would send it right over when we first spoke. He also stressed concern that they were now working against the clock; and he left no answers to the inquires I had made. I attempted to call him at the two numbers I had. He has no office voicemail and his cell phone voicemail was always full. I reached his assistant at the office on one work day only, she attempted to call his cell and reached the same dead end, but told me that he would be in later that day. He called again, not that day, but two days later. Still no fax, still no answers -- but with a hyper warning that time was running out. I tried to call him back, with no result. A couple days later he called and said time had run out and he needed to know my decision by day’s end. All these years building a big corporate identity, and here it was all over again, typical, old-school WWF headgames. I called Beth Zazza, Vince’s secretary, and got her email address and sent this correspondence over within 24 hours:
“I am just writing to update Vince on follow up with Kevin Dunn on DVD issues. Please forward this to him. Thank you.
Vince, I spoke with Kevin 4-5 days after we talked. The conversation digressed somewhat into a whole "Legends" program type of thing, which I told him you did not bring up in any real detail and I would have to know much, much more about before I could address it intelligently as a businessman.
Getting back on track, I made a couple of specific inquires about the DVD project to help me decide whether or not I would participate in this project alone and also gave him my fax number to immediately forward potential agreement info for my review. He said he'd fax it over (last week), and get answers to my inquires. I've received neither the fax or the answers. He's called about every third day since then, but left no other message than to call him back. When I do, he has no office voicemail and his cell phone voicemail box is always full. Time concerns have been stressed, but neither of us can to do this if there isn't an agreement in place. That's not being difficult, it's being prudent and practical. I'm just writing to let you know that my own schedule, now, will make me unavailable for the next few weeks, and that, since you and I spoke, I've done all I can on my end to explore the possibility of involvement. At the end of the day, I may have ultimately decided not to be involved. I'm not sure, but I never got the info or answers I needed. Therefore, I must pass.