In an interview with WWE’s official website, former WWF Champion The Ultimate Warrior discussed his in-ring career, getting his start for the WWE, Vince McMahon and more.

Highlights of the interview are below:

On how he got started with the WWE: “I was in WCCW in Texas and the first time I worked for them, this is a story that you don’t even hear no more, while I was working down there Vince had done his first Wrestlemania. He had a guy working for him at the time named George Scott and he was on his way to Florida. He was a friend of Fritz Von Erich, who owned the promotion WCCW and Fritz asked him to come down and take over the book for a while. He came in and started doing that and then an old time wrestler, Bronko Lubich, pulled me aside and said I heard George got on the phone today and he was talking to somebody from New York and he was talking about somebody down here that’s got this talent. It’s raw, but you know. He said don’t you tell anybody cause I’ll deny it. The next thing I know I got a call from Vince and Pat Patterson asking me what the Dingo Warrior was. And then they were doing a show in Tyler, Texas and they had Koko B. Ware and Randy [Savage] and Junkyard Dog. So I go down there and they say you want to come down and perform? So I go down there and people went crazy. They asked me if I wanted to go on the road for a while. I packed my bag and went on the road for like 46 days and didn’t go home. I knew what they were doing; they were trying to burn me out. And I just hung in there, kept my nose clean and stuff. They kept me off Television, I did the Dingo Warrior thing. Eight or nine months later they put my on TV for the first time and it just took off from there.”

On his admiration for Vince McMahon despite several years of both sides fighting against one another: “Vince is intense, man. He goes around the clock and I was the same way. Some of the people that knew both of us said that the problem was they were too much like each other. That’s why WWE has succeeded, because Vince shows up and he works everyday. Most people don’t get that, that’s the secret to being successful like that. And he does and I admired that. I still do, even after all the years of fighting with him. I respect him more than anybody else.”