ULTIMATE DESTRUCITY: We're putting aside our too-regular feature on the Dead Wrestler of the Month to report on a bizarre sighting.

Remember former WWF champion The Ultimate Warrior, noted for his ridiculously-enhanced muscles, face paint and incoherent speech? Ever wonder what he's up to now?

Get this: speaking at the College Republican National Convention.

Yes, the Ultimate Warrior has changed his legal name to "Warrior" and apparently has devoted his life to bodyslamming liberals nationwide. Warrior will speak to any conservative group that will have him.

Here's what Warrior (and, yes, that's his kids' last name now) told the kids at the College Republican convention:

On Monday, [the College Republicans] heard former World Wrestling Federation champion Warrior tell them to trust logic over feelings and to battle "the armies of hammerheads" who espouse moral relativism.

"Those who think make the world work. Not those who feel," said Warrior, his bulk encased in a black suit, his wrist tattoos peeking out from white shirt cuffs.

His speech was called, "There's a Conservative Chip on My Shoulder - Go Ahead, Try to Knock it Off!" Needless to say, no one did.

Oh, wait, it gets worse. Or better. We've got some C-SPAN footage. Click here and skip ahead to the third clip to see Warrior speaking at the 25th Annual National Conservative Student Conference last month. I shit you not. Just click on it if only to see the C-SPAN graphic that says "WARRIOR -- Former World Wrestling Federation Champion" while he talks.

Even more on Warrior here. According to his website:

In 1998 (my gear bag retired to the closet) I began to devote my energies entirely to my already substantially developed education, enlightenment and motivation projects, all spun from a Warrior philosophy of life. At the inception of the education-based Project Warrior ideas, I went back to “hitting the books” so to speak. I found an incredible experience filled with new thrills from reading, writing and learning. My most notable self-study endeavors being the discovery of the “Great Books of the Western World,” and American History, its Founding and its Fathers (my heroes)and having the dictionary – its bounty of literalness -- become my absolute favorite go-to-in-leisure book.

I believe that the contrast between what I have done and what I am doing now, by choice, begets an inimitable curiosity and subsequently attracts attention. My professional success in Celebrity Entertainment as a vivid, physically-expressive pop culture figure when vis-à-vis my mindful, reasoned decision to not participate in that field any longer (because of the negative turn, I believe, the industry took) and my further decision to positively educate and enlighten young people intellectually gives me a greater chance of capturing their attention.

And you thought Jesse "The Mind" Ventura was bad.

DO YOU SCRIPT CHAIR SHOTS TO THE HEAD? Thankfully, I haven't had a Dead Wrestler of the Month post for some time, but on his way out the door of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, outgoing Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman has released the results of his committee's investigation into steroids and professional wrestling following the death of Chris Benoit. In his letter to Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John P. Walters (PDF), calling for ONDCP to become involved in the issue, Waxman notes:

• In the first year of the WWE's testing program, which began in March 2006, 40% of wrestlers tested positive for steroids and other drugs even after being warned in advance that they were going to be tested. Six months after the WWE announced its 2006 steroid testing policy, it relaxed the policy to allow wrestlers suspended for steroid abuse to participate in "selected televised events" and "pay-per-views."
• The WWE hired four of five wrestlers who tested positive for steroids in "pre-contract" testing conducted in 2007 and 2008.
• According to WWE officials, Chris Benoit was tested four times for steroids prior to his death. He tested positive three times, but each time he received only a warning or no penalty at all. The Committee obtained no evidence that efforts were made to discourage his steroid abuse.

But really, where you can kill hours is by reading the transcripts of interviews by committee counsel of Vince, Linda and Stephanie McMahon (all PDF). Let's hear it, Vince:

Q: What led you to make, you the company, to make the magnanimous gesture of offering counseling services to current or former employees or contractors?

