Ultimate Warrior’s Face Paint

Ultimate Warrior’s face paint means a lot of different things to people.  This past weekend, I had a great reminder of what it means to me.  Canada just celebrated our independence this past Friday.  During this holiday it’s tradition to have fireworks and celebrations.  With these events often come face painting.

Unfortunately I didn’t see any kids with their faces painted like the Ultimate Warrior.  However, it did make me think back on my own childhood.

I was a huge fan of both Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior.  I enjoyed watching Hulk Hogan wrestle more, but I imitated the Warrior more often.  As a kid, it’s hard to imitate the Hulkster.  I don’t have 24 inch pythons.  I don’t have an awesome mustache – I couldn’t even grow one.  I did have one thing going for me, my hair was naturally as blond as Hogan’s.

The Warrior on the other hand was easy to impersonate.  I stripped off my clothes, leaving only my underwear on.  Got some bright colored string to tie on my arms.  I was set.  Next I had to just run around like a mad man stopping to shack the ropes and flex my muscles.  I didn’t normally have muscles, but when I tied that string around my biceps my arms came to life (as much as possible for a 7 or 8 year old).  I felt like a super hero.

So when I was 7 years old, my family and I went to the fair on Canada Day for games, rides, and later that night, fireworks.  At the fair, I had the chance to get my face painted.  I knew right away what I wanted painted on my face.  There was of course only one thing possible that could be painted on my face.

I sat down in the chair and the lady who was painting faces asked “What would you like painted on your face?”.  I answered, “Can you paint my face like the Ultimate Warrior?”.  Unfortunately she didn’t know who that was or what that meant; so I had to explain it to her.  Luckily it was easy to explain.

“Well, the paint goes across your entire forehead like this” I said as I moved my finger over my forehead.  “Then on each side it goes all the way down your face and makes a triangle back up to your nose.

“That’s the outline, then it can be filled in with many different colors.  It doesn’t matter to me as long as they are bright!” I said.

That day I thought I was the coolest kid in the whole world.  It was one thing to put strings on your arms to imitate the Ultimate Warrior’s tassels, it was out of this world to have my face painted like his!

Next year before Canada Day, I’ll have to show my son some old Ultimate Warrior wrestling videos to get him excited and have his face painted like the Ultimate Warrior!