SteveSilver.net

Culture Warrior

The professional wrestler formerly known as The Ultimate Warrior, who has since reinvented himself as (I'm not kidding) a conservative political commentator, is in big trouble for a speech he gave Tuesday night at the University of Connecticut, in which he made what were described as racist and homophobic comments.

Now while just about anything spoken on a college campus, these days, tends to get that label, in this case the charge may have merit: Warrior is alleged to have said that "queering don't make the world work," before telling a Middle Eastern student to "get a towel." And as opposed to the usual leftist campus firebrands, it's the UConn Republican club, which sponsored the speech, that has denounced him loudest:

We have written letters of apology to several groups and organizations on campus that represent the people toward whom many of the Warrior's comments were directed. A short, but not complete, list of these groups would consist of the Rainbow Center, AQUA, QUAD, the African American Cultural Center, the Asian American Cultural Center, the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center, the Iranian Students Association, and the Women's Center.

If The Iron Sheik spoke on campus and said all the same things, I bet the Iranian Students Association wouldn't be on the list.

The funniest thing about this is that the former WWF champ, who used to come to ring in facepaint and arm tassles, shake the ring ropes, and deliver rambling backstage monologues- and had his name legally changed to "Warrior" a few years back- has taken on political speechmaking as his second career. Is that not just as strange as Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor?

Also in the speech the Warrior, you guessed it, admitted that he used steroids throughout his career.

UPDATE: From a Scott Keith reader who was there:

Warrior was in rare form that night. After he made a comment about how homosexuals are nowhere near on the same level as heterosexuals, which elicited an "oh my god" from a female student, he quickly replied with "Don't have an orgasm now honey, save it for later!" And when an obviously gay student started screaming at him from the back of the auditorium, Warrior replied with "I can't hear you with that thing in your mouth." Just crazy.

Posted by Stephen Silver at April 6, 2005 10:52 PM