A: Two words. Public relations. That's it. I do not feel any sense of responsibility for anyone of whatever their age is who has passed along and has bad habits and overdoses for drugs. Sorry, I don't feel any responsibility for that. Nonetheless, that's why we're doing it. It is a magnanimous gesture.

And then they ask Vince about his own steroid usage. Read all this and more in the transcripts, if only to find out which McMahon states for the record, "Hulk Hogan was a terrible wrestler, and he still is."

HEY MAN, NICE SHOT: A few random tidbits:

• I'm not in love with You're The One That I Want, but I'm not giving up on NBC's American Idol For White Non-Southerners either. Now that we're down to the Talented Twelve, we'll see what happens as we try really hard not to just compare the performers to Travolta and Newton-John.
• Jon Stewart just referred to the Vows Section of the Sunday Times as "where you find out which Ivy Leaguer married which other Ivy Leaguer . . . and at which temple." Hee.
  
• Did you know that the same actor, Kenneth Mars, played crazed Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind in the original version of The Producers and later voiced King Triton in The Little Mermaid?
  
• For the Philadelphians in the audience, I probably shouldn't tell you that today was the twentieth anniversary of Budd Dwyer's demise. I have nothing but bad, nauseating memories from that day -- saw the events live, stuck home from school on a snow day.
  
• It has, thankfully, been more than a year since we've had to host our Dead Wrestler of the Month feature, having skipped John "Earthquake" Tenta's death from cancer last summer, but word has come in over the transom from Titan Towers that former WrestleMania headliner Scott "Bam Bam" Bigelow has passed away. No cause of death yet, though Bigelow admitted a longtime OxyContin addiction in a 2005 interview. It's hard to think of a wrestler who combined size and agility like the Bigelow, and to learn that he (of the legendary tattooed skull) was reduced to living off his disability payments, well, that's just depressing. The "Beast from the East" was 45 years old.
• Finally, gang, while some may believe that “All first- and second-year attorneys are pretty terrible,” they're probably still better than the ones who aren't really attorneys at all.
  

DON'T YOU SEE HOW LATE THEY'RE REACTIN'? Okay, about 30 hours late on both these items, but insofar as both are the sort of thing you expect from us:

• Correction of the Year nominee -- WaPo, Thursday: "A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number."
• Dead Wrestler of the Month: That would be Eddie Fatu, who wrestled for the WWE under the name Umaga, dead of a heart attack yesterday at 36. But don't blame Vince! The WWE's terse press release makes sure you know they fired him earlier this year for failing to go to rehab, having previously suspended Fatu and nine colleagues in 2007 for steroid abuse. Fatu was a member of the fabled Anoa'i/Fatu wrestling clan from Samoa, including his uncles Afa and Sika (the Wild Samoans), older brother Rikishi and cousins Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson and the late Yokozuna.
  

CUT IT OUT: We interrupt our regular Dead Wrestler of the Month feature for something far more pathetic, if that's possible. Uncle Grambo, this one's for you.

Remeber 1980s WWF star Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, host of "The Barbershop" and notorious for asphyxiating his opponents, then cutting off their hair? Have you wondered what happened to him?

Last week, the Boston Herald caught up with him, more or less, in a manner of speaking:

Beefcake - these days Edward Leslie, 46, of Winchester - voluntarily checked into a treatment program Monday, according to a source, after cocaine he admitted was his created an anthrax scare at the MBTA's Downtown Crossing subway station.

Sources said the man who acquired his stage name for hacking off the hair of his enemies in the ring had been working there part time as a fare collector - a job that pays $25,000 a year. . . .

The MBTA confirmed yesterday they have an employee named Edward Leslie, but would not say if he was the one they suspended without pay after cocaine turned up Sunday afternoon on the counter of a Downtown Crossing fare booth, prompting an emergency hazmat response.

Although the subway station was evacuated, MBTA Deputy Police Chief Thomas McCarthy said the fare collector - who he also would not identify - spared commuters further inconvenience by coming clean and dispelling terrorism fears.

At least there's still one former wrestler we can still look up to.

