Dark Side Of The Ring - The Last Ride of the Road Warriors FULL RECAP
Undoubtedly one of, and widely considered to be the, greatest tag teams of all-time are the Road Warriors, also known as the Legion Of Doom during their WWF run. Both Joe “Animal” Laurinaitis and Mike “Hawk” Hegstrand would change the wrestling industry with their sheer charisma, look and style of wrestling. Possibly the first wrestlers to introduce the psychology of not selling for their opponents, their run is legendary. But as any WWF viewer in the late 90s is also aware, one half of the team, Hawk, would battle with alcohol and substance abuse, leading to one of the most critically reviled and distasteful storylines of all-time. This week, Dark Side Of The Ring looks into the history of the Road Warriors.
As always, the episode is narrated by Le Champion, Chris Jericho.
Interview subjects include Joe “Animal” Laurinaitis, Paul Ellering, Barrow Darsow, Nikita Koloff, Hawk’s brothers Rich and Dan Hegstrand, Scott Norton, Eddie Sharkey and Darren Drozdov.
The episode begins with a quick discussion about the differences between singles and tag team wrestling, and the ‘sixth sense’ that good tag teams need to have to function properly.
Clips are shown of tag teams that knocked off the Road Warriors look and style, including The Powers Of Pain, The Blade Runners, Demolition and The Ascension.
Everyone discusses how Animal was the more level headed of the duo, as Hawk would sometimes fly off the handle in a rage at random.
The two would meet in 1977 in Minneapolis at a gym owned by Jesse “The Body” Ventura.
Animal was doing incline bench of 315 lbs. when he was slapped on the chest by Hawk, telling him he should be lifting more.
Hawk’s brothers show a grade school picture of Hawk, noting he was voted class bully.
Hegstrand’s mother had passed away at a young age, and his brothers note he was very hyper, and much of a lost soul at the best of times.
Scott Norton notes that he was known as the toughest guy on one side of the tracks in Minneapolis, and Hawk was the toughest on the other side.
Norton says Hawk would go around fighting other tough guys and would hit so hard that he would basically knock people’s teeth out and fracture their face due to his sheer strength.
Nikita and Animal discuss the ridiculous amount of talent that came from that area at the time that would end up in professional wrestling, including Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, The Road Warriors, John Nord (aka The Berserker), Barry Darsow (aka The Repo Man and Demolition Smash), Nikita Koloff, Ravishing Rick Rude and Scott Norton.
Many of these talents would become closer after Hawk asked Animal to start bouncing with him at a bar in the area called Grandma Bees.
Rich says that bouncing was the perfect outlet for Hawk as it allowed him to beat people up and get paid for it.
Animal says that the guy who owned the bar used to sell cocaine and when he had a guy who owed him a lot of money, he sent Animal and Hawk to have a discussion with him. Animal and Hawk were both holding one leg each holding the guy off the edge of a bridge telling him to pay what he owed.
Darsow talks about how the bar was a strip club during the afternoons and there was always some kind of fight happening every night.
The bartender at the club was Eddie Sharkey, a former wrestler who wanted to start a wrestling school and wanted all the guys to enlist to train.
Eddie had a boxing ring in the basement of a church in northeast Minneapolis where he trained the guys.
Eddie talks about how when he would leave the room he would tell the guys not to try and do moves and would almost always come back to find one guy holding another up in a suplex.
Animal says that Eddie never taught them how to throw a working punch, so the guys would literally haul back and nail each other, leading to bloody and broken noses.
Darsow says it took a while before Eddie smartened the guys up to the business being a work.
Eddie brought Ole Anderson to Grandma Bees to show him some of the guys he had been training.
Animal recalls throwing a guy out the front door of the bar, where they had a tripwire they would try and see how many times they could flip a guy around. This night the guy he threw out-landed right at Ole’s feet. Animal would say “Hey how ya doin” and walk back inside the bar. Ole would soon bring him down to Atlanta to work the territory.
At the time Hawk had already been scouted and was working for Al Tomko up in Canada.
Animal began working in Georgia as “The Road Warrior” wearing a getup that looked like a member of the Village People.
Nikita reveals that at this time Animal had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and did the right thing by getting married and choosing to be a good father.
Animal was not making very much money, and what he was making he was sending back home. He would end up losing 50 lbs. in body weight due to this.
Animal reveals he was actually making more money bouncing in one night than he was in a week of wrestling.
Hawk was also not making very much money in Vancouver at the time so both of them would return to Minneapolis.
Ole came back around and Eddie showed him a picture of Hawk, which he thought was Animal. When Eddie said no, that’s Mike, he realized there were two of these monsters.
Eddie went to the guys and told them they were now a tag team and were heading back to Atlanta to work.
Ole told Animal they were going to become “The Road Warriors”
The footage is shown of Hawk being interviewed about how he started watching wrestling and thought he could do it better, and when The Road Warriors debuted they were both very green.
Animal talks about how surreal starting on TV was, being surrounded by established stars like Sgt. Slaughter, Tito Santana and Dusty Rhodes.
Ole immediately establishes the guys by giving them belts and telling them to say they won them in a tournament in Chicago.
