Hall-of-Fame Professional Wrestler. A typecast villain noted for his ability to ignite a crowd, he is remembered as one of his sport's premier performers of the 1990s. Raised in Central Indiana, he spent one year at Indiana State University, studied at Atlanta's Life Chiropractic College, and was an amateur body builder in Southern California when he and some of his friends decided to try wrestling. In 1985 he joined the Memphis-based Continental Wrestling Association, initially billed as Justice as part of a group called the Freedom Fighters that included later star Steve ("Sting") Borden. Moving to Texas, he teamed-up with World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) and began calling himself Warrior, a moniker that was changed to Ultimate Warrior when he was hired by Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in 1987. Quickly establishing himself as a fan favorite, he engaged in 'feuds', most notably with Rick Rude and Andre the Giant, and was twice WWF Intercontinental Champion before pinning Hulk Hogan to capture the WWF World Championship in 1990 at the Toronto-hosted WrestleMania VI. Warrior defended his title several times before losing it to Sgt. Slaughter at the January 1991 Royal Rumble; in the aftermath, he engaged in a scripted feud with The Undertaker and, unfortunately, a real one with Vince leading to his discharge from the company. He rejoined the WWF briefly in 1992 but was again dismissed, this time due to allegations of steroid use; he ran a Scottsdale, Arizona wrestling school, legally changed his name to Warrior in 1993, was for a time associated with Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling (WCW), returned to WWF in 1996, and after a second association with WCW retired in 1998. In later years a conservative motivational speaker, he engaged in trademark litigation with the WWE and in 2008 returned to the ring for a single match in Barcelona, Spain. Though his relationship with the WWE had been, to say the least, strained at times, in 2014 his ring accomplishments were acknowledged with induction into the WWE Hall-of-Fame, his redemption, surprisingly, brokered by his one time real life enemy Triple H; he was formally received into the Hall on April 5, the next night was honored at WrestleMania XXX, on April 7 made his first appearance on Monday Night Raw since 1996, and the following day died of an apparent heart attack.