Andrew Lutzke
Presented by RF Video
Hawk and Animal worked as bouncers and Hawk was among the smallest of his crew (!).
Eddie Sharkey trained them and as they were breaking in, Jesse Ventura told them they’d never make it.
Their training was on a hard boxing ring and mats that had the stuffing fall out.
Sharkey was a poor trainer, who failed to teach the guys fundamental mechanics.
The Warriors were promised an in ring work out with Sharkey constantly finding excuses to not get in the ring with the much larger men.
Rick Rude and Demolition Smash were in training with the Warriors.
The Georgia territory pushed them from day one and the locker room was receptive to them, since the territory was dead.
Buzz Sawyer was an asshole – and never changed.
Booker Ole Anderson told the Warriors that they couldn’t work, so he just wanted them to go out and stiff the shit out of the jobbers.
Ole Anderson and Stan Hansen finally roughed them up to help the Warriors learn to work.
Animal broke in to the business in late 1982. Known as Joe Lauren, Animal was able to wrestle fellow rookie Rick Rude in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling in a clash of greenhorns, as well as losing to area stars such as Ricky Steamboat, The Brisco Brothers, Jimmy Valiant and Johnny Weaver. Meanwhile Hawk was learning the ropes up in Canada, using a Baron Von Raschke knock off gimmick:
It wasn’t long before Ole Anderson put the two men together in his slowly dying Georgia Championship Wrestling promotion and shot them right to the top. Hawk and Animal were paired with Paul Ellering, who had a stable known as the “Legion of Doom” which also had Jake Roberts, King Kong Bundy and The Spoiler. The Warriors were paired off against teams like the Brisco Brothers, Ole and Stan Hansen, Mr. Wrestling 1 and 2, Bob and Brad Armstrong, The Sawyer Brothers and many other combos.
By December, the Warriors had impressed the wrestling world so much that they were making shots in Florida and Mid-Atlantic and by January Memphis as well. King Kong Bundy took issue with some comments Paul Ellering made on GCW TV and that led to Bundy choosing various partners to go after the Warriors for the next few months.
In July Verne Gagne offered the Warriors an AWA tag title run if they’d come work for him. Therefore in late August, Baron Von Raschke and Da Crusher went down in defeat to a team with barely a year’s experience. The Warriors would go on to defend against The Fabulous Ones, Dusty Rhodes and Ole Anderson, The High Flyers, Larry and Curt Hennig, Sgt. Slaughter and Jerry Blackwell, Masa Saito and Nick Bockwinkel and other teams. Finally after months of trying to book the Warriors as heels and having the fans cheering anyway, The Warriors were turned babyface in the summer of ’85 and they started working against the Freebirds and Long Riders.
The Warriors also started to make shots elsewhere again and were a big part of JCP’s “Great American Bash” card battling NWA World tag champs Ivan and Nikita Koloff in a champion versus champion Cold War clash. By September they were working mainly for JCP, coming back to the AWA long enough to lose the titles to Jimmy Garvin and “Mr. Electricity” Steve Regal – a makeshift team that made it painfully obvious that the level in talent in the AWA was dwindling. Afterward the Warriors would appear sporadically for the AWA, while focusing on wrestling primarily for JCP.
Their early days in the NWA saw the Roadies facing the Russians mostly but their five year run in the NWA saw them battle The Midnight Express, The Four Horsemen, The Powers of Pain, The Varsity Club, The Freebirds, The Samoan SWAT team, Doom, The Steiner Brothers, Sting and Lex Luger and many many others. They would prove to be a crucial piece of the NWA package that did not allow Vince McMahon to completely over run the whole wrestling world.
Hawk says Vince McMahon is pure evil and hopes to outlive Vince so he can piss on his grave.
Animal is disappointed that he’s still in his 30’s and is considered too old to work in the WWF.
The Road Warriors agree that a WWF push can only come from kissing ass.
