Honky Tonk Man Reveals How He Dealt With Ultimate Warrior Being Too Rough in the Ring

– During Stories With Brisco & Bradshaw, WWE Hall of Famer The Honky Tonk Man discussed working with the late Ultimate Warrior, and Warrior’s reputation for being very stiff and rough to work with in the ring. Honky Tonk Man feuded with Warrior in 1988 and detailed how he got Warrior to stop hitting him too hard in the ring. Below are some highlights (via WrestlingInc.com):

Honky Tonk Man on how stiff Ultimate Warrior was to work with: “He would hit me so hard in the hard and I finally told him. I said, ‘Jim, you just can’t hit me like that.’ I said, ‘I’ll do anything you want out there. I’ll get out there and do the best I can.’ But my head was starting to swell like a softball and had gotten mushy. And I said, ‘If you ever hit me like that again, I’m gonna go down and I’m not getting up.'”

On how he dealt with Warrior in a match in Denver, Colorado: “The crowd was into it. He hit me in the side of the head. I went down. He pulled my hair trying to pick me up, and he was pulling my hair like pluckin’ a chicken and dropping my hair. But I would not get up. I clenched to the mat, and he felt the people just die. And I got back to the locker room,” Honky Tonk Man continued. “I said, ‘Jim, I told you don’t ever hit me like that again.’ He said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘I’ll never hit you like that again.’ I said, ‘Well, how’d you feel out there?’ He said, ‘I felt like I was naked in front of all these people.’ He said, ‘They sh*t on me.’ I said, ‘Yeah, they did.’ I said, ‘You got to remember, it takes everybody in that ring to work this match.’ And I said, ‘If you hurt me, you’re out there by yourself.’ And so he never hit me like that again. Never ever.”

Honky Tonk Man on Vince McMahon searching for the next big star: “When you finally get the gears in there and they’re clicking, man, the thing rolls along with no problems. But it’s really hard to get that combination of gears. And Vince…Vince is – He’s still trying to find it now. He doesn’t have a Rock, he doesn’t have a Stone Cold, he doesn’t have a Hulk, he doesn’t have a Cena. Those people just aren’t born every day.”