The guys would come up with their names themselves with some help from Ole.
They would soon be paired with Paul Ellering, completing the package of The Road Warriors.
Ellering would become their manager both on-screen and off.
Animal talks about how Ellering would explain to the guys things they could do in the ring.
Soon after Ole would pitch the guys on wearing face paint and having mohawks like the “heel in The Road Warrior”
As they played around with their look, it would be Hawk who would pitch their soon to be iconic ‘opposite mohawks’
Animal was the one who came up with the idea of the spiked shoulder pads.
Norton talks about how brutal the team was to their opponents in the ring, noting that Hawk would approach guys in the back to apologize in advance for what they were going to do to them in the ring.
Animal and Ellering discuss how due to their exposure on TBS SuperStation that they could work all around the world, making it their own territory.
This would lead to bookings for Verne Gagne’s AWA, the Rougeau’s territory in Montreal, Carlos Colon’s territory in Puerto Rico then back to the NWA.
Ellering talks about how moving around frequently always allowed them to be fresh and talks about the ‘Road Warriors Pop’
Animal talks about how their first trip to Japan was when he realized how huge they were getting, as there were 150 photographers awaiting their arrival, apparently more than even Michael Jackson got at the time.
Animal talks about how the Japanese fans responded to them and their style.
Talk moves to Hawk’s love for partying, and how he became involved with the Japanese mafia.
Nikita and Animal discuss how the feud between The Road Warriors and the Russian team of Nikita and Ivan Koloff would turn them babyface for the first time.
Animal talks about how Dusty Rhodes pitched the Scaffold Match between The Road Warriors and The Midnight Express.
Animal reveals that Hawk broke a small bone in part of his leg three days before in Tokyo, but still wrestled the match.
Ellering talks about Hawk self-medicating due to his pain.
Animal says it was around the end of their NWA/WCW run that he really began feeling like Hawk was getting out of control.
Darsow says he thinks that Animal was more disappointed in Hawk than anything else.
Animal talks about how due to the WWF having just signed ‘The Modern Day Warrior’ Kerry Von Erich and already having The Ultimate Warrior, Vince McMahon wanted them to come up with another name, leading to them becoming The Legion Of Doom.
Ellering says that Hawk loved watching He-Man and would come up with stories while they were on the road, leading to them swiping the name.
Darsow and Animal talk about the vicious grind of being on the road for the WWF was at the time leading to Hawk’s problem worsening.
Animal says that Hawk would fail a drug test leading to being suspended, which would leave Animal off TV as he would have nothing to do.
Nikita discusses that Hawk was never shy about hiding his drinking or drug abuse.
The footage is shown of WWF SummerSlam 1992 at Wembley Stadium. It becomes clear that Hawk was in no shape to perform on that show and how angry Animal was with him.
Following the show, Hawk quits the WWF on his own without reaching out to Animal or Ellering.
Animal tries to convince Hawk to at least finish out the dates for the WWF, but there is no reasoning with him.
Hawk works out his own deal in Japan and begins working with Kensuke Sasaki who adopts the name Power Warrior and begin working as The HellRaisers.
Animal discusses how angry he was that Hawk essentially replaced him in the same gimmick.
Animal talks about getting injured doing a handicap match, herniating a few discs.
Ellering says he felt he was done with the wrestling industry at this point.
Nikita and Animal discuss his drug abuse led to him having several near-death experiences and resulted in him in getting Hepatitis C.
He would be cured but felt that he could continue partying.
They are brought back to the WWF in 1997 with a strict contract that guarantees they make all their bookings.
The idea of having a third warrior, portrayed by Darren Drozdov is brought up.
The drunken Hawk angle is brought up, and how they wanted to portray Droz as being the instigator trying to take his place.
The infamous angle where Hawk is pushed off the TitanTron by Droz is shown.
Droz says that Hawk himself was fine with the angle, but Animal talks about how he was never comfortable with it himself.
After leaving the WWF they ended up wrestling in Australia. Due to easier access to drugs there Hawk becomes out of control once again.
Animal says that Hawk was taken to the hospital right before a show with cardiac myopathy. Animal would help Hawk get back to the US against doctor’s orders.
Animal talks about finding out about the Christian Power Team.
Nikita invites Animal to a conference in Phoenix and he brings Hawk.
Hawk would become a born again Christian and clean his life up.
Animal talks about how Hawk had just finished moving and would die due to his heart-stopping.
Ellering reveals he still had the same black van that he took the guys to their first show together and drove it to the funeral.
Everyone talks about how great of a guy Hawk truly was and how much of a loss it was when he died.
There is no arguing how influential The Road Warriors were to the professional wrestling business. While they never truly got the run in the WWF they deserved their legacy remains strong and untouchable. While not the strongest episode of the season, this episode of Dark Side Of The Ring works as a great companion piece to the DVD released by the WWE as it dives deeper into the seedier aspects of Hawk’s life. A lot of their actual career is grazed over, but it is still a fascinating look at one of the most iconic duos in wrestling history. Join us next week for the season finale looking at the tragic death of Owen Hart.