Vince lied to the Warriors constantly. Jim Crockett only cared about his top guys.
The Road Warriors were paid a whole year by Vince to stay home, since Vince felt they were a bad influence on the locker room.
Vince’s “Attitude” centric business model is going to hurt them in the long term as they can’t both promote to kids and charities at the same time as going on TV and screaming “Suck it!”
In 1992, Vince wanted the Warriors to grow out their hair, ditch the face paint and change their names.
The Warriors felt Ole Anderson was a stand-up guy and guys didn’t like him since he told them to their face how he felt, regardless if it was bad or not.
Verne Gagne struggled to comprehend why his push of the Road Warriors as heels wasn’t working and instead the Warriors were getting pops.
Hawk goes off on Vince and proclaims that Vince will burn in Hell.
The Road Warriors refused to follow Verne’s booking wishes and they took liberties with the Fabulous Ones to spite Verne.
Scott Norton (who had yet to even start wrestling training at the time of the story) was hired to sit in the Georgia office in 1984 and wait for WWF employees to show up. Norton was to legit kick the ass of any one who started trouble for GCW.
Hawk regrets the Warriors never faced Bruiser Brody and Stan Hansen in the ultimate stiff match.
Animal puts over Yoshi Yatsu and Riki Choshu for putting great matches on with the Warriors in Japan.
The Funks “passed the torch” to the Warriors as being “the team” in Japan.
The Warriors would threaten Verne Gagne frequently to quit the AWA and would toss the tag belts at Verne and head for the exits.
After losing the AWA belts, The Warriors were scheduled to eventually regain them – but the Warriors cut a much better deal with Jim Crockett and never came back to the AWA for any length of time.
Hawk felt the New Age Outlaws worked as babyfaces when they were supposed to be heeling it up.
Vince promised the Warriors a big push if they spent 1997/98 putting over new talent. The push never came.
Hawk credits himself with getting Kensuke Sasaki over to a main event level in Japan.
Rydell was making Hawk a sweet deal on production costs on his spiked shoulder pads, so when he went over to Japan, he brought a pair along for Sasaki and the Japan crew was amazed at Hawk’s generosity as New Japan had just paid $5,000 for a pair of metal shoulder pads for Sasaki. To show their gratitude, the office gave Hawk two pair of custom made boots that cost 2 grand a piece.
Animal points out how the level of respect in Japan allows for old guys like Terry Funk and Stan Hansen to stay massively over. They wish America would take a similar approach.
The Warriors were flattered by Vince creating Demolition, since it showed what a great gimmick the Warriors were.
Sting was almost cut by Jim Crockett in 1987, but the Warriors convinced Crockett to keep him and make him a singles match style “Road Warrior” type of gimmick and eventually the Warriors would take him in as a “brother in paint”.
Hawk and Animal were a close extension to who Joe and Mike really were in real life.
The Warriors could read each other’s mind and their in ring timing was amazing because of it.
Animal claims that they and the Midnight Express worked over 100 scaffold matches. (I suspect this is WAY off).
The Powers of Pain didn’t want to take the bumps off the scaffold and Animal told them to quit in protest.
The Warriors were so over, they didn’t worry about being champions to draw big money.
Animal wanted to debut in the WWF in 1990 by being Hogan’s mystery partners and start making monster money from day one.
They defend steroid usage as being legal when they broke in, as well as the increased recovery time from injuries that steroids can help with.
HGH has replaced steroids as the legal monster body causing meds.
Hawk accidentally knocked out Lex Luger during War Games since he was so excited to fight after sitting outside the cage for almost 20 minutes.
The Warriors say their 1988 heel turn didn’t work because no one was over enough to cause the fans to cheer them over the Warriors. Animal says Hogan would’ve been the only possibility.
Animal says the fans cheered when they “blinded” Dusty Rhodes and attacked Sting.
Paul Ellering was making 300 grand a year in the NWA to just manage the Warriors. Tully and Arn got wind of this and bailed to the WWF.