HAILING FROM THE ISLE OF MALTA (REALLY): WWE Hall of Fame inductee "Baron" Mikel Scicluna, your Dead Wrestler of the Month at the age of 80. Here's some vintage footage of him wrestling at the Philadelphia Spectrum. (No, was not the most exciting. Granted.)

Inducted last night to join Scicluna the Hall were the Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase (truly, one of the federation's fun heels -- found my favorite promo); Antonio Inoki; Wendi Richter; Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon; celebrity inductee Bob Uecker and posthumous inductees Gorgeous George and Hart family patriarch Stu Hart, in whose dungeon were trained scores of legendary wrestlers, ranging from his sons Bret and Owen to son-in-law Davey Boy Smith to Jushin Liger, the Honky Tonk Man, Chris Jericho and the guy we don't talk about anymore.

Learn more about the inductees via this link, and whenever I post something nice and nostalgic about the WWE, for balance I ought to link again to the Waxman Committee investigation.

YOU CAN'T REALLY DUST FOR THAT: I know what you're thinking: hey, Adam, "What ever happened to the Dead Wrestler of the Month feature? Don't tell me the industry has gotten safer or something!"

Fear not, friends, and here's a triple-shot of recent sadness for you, all from the WWF: Crash Holly (Michael Lockwood), 33, who apparently choked on his own vomit last week; Road Warrior Hawk (Michael Hegstrand), 46, of an apparent heart attack last month (possibly drug-related); and, finally wrestling patriarch/trainer/promoter Stu Hart, 88, who died of pneumonia in October, but not without first seeing his son-in-law Davey Boy Smith die of steroid-related heart failure and watching his own son Owen plunge to his death on live tv during a stunt gone awry in 1999.

According to one report, as many as sixty current or former pro wrestlers under the age of 45 have died in the last five years, most of them related to drug abuse and steroids. Great business you're running, Vince -- we know it's not a sport, but you're still calling this "entertainment"?

WILL SOMEONE STOP THE DAMN MATCH? This weblog has been criticized in some circles for the depressing nature of our our regular "dead wrestler of the month" feature, because, really, why don't we ever talk about about wrestling injuries and mishaps that result in something less-than-death? Via Bill Simmons, this highlight reel should suffice. For pure comedy, Kurt Angle's inability to open a steel cage (at 2:45) is where you'll want to start. So good, and still somehow, they left out the worst injury I've ever seen in the ring. NSF-delicate-stomachs.

e.t.a. Days later, the NYT now condescendingly covers WrestleMania.

WHEN ALOTT5MA FEATURES COLLIDE: Nerd Alert meets Dead Wrestler of the Month, as the Wall Street Journal and others join diehard fans at wrestling's version of a Trekkie Convention.

Is the Million Dollar Man now granting wishes to terminally ill children? Is the Genius lending his expertise to credit counseling? Is Kamala The Ugandan Giant really just some guy named Jim Harris from Mississippi? Read and learn.

AS A PRELUDE TO FUTURE 'DEAD WRESTLER OF THE MONTH' POSTS: Sports Illustrated is reporting that eleven pro wrestlers have been named as additional beneficiaries of an alleged illegal steroid distribution network, including 1996 Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio Jr. (little Rey?), Randy Orton, Edge, Shane "The Hurricane" Helms, and the late Eddie Guerrero.

I know, you're just too shocked to comment. Because we've never been down this road before.

DEAD WRESTLER OF THE MONTH: I hate this feature, but Vince, it's your industry: former WWE superstar Chris Candido dead at 33.

According to USA Today, "Wrestlers have death rates about seven times higher than the general U.S. population, says Keith Pinckard, a medical examiner in Dallas who has followed wrestling fatalities. They are 12 times more likely to die from heart disease than other Americans 25 to 44, he adds. And USA TODAY research shows that wrestlers are about 20 times more likely to die before 45 than are pro football players, another profession that's exceptionally hard on the body."