The Road Warriors

In 1984, **the Road Warriors** (Hawk and Animal) debuted in the American Wrestling Association (AWA) along with their manager Paul Ellering. On August 25, 1984, they defeated The Crusher and Baron von Raschke for the AWA World Tag Team Championship. They feuded primarily with The Fabulous Ones and later The Fabulous Freebirds. The Warriors then began splitting their time between the AWA and World Championship Wrestling, where they started feuding with WCW World Tag Team Champions The Russians, all while still holding the AWA belts. Hawk and Animal eventually lost the AWA titles to Jimmy Garvin and "Mr. Electricity" Steve Regal on September 29, 1985, due to the interference of the Freebirds. The Road Warriors' last appearance in the AWA was on April 20, 1986 at WrestleRock, where they defeated the team of Garvin and Michael Hayes in a steel cage match.

On April 19, 1986, The Road Warriors won the inaugural Jim Crockett, Sr. Memorial Cup Tag Team Tournament by beating Ron Garvin and Magnum T.A. in the finals. Building upon their rapid push, Hawk and Animal were featured attractions of The Great American Bash 1986 tour, where they were matched against Ivan and Nikita Koloff as well as the Midnight Express. At Starrcade '86, the Road Warriors were featured in a scaffold match, defeating the Midnight Express.

The Warriors joined forces with Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Koloff in a bloody feud with The Four Horsemen. During the 1987 Great American Bash, the rival sides faced off in the first ever WarGames match. The Road Warriors were on the winning side of WarGames with both matches that summer taking their feud with the Horsemen to Starrcade '87, where they lost by disqualification to Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson. The Road Warriors also picked up the WCW World Six-Man Tag Team Championship twice alongside Dusty Rhodes. The Warriors engaged in a violent feud with The Powers of Pain (The Barbarian and The Warlord) where the Road Warriors finally met their equal physically, but the angle ended when the Powers of Pain left WCW.

In 1988, Hawk and Animal turned heel, attacking substitute partner Sting during a defense of the Six-Man Championship. They finally won the WCW World Tag Team Championship on October 29, 1988 in New Orleans, Louisiana at a house show against the Midnight Express. During the November 26 episode of *World Championship Wrestling*, the Road Warriors attacked Rhodes, removed a spike from their shoulder pads, and attempted to gouge his eye out. Rhodes was fired for that episode shortly after Starrcade '88. Before Rhodes was fired, Animal beat him at the *Clash of the Champions*, so the Road Warriors were allowed to pick a new partner to hold the WCW World Six-Man Tag Team titles; they picked Genichiro Tenryu but the titles were quickly abandoned.

The Road Warriors quickly turned face yet again due to overwhelming fan support no matter how brutal or violent they were. Their World Tag Team title reign came to an end when they faced The Varsity Club (Mike Rotunda and Steve Williams) on April 2, 1989. The title change was a controversial one as referee Teddy Long performed an excessively fast count. Long would be fired from his job due to the count but the titles were not returned to the Road Warriors. Hawk and Animal would spend the rest of their tenure in World Championship Wrestling feuding with teams like The Samoan Swat Team and The Skyscrapers. Their last big wins in WCW came when they defeated three other teams (including the red hot Steiner Brothers) to win the *Ironman Tag Team Tournament* at Starrcade 1989 (The Steiners actually defeated the Warriors by pinfall in their match, but the Warriors won the round robin style tournament on a point system basis) and over The Skyscrapers in a Chicago Street Fight at WrestleWar '90: Wild Thing.

The Road Warriors made their last WCW pay-per-view appearance on May 19, 1990 at Capital Combat, where they teamed with Norman “The Lunatic” against Kevin Sullivan, Cactus Jack and Bam Bam Bigelow in a match that was cut from the commercial tape of the event. They left WCW in June 1990.

When Hawk and Animal signed with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in June 1990,  the Road Warriors moniker was retired. They both made their television debuts on the July 15, 1990 episode of *Wrestling Challenge*. In the WWF, the team would be known only as the "**Legion of Doom**". Despite the altered team name, they were still individually introduced as "Road Warrior" Hawk and "Road Warrior" Animal.

Hawk and Animal immediately entered into a feud with Demolition, which led into a televised six-man tag-team match where Hawk and Animal teamed up with WWF World Heavyweight Champion Ultimate Warrior against all three members of Demolition. The Legion of Doom/Demolition feud did not have the expected intensity because of the change and LOD soon set their sights on the WWF Tag Team Championships. At SummerSlam 1991 in Madison Square Garden, the Legion of Doom defeated The Nasty Boys in a no disqualification street fight to win the World Tag Team Championship, becoming the only team to win world tag titles in all three of the top promotions of the 1980s. Hawk and Animal would eventually lose the titles to Money Inc. (IRS (Mike Rotunda) and Ted DiBiase) on February 7, 1992 after which they briefly left the promotion.