They agree with each other that Bobby Eaton was the best worker they ever faced.
The Warriors bury Tully and talk up all the accomplishments of Paul Ellering.
Animal claims they foresaw Jim Crockett’s collapse since they could see things like the private plane JCP used as unnecessary costs that compounded the company’s financial woes. Animal says the plane cost $16,000 to operate per every flight it was used.
They put over the Steiners’ working abilities.
Animal claims they didn’t mind doing jobs, as long as it made sense – otherwise no way.
Hawk suspects the arguments he and Vince had in 1992 led to Vince jobbing the Warriors out in the late 90’s.
Vince made promises of financial gain to the Warriors in 1990 that led to the Warriors jumping ship to the WWF. Animal says the first two years saw the Warriors make $200,000 less than promised.
In 1997 Vince called the Warriors to come back and gave them a light schedule (130 dates a year + 30 personal appearances) that appealed to the Warriors greatly.
The WWF locker room was much better than WCW which was full of cliques.
Hawk suspects Nash will be out politically maneuvered by Hogan in WCW and then end up in the WWF doing jobs.
Animal blames WCW for terrible contracts that led to big names sitting at home.
Bret Hart is a class act and a good friend of the Warriors.
The Warriors wish they could get back in WCW and show them how to do business by setting an example.
Hawk feels the WWF rushed the Warriors versus Demolition program. Hawk suspects Vince just wanted to dump Demolition ASAP.
Hawk claims that they didn’t do jobs because they weren’t asked to for a long time.
The Warriors were apprehensive to job to the New Age Outlaws since the NAO were jobbers with no credibility. WWF said they will get over if you put them over, then we’ll do a feud. The feud never came to pass.
The Nasty Boyz were great guys but the shits in the ring. A lot of fun to party with.
The Road Warriors hated the “Rocko” puppet that they had to use as a mascot in the WWF after Wrestlemania 8. They figure it was just a way for Vince to screw with them.
Animal was hurt in Japan by taking a bad bump off a double suplex, forcing Hawk to team with Crush before leaving the WWF. (The guys some how screwed this up in their heads – Hawk quit and Animal partnered with Crush)
Hawk liked ECW since it was “old school blood and guts”.
Bischoff signed a letter of intent with the Warriors to join WCW in 1996, but the Warriors bailed quick when they didn’t like what was going down in WCW. (IIRC They wanted a raise when Hall and Nash came in for big money and WCW balked).
Hawk and Randy Savage came to blows over a woman in Japan. Hawk won the fight quickly. 3 years later Savage sucker punched Hawk and security broke the fight up. Hawk is now suing Savage since Randy’s girlfriend Gorgeous George attacked Hawk’s wife. Hawk says Savage hits like a girl.
Hawk mocks Savage since George has left him, took a car and money and now does porn.
The Warriors are trying to get a cartoon started.
Animal was disappointed that Vince didn’t give them a substantial tag title run in the late 90’s and feels it was bad business.
Too many angles started that saw the Warriors get embarrassed or beat and then received no comeuppance in the booking.
Hawk wonders if the rumors of Shawn Michaels and Vince being lovers are true since Shawn received such preferential treatment. “A ball and cock contract.”
Vince told the Warriors that doing jobs wouldn’t hurt them, so they told Vince to have Stone Cold start doing jobs.
They didn’t like Sunny as a manager, since Sunny wanted to be the star of the team.
Hawk claims Vince made them do the “drunk” gimmick to ruin their charity work as well as their cartoon. Droz was supposed to be revealed as giving Hawk the drugs in order to take Hawk’s spot. Hawk liked the angle since the WWF finally gave them a real angle. Animal thought they should have gone all the way and had Hawk redeemed after vignettes of Hawk in rehab etc. etc.
Steve Austin was a loner but would talk to you if you went to him.
Animal thought Austin would have been the next Flair had his neck not been injured.
They feel the Montreal Incident was one of the worst things to happen in wrestling history.
