A lot of big names put Warrior over- Honky Tonk Man, Hercules- much bigger names than Kurt Hawkins or Alex Riley. Guys like that and most of the WWE midcard will never be remembered and could easily be squashed. Who will ever remember Zach Ryder or any of the boring midcard guys that look and act the same.
Yeah a lot of name guys did put Warrior over too. But that was after Warrior had first got over on Challenge and Superstars by running through the squash matches every week. One of my points with that, is that option isn't available in todays WWE.
Also, keep in mind that back then, Warrior could have guys like HTM, Hercules, Rick Martel and others put him over for months on the house show circuit without it affecting those guys at all. Where you might have seen Warrior go over a Martel once on a SNME, you wouldn't have known that they probably had over 50 matches on the house shows too. And since you could then just book Martel on TV winning squashes for several weeks, that SNME loss doesn't hurt Martel that much, and you don't affect his drawing power. Today's culture is more that if you put someone over one night, then the guy that did the job needs to get the win back eventually as well, simply because everything is that much more condensed with the weekly live TV and monthly PPV schedule. That alone changes how well you could get a guy like the Warrior over today, because if he comes in as strong as he did the first time, it will be at the expense of knocking down too many other guys on the roster.
Warrior was a wash in WCW because WCW did not know how to use a lot of guys and only brought him in to lose to Hogan. Hell Bret Hart flopped in WCW, as did a lot of the guys that came over from WWF. Without a place in the NWO most of the guys that jumped shipped from WWF would have been total flops.
Warrior was in mid-90's WWF too. He was off the juice, didn't look nearly as imposing (he was wearing the singlet to hide the fact that he wasn't as big anymore)... simply because the gimmick wasn't one that the fans believed in anymore. Yeah it was also because the guys a headcase and a pain in the ass to deal with backstage, but I specifically remember him during this time and thinking "meh, it's just not the same anymore". I was a Warrior fan in the 80's too.
The trap doors were a part of booking. If you watch the Warrior's interviews about WCW he said he showed up and was given the scripts at the last minute-as many of the WCW guys were. Warrior said that they paid him huge salaries to show up and not be used on TV.
Of course that was part of the booking. My point was, they weren't realistic and you were arguing that this time period is when he was more of a realistic character (he magically can appear in the ring? Yeah Undertaker does the same thing, but he was always able to do stuff like that - with Warrior it was some mystical skill he obtained out of nowhere)
Warriors gimmick was wrestling gear- trunks and boots -add some tassles and face paint. Why is that any different then wrestlers wearing masks in the ring? Its also very marketable. I bet you if LOD debuted as new wrestlers with their spiked football gear and face make-up - they would be able to get over. I also bet sting would be able to get over with his gimmick. Wrestling is about suspending reality. RYback comes out and used a canned catch phrase that is lame and boring - his look is dull. Warrior was much more charismatic and colorful- hence his raise to the very top.
Yes Warriors gear was mostly traditional. I wasn't saying it wasn't. I was saying that compared to back then, today's wrestlers look more traditional than a lot of the guys that competed. It was simply a comment on how things have changed. Warrior wearing traditional gear though, didn't change the fact that he was more of a cartoon than a lot of the guys that didn't look traditional.
I think you could debut an LOD or a Sting today looking the same as they did back then... because it wasn't their looks that sustained them. It was the fact that they could deliver inside the ring. That's the simple truth about anyone who not only makes it, but can sustain it. Warrior couldn't. He could be carried, which got him far. But there is a huge difference between a guy that can be carried to good to passable matches each night... and a guy that can deliver good to great matches every night.
Also, Warrior easily handled big matches, remember Hogan, Macho Man, and Sgt Slaughter?
I don't know about 'easily', but I decided to go back and look at Warrior/Slaughter just to see. Actually two of them. A Coliseum Video match that happened a couple weeks before the Rumble, and the Rumble match. Basically the same match except for the overbooking of the Rumble match, but a few things stood out for me.
- Slaughter was the guy leading the matches, and he was bumping like a madman to put over how strong the Warrior was supposed to be (Slaughter was always a great bump man)
- In the Coliseum Video one, the fans are actually chanting for Hogan about a minute in. Kind of says how well Warrior was doing at the time
- Take away the Savage/Sherri part of the Rumble match, and the action isn't great. Warrior was just so limited in the ring. They were definitely better than the first match, which is just one of the worst I can remember seeing.
- Warrior's psychology is non-existent. There's a spot where Slaughter puts Warrior into a bear hug, and Warrior starts flailing his arms wildly in the air. He comes close to hitting Slaughter about a dozen times, but never touches him until the time comes for his 'Hulk-up" recovery. It just looks bad and took me out of the match (and they'd been telling a pretty good story up till that point).
- they use the same spot in both matches, where Slaughter puts the camel clutch on with Warrior's feet underneath the ropes. After about 30 seconds, the ref notices and taps Slaughter on the shoulder, who thinks that Warrior submits and he's won the match. Horrible spot. Don't know if it was meant to keep the camel clutch strong for Slaughter, or because it was asking too much to have Warrior try and break it another way.
So no, I disagree that Warrior easily handled big matches. The better his opponent, the better his matches (Slaughter was pretty much done by this point and was still the better guy in the ring). The thing with that though... is how many great workers are there today to carry a guy like him? Not as many as there were back then.
If they tried running an Ultimate Warrior today, they'd have to bury half the roster to get him over, and then he'd have a limited run on top because there would only be so many people that could get a strong match out of him before you'd run out of opponents. He couldn't carry a storyline because his promo's were laughable. It would just be a disaster. Sorry. I know you like the guy and everything, but I just don't see how it would work.