LOD would return a short time later with their original manager Paul Ellering at WrestleMania VIII. The team later incorporated a ventriloquist dummy called "Rocco" (Originally introduced as "Freckles" in front of a live crowd at a WWF television Taping; the segment bombed so badly that it never aired) which served as their “inspiration”, but this gimmick was short-lived. Hawk left the company immediately after SummerSlam 1992, where LOD rode to the ring on motorbikes in front of over 80,000 fans. Hawk would be replaced with former Demolition member Crush (now repackaged from his Demolition character to being a face, becoming a tanned muscle guy from the beaches of his native Hawaii) replacing Hawk on house shows in Europe in mid September 1992, after Hawk left the WWF. Crush and Animal teamed to defeat The Beverly Brothers five times and Kato and Skinner once. Paul Ellering also joined Crush and Animal in some six-man tag team matches. When the newly-formed team returned to North America, Animal and Crush both started wrestling singles matches and the team was no more. Shortly afterwards, Animal then left the WWF, because an injury to his back forced him into a lengthy hiatus.

The Road Warriors signed a contract with WCW in late 1995. Upon their return in January 1996, they immediately started a feud with the returning Steiner Brothers, as well as Harlem Heat, before moving on to challenging the WCW Tag Team Champions Sting and Lex Luger. The Road Warriors had several shots at the champions but failed to win the titles. Hawk and Animal stayed with WCW for about six months, before leaving again.

After leaving WCW, the duo made their surprise return to the WWF on the February 24, 1997 edition of *Monday Night Raw*, where they destroyed the Headbangers, despite both teams being counted out. The Legion of Doom then went on to team with Ahmed Johnson to face Faarooq, Crush, and Savio Vega of the Nation of Domination in a street fight at WrestleMania 13 in their home town of Chicago. After defeating The Nation,they went on to perform the *Doomsday Device* on the team of PG-13. Before the match, Ahmed was given special shoulder pads like the LOD wear, however they were never returned. The Legion of Doom would be heavily involved in the feud with the Hart Foundation, siding with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ken Shamrock and Goldust at In Your House: Canadian Stampede. The Legion of Doom also became two-time WWF Tag Team Champions on October 13, 1997 when they defeated The Godwinns. In November 1997, the Legion of Doom faced the newly formed New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) and lost the titles to the upstart team.

The Legion of Doom would challenge the Outlaws several times in the next couple of months but could not win the gold. On one episode of *Raw*, the Outlaws shaved the head of Road Warrior Hawk and were beaten down further by D-Generation X. On February 23, 1998, on *Raw*, the Legion of Doom seemed to have won the Tag Team titles back when they hit the Doomsday Device, but as Animal went for the pin, the referee was distracted by Hawk's celebration, allowing the Outlaws to take advantage and win the match. After the match, the Legion of Doom brawled with one another out of frustration and weren't seen on WWE television after that, indicating that the team was disbanded for good.

Hawk and Animal next appeared as **Legion of Doom 2000**, billed as an updated version of the Road Warriors “for the new millennium”, at WrestleMania XIV during a tag team battle royal. The duo sported a new look, including new shoulder pads and helmets (the helmets wouldn't last long, as Hawk got rid of his by throwing it to the crowd) and a new manager in Sunny. LOD 2000 won the battle royal and earned a shot at the tag team titles, but did not manage to win the gold.

Sunny soon left the team and Droz, then known as Puke, started to accompany them to the ring. At the same time, Paul Ellering returned, but sided with the Disciples of Apocalypse (DOA), whom LOD were feuding with at the time; Ellering and Animal explained on the DVD it was hard for them to rip on each other on promos. For the second time in the history of the Road Warriors they participated in a storyline where tension arose between the members, teasing a break up. In this storyline, Hawk was seen by his partner Animal as unfit to wrestle and Puke was tapped to take Hawk's place in the tag team as an official member. The angle played off Hawk's drug issues, going so far as to faking a suicide jump off the top of the titantron. The The Legion of Doom made a very brief return, first on the March 22, 1999 *Raw is War* by attacking Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco in a backstage skit after the two impersonated LOD in a handicap match against Shane McMahon, on the March 15, 1999 *Raw is War*. Both LOD entered the pre-WrestleMania battle royal with the last two participants getting a tag team title shot later at WrestleMania XV but both came up short. They would make one final appearance on the March 29, 1999 *Raw*, challenging Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett for the tag team titles but failed them; they left the WWF afterwards.

Animal would return to World Championship Wrestling and competed solo in WCW in early 2001, before the WWF bought the company in March 2001.

The Road Warriors' last appearance as a team occurred on the May 12, 2003 *Raw* episode, in a tag team match against the World Tag Team Champions Rob Van Dam and Kane.

On April 2, 2011, The Road Warriors, along with Paul Ellering, were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by Dusty Rhodes.