Bret put in 17 years in business and Vince crapped on him. Davey Boy Smith was ready to pound Shawn.
Hawk was disgusted by Vince saying that Owen might have triggered his own death.
Owen hated the stunt and Animal tried to talk Owen out of it. Animal avoided Vince at the funeral. Animal claims Vince paid for 200 limos for the funeral and refurbished the whole Hart House and property.
Hawk says it’s too bad that Shawn didn’t fall to his death at Wrestlemania 12 when he did the zipline spot.
Hawk feels Nailz was justified for going after Vince since Vince was lying to Nailz about business.
The WWF was a whole new world for the Road Warriors and their first goal was to eliminate their “imposters” Demolition. After chasing Ax out of the WWF and beating Crush and Smash into oblivion, the LOD were able to focus on chasing the tag team titles. They were well on their way to winning a number one contender’s battle royal, when Power and Glory foiled the LOD’s dreams by helping the Nasty Boyz win instead.
(Bonus – check out Tanaka’s nasty bump at about the 57 second mark)
The LOD would go on to maul Power and Glory at Wrestlemania, then beat the Nasty Boyz at Summerslam ’91 for the World tag titles. LOD spent much of the next 6 months colliding with the massive Natural Disasters. However, it would be Ted Dibiase and IRS who would upend the LOD for the gold though and the LOD lost much of their push from the WWF office. They were saddled with a “mascot” dummy and placed in a feud with the Beverly Brothers. Hawk would quit that Fall and Animal was injured a few weeks later. The Road Warriors were no more.
Hawk worked Japan, SMW, ECW and even some WCW shots until he and Animal reunited in WCW in 1996. They had a brief run but quit in protest over contractual matters. They next hit the big time when they returned to the WWF in 1997. A solid push never really came through, although they had some high profile matches with the Nation of Domination and Hart Foundation – but by late 1997 the LOD was putting over glorified jobbers Jesse James and Billy Gunn in an effort to get Vince Russo’s project over. Even after DX beat down the LOD and shaved Hawk’s head, no comeuppance would be found.
The LOD seemed to be building towards a split heading into Wrestlemania 14, but instead they were given new gear and a briefly renewed push…but within a few weeks they were stuck in an endless feud with D.O.A. and Droz was added to the act. Later in the year, they ran an angle where Hawk was on drugs and slowly going off the deep end. The implication was that Droz was behind this, but the angle never culminated – despite Droz pushing Hawk off the Titantron “accidently” while Hawk was in a suicidal mood.
The LOD were taken off TV and kept at home for over a year. Eventually the LOD were able to work indies for a few years and even made a one-time WWF return as a team.
Hawk would die tragically young in late 2003 and was not able to see the WWE make peace with the Road Warriors – releasing a DVD of their careers as well as inducting them into the Hall of Fame after Animal made one final run in the company – this time with Heidenreich as a partner.
The new guys don’t ask for help and do things like bash Flair’s physique. WCW at least doesn’t discriminate due to age from a booking stand point.
Animal is considered “Old” now despite being 3 years younger than Sting.
Rick Rude was always underrated. The Road Warriors enjoyed working with Rude and Manny Fernandez.
The Warriors thank the guys who put them over for 15 years.
Animal wants one more run in WCW or Japan where they plan a final match and build an angle to it – then retire and stay retired. Hawk wants to be in radio.
They love Japan and had non-stop fun on most tours.
The WWF didn’t let them work from December 29th, 1998 until May 17th of 2000 while paying them to sit at home. They worked one match the entire period and that was the Giant Baba Memorial Show.
Final Thoughts: I love the Road Warriors – almost undoubtedly my favorite tag team of all time. That being said, I thought this shoot was fun, despite the bitterness that both men had at this point in time. They hit on the high points, talked some trash and never made it feel like they were holding back – all the makings of a great shoot. If you’re a fan of the Roadies, strongly recommended!
