The DVD WWE Used to Define the Ultimate Warrior

On July 27, 2005, WWE announced that The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior would be issued on UMD video alongside other home-video titles. Two months later, on September 27, WWE released it. The documentary was not merely an account of Warrior's career; it was a product distributed through the company's own commercial machinery.

Collider's retrospective account says WWE wanted to make a documentary about Warrior's impact in 2005 and that Warrior declined the offer. The project proceeded through archived footage and interviews with former colleagues and WWE figures. The Sportster listed Steve Lombardi, Eric Bischoff, Gene Okerlund, Vince McMahon, Edge, Christian, Bobby Heenan, Triple H, and Hulk Hogan among those interviewed.

That structure left WWE to determine which images and voices would carry the history. Collider characterized the film as heavily negative toward Warrior, while The Sportster described it as a one-sided attempt at character assassination. Those are retrospective judgments about tone and framing, not legal findings about Warrior's conduct. They establish the dispute the DVD placed in public view: the company supplied the account, while Warrior was absent from its production.

The legal question reached back to a March 2000 settlement between WWE and Ultimate Creations Inc. As summarized in WrestlingInc's report, the agreement allowed WWE to use footage of Warrior while Warrior retained the rights and trademarks to the Ultimate Warrior character. The report also said the settlement included a mutual promise not to disparage each other. Warrior's lawsuit, as described in that account, concerned comments on the DVD and the settlement that governed the parties' continuing relationship.

On September 18, 2009, Judge Douglas L. Rayes ruled, according to WrestlingInc, that Warrior could not sue WWE for damages over the DVD comments. The ruling closed off that remedy without changing the film's disputed framing. In a Hall of Fame remark quoted by The Sportster, Warrior called the DVD “wrong,” saying it made him angry and was hurtful. The documentary remained released; the damages claim did not.