You know... Something has been bothering me about all of the coverage of the death of Ultimate Warrior. Every single news article, mainstream and otherwise, and many many fans continue to refer to him as Jim Hellwig or James Hellwig. The man legally changed his name to Warrior in 1993. Regardless of what we may think of the name he chose, or the fact that he changed it in the first place, the fact is he did. Given that people seem to be honoring him so much in the coverage (again, whether or not thats appropriate is a different debate) it seems disrespectful to me that people would not refer to the man by he name he chose to live his life by the last 21 years, the name his children have. Im not by any means saying that its inappropriate to state that he was born James (Jim) Hellwig, but to simply not acknowledge that he changed his name and then call him by that name kind of goes against all the reverence everyone seems to want to shower upon him. I will give you other examples... Tom Cruise was not born Tom Cruise, he was born Thomas Mapother IV (Cruise, however, was his middle name). He chose to legally change his name, for not only professional reasons, but for personal reasons as well. When he passes away, is everyone going to call him Mapother? No, while they may mention that was his birth name, hell be referred to as Cruise because thats the name he lived his life by. Another example is Freddie Mercury. He was born Farrokh Bulsara, but when he passed away, everyone didnt refer to him as Farrokh, because thats no longer who he was. I would actually liken this much more closely to Meatloaf or Muhammad Ali, both of whom changed their names for both professional and also deeply personal reasons and both consider it an insult for someone to refer to them by their birth name. There is one caveat Ill acknowledge here. If you knew Warrior personally, and he was fine with you calling him Jim, then I havent a problem with that (Boris Zhukov, youre one person that comes to mind here). The bottom line here, however, is that Warrior changed his name for a reason and if the intent here is to honor the mans life and memory, I think its important to then honor his wish to be referred to as Warrior.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 03:48:31 +0000
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