Former WWE employee talks about Ultimate Warrior wanting to kill him
Former WWF photographer Tom Buchanan joined Inside The Ropes last week to talk about his 17 year career with the company. He talked about being backstage at the first WrestleMania, taking the picture of the Pontiac Silverdome from the rafters, Andre The Giant scaring Donald Trumps kids and much more. He also told a story about The Ultimate Warrior trying to kill him when Bret Hart had just became champion.
“Bret, until he was champion, wasn’t great with the fans,” Buchanan said. “You know he’d sign autographs and stuff, but he wouldn’t present his character to them and make them feel like they were the most important thing in the world or anything like that. So that’s something he had to work on. So, after he became champion, he was doing a show in West Palm Beach, Florida and he arrived at the venue, fans were all around and they were cheering for him. So he put his bag down, went over and signed autographs, took pictures and did everything that a superstar is supposed to do, he was really good. So I made a mention of this to the agent at the time, who was George Steele of how good Bret was. He was making the changes he needed to make, he was becoming who he needed to become and I asked that he make sure that be in the agent report back to Vince.
“George’s response was ‘Well yeah, all the guys do that, it’s their job.’ I said, ‘No, you know Warrior came in just before Bret and he was sullen, bag was over his shoulder, wouldn’t look at the fans, didn’t sign any autographs, and you know Bret is making a real effort here where some other guys don’t.’ So George Steele ended up mentioning it to Warrior and he told Warrior where he’d heard it from so it was the next day, Warrior was in Orlando and he was flinging chairs about the locker room, saying he was going to kill me if he ever found me, saying, ‘Where the hell is this Buchanan guy?!’ Fortunately I wasn’t working that show so he didn’t get to me and he got fired so I never had to deal with it. That’s the story of Bret Hart really shining and Warrior really not.”
You can listen to the full interview by clicking here.