Animal

The Road Warrior

In 1986, Animal (along with his tag partner Hawk) debuted as The Road Warriors in World Championship Wrestling, where they instantly won the inaugural Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup Tag Team Tournament and feuded with top stars such as The Four Horsemen and The Russian Team. During their initial run in WCW, they helped popularize the WarGames match, the Scaffold match, and their trademark Chicago Street Fight.

In 1988, the Road Warriors engaged in a violent feud with The Powers of Pain (The Barbarian and The Warlord) the first team that could truly match the Road Warriors in power (and who were one of the most well known Road Warrior clones). The Powers of Pain even went so far as to injure Animal's eye (kayfabe) during a weightlifting competition. When Animal returned, he initially wore a hockey goalie mask to protect his eye. The angle abruptly ended when the Powers of Pain left WCW.

Near the end of 1988, the Road Warriors captured the WCW World Tag Team Championship from The Midnight Express whom they mauled in short order to win the titles. After being the "uncrowned champions" for a long time the Road Warriors' run with the tag team titles was short lived. Teddy Long used a fast count to cheat the Road Warriors out of their titles. In their last year with their initial WCW run, the Warriors feuded mainly with The Varsity Club, The Samoan Swat Team, and The Skyscrapers before leaving in the summer of 1990.

The Road Warriors immediately signed with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1990 and were pushed into a feud with the most famous of all "Road Warrior Clones", Demolition. Due to the ailing health of one of Demolition (Ax) he was replaced by Crush but the magic of the original Demolition was gone and the feud did not live up to the high hopes of the fans.

Just over a year after signing with the WWF, the Legion of Doom won the WWF Tag Team Championship and held it for about eight months. When they lost the titles, they briefly left the WWF, only to return with longtime manager Paul Ellering by their side, as well as a wooden ventriloquist dummy called "Rocco". Hawk departed the WWF immediately following SummerSlam 1992, leaving Animal on his own for the first time. Animal went ahead and finished his contractual obligations with the WWF, as a singles wrestler and occasionally teaming with former rival Crush, formerly of Demolition. During a handicap match in Japan against the Beverly Brothers in September 1992, Animal legitimately injured his back from a botched double suplex and had to take a lengthy hiatus. His last match was a victory over Papa Shango in San Francisco, California on October 16.

Animal made some non-wrestling appearances in WCW in 1993. On August 18, at the Clash of the Champions, Animal made his appearance, getting out of a black Camaro Z28 indicating his partner Hawk was Dustin Rhodes' mystery partner against Rick Rude and The Equalizer. On September 19, at Fall Brawl, Animal was the advisor for Sting's team, consisting of Sting, Davey Boy Smith, Dustin Rhodes, and The Shockmaster for WarGames, defeating Big Van Vader, Sid Vicious, and Harlem Heat.

Near the end of 1995, Animal's back had finally recovered enough for him to return to active competition. Three years after everyone thought the Road Warriors had ended, they reunited and signed a contract with World Championship Wrestling. Upon their return in January 1996, they immediately started a feud with the Steiner Brothers, who returned in March, and Harlem Heat, before moving on to challenge the WCW Tag Team Champions Sting and Lex Luger. The Road Warriors had several shots at the champions but never won the title in the six months they were with the company. The Steiner Brothers also arrived shortly after the Warriors did, and feuded with them to try to prove who the best team of all time was. The Steiners got the better of the feud and the Warriors left WCW in June 1996.

After leaving WCW they returned to the WWF where the Legion of Doom took part in the Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. the Hart Foundation feud, siding with Austin against the Harts. The Legion of Doom also became two-time tag team champions on October 7, 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.

After several unsuccessful challenges the L.O.D. were repackaged as **Legion of Doom 2000** with manager Sunny, although she did not stay with the team for long. At the same time, Paul Ellering returned, but sided with D.O.A., whom L.O.D. were feuding with at the time.

In 1998, the Legion of Doom became involved in their most controversial angle; having Hawk exhibit drug and alcohol problems. Hawk started to show up drunk or "unable to perform" on TV. As Hawk proved more and more erratic and unreliable, a third L.O.D. member, Puke, was introduced to team with Animal while Hawk dealt with his personal issues. The storyline ended with accusations that Puke had been the "enabler" of Hawk's problems, exploiting them to take Hawk's place in the team. During the controversial segment, Hawk was shown to have fallen off the TitanTron. Animal and Hawk left the WWF soon after.

In 2001, Animal landed a prominent position in WCW as the "enforcer" of the stable known as The Magnificent Seven with the objective to protect WCW World Champion Scott Steiner. The Magnificent Seven split up shortly before Vince McMahon purchased WCW; Animal's contract was not one of the contracts the WWF picked up.

Animal and Hawk made a surprise appearance on *Raw* on May 12, 2003 when they took on Kane and Rob Van Dam for the World Tag Team Championship. Hawk would die five months later, on October 19, 2003.

Animal made a return to WWE on the July 14 episode of *SmackDown!* in 2005, where he was challenged by the then-WWE Tag Team Champions MNM to a title match at The Great American Bash. Finding a new tag team partner in Heidenreich, Animal went on to defeat MNM for the titles, dedicating the win to Hawk by saying, "Hawk, this one was for you, brother!" The two would team up for a few months in a new chapter of the Legion of Doom, with Heidenreich adopting the L.O.D.'s shoulder pads, face paint, and mohawk haircut. However, this came to an end with Heidenreich's release from WWE on January 17, 2006.

On the March 3, 2006, episode of *SmackDown!*, Animal teamed up with Matt Hardy to face MNM. After he and Hardy lost the match, Animal turned heel for the second time in his career by attacking and injuring Hardy's knee. Animal reasoned that he had realized that Hardy and Heidenreich were screw-ups and that Road Warrior Hawk was the only tag team legend and partner for him. After the heel turn, Animal, known simply as **The Road Warrior**, would drop many aspects of the well-known Road Warrior gimmick, losing the face paint, and shoulder pads. On the March 17 episode of *SmackDown!*, Animal lost to Hardy in a Money in the Bank qualifying match. Animal was defeated by United States Champion Chris Benoit on the March 31 episode of *SmackDown!*.

In his final WWE match, Animal defeated Paul Burchill on the May 6, 2006, episode of *Velocity*. On June 26, 2006, Animal was released from his WWE contract.

WWE announced on March 28, 2011, on *WWE Raw* that the Road Warriors would be inducted into the 2011 class of the Hall of Fame.

On the July 20, 2012, episode of *WWE SmackDown* on Syfy, Animal returned to face Heath Slater in honor of *Raw*'s 1,000th episode. He went on to squash Slater. He then reappeared on the actual 1,000th episode on July 23 with other WWE Legends to help Lita take down Slater.

Animal passed away on September 22, 2020.