Rood sold me.
Jim Crockett Promotions out of Charlotte, North Carolina, owned and operated the MCW territory of the NWA. Jim Crockett Sr. had been promoting wrestling, concerts, and minor league baseball since the ’30s and over time built up a local empire. In 1973, when Jim Crockett Sr. passed away, his son Jim Crocket Jr. took the lead.
As soon as I arrived in Charlotte, I met up with Rood and got a small room at this dive motel near the airport. Catching up with him was fun and made me feel at home.
A lot of the other guys stayed there, too. Rood introduced me to Joe LeDuc, a true veteran of the business and a great guy. Joe gave us rides all the time to the studio forty-five minutes away where MCW taped their TV programs. If it weren’t for Joe, I don’t know what we would’ve done.
When the time came for my first match, I was surprised and a little relieved to be booked with Rood. At least I knew his style from our days at Eddie’s school. His in-ring ability was the same as mine at that point: horrible.
We were the second match on the card in front of a packed house at the Fayetteville Civic Center. We were told to go for a twenty-minute Broadway. That meant we’d have to wrestle to a time limit draw of twenty minutes. I got nervous. Twenty minutes is a long time for a match, let alone a match between two rookies.
Rood and I had no idea what to do. We thought we could randomly throw on moves we’d seen the other guys do in their matches. Man, were we wrong.
Five minutes into the match, Rood threw on a figure-four leg-lock, and referee Tommy Young went nuts on us. “You can’t do that. That’s Ric Flair’s finishing move.”
When we got up, I grabbed Rood and put him in a massive bear hug.
“No, no, no. That’s Joe LeDuc’s finish.”
Great. Now what? Rood’s and my repertoire consisted of nothing more than running tackles, hip tosses, and body slams, for the most part. We went out there with nothing to work with.
I know the guys were watching us in the back getting blown up, out of breath, and scrambling aimlessly in the ring and laughing their asses off. During the match, you could see all of their heads poking through the curtain in the back so they could catch a glimpse of us. Lord knows none of them ever tried to show us anything. Back in those days, there was very little guidance for new guys. Most of the established guys were too busy worrying about their t in the company to worry about us.
When it was over, Rood and I went to the back and laughed it off as a learning experience.
Soon after, Rood got injured and went back to Minnesota to rest up.
Another important lesson I came to learn during this time was that it didn’t matter how big and strong I was. Here I was feeling and looking like a monster, and yet I was wrestling nine times a week for about $150. What did matter was how over with the crowd you were. The more over you were, the more money you made. It was that simple.
I might’ve been getting a little impatient at my underpaid jobber status, but I knew it was my time to pay dues. Eventually I started getting more comfortable in the ring and occasionally one of the top guys—like Ric Flair, Jerry Brisco, or Ricky Steamboat—would let me get a little offense in, which helped give me some credibility.
I remember when Ric Flair, the NWA World Heavyweight champion, let me body slam him on TV. We locked up early in the match, and Ric whispered, “Kick me in the stomach and slam me.” So I did. Pow! Then I scooped him up and slammed him down hard. It was a big thrill, even if short lived.
There’s no question that each time I had a match with those guys I learned a little more, but my biggest lesson came at the hands of an old-time favorite of the Mid-Atlantic region, Johnny Weaver. Weaver had been around since the ’60s and had won single and tag team titles in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina.
By the time I met up with him in the ring that night, he was pushing fifty years old. I was beating the crap out of him the whole time, and all of a sudden he started shaking his left arm like he was having a seizure. You see, Johnny used to do this thing when he made a comeback during a match. He’d signal to the audience by raising one of his arms straight up, pointing his first two fingers in the air, shaking wildly.
The fans went berserk as Johnny started making his comeback with a flurry of punches to my head. Then he whipped me into the ropes and sank into a sleeper hold. As I was going out, the ref called for the bell, which surprised me.
I mean, I knew from the beginning Johnny was going to win, but I didn’t know it was going to be with a sleeper hold. I felt humiliated. I wondered how the crowd could ever believe that a skinny old man like Johnny Weaver could beat my ass, let alone with a sleeper.
I walked to the back, and there was Sgt. Slaughter and Don Kernodle laughing their heads off at me. Slaughter, or “Sarge” as I called him, was always someone I could approach.
“Man, there ain’t nobody in the world who’d believe Johnny Weaver could put me to sleep,” I said.
Sarge and Kernodle looked at each other and burst into laughter again. “Brother,” Sarge said, “you got your next lesson. This business is a total work. Check your concept of reality at the door. Anything can happen and usually does.”
Something else I had to grow accustomed to was the traveling, the grueling hours spent driving from town to town in cramped rental cars and staying in roadside motels. This was actually the way most of my time was spent, and there were some memorable experiences to say the least.
Once we were staying at some dump motel in Richmond, Virginia, and a bunch of us were having a few beers and unwinding. Roddy Piper thought he’d break me in a little bit and give me some words of advice.
“C’mere, kid,” Roddy said. Then he told the waitress, “Gimme two glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s for my friend and me.”
I didn’t know Roddy from a hole in the wall, but he was a top guy in the company. If he wanted to be generous with drinks, I’d let him. He was sucking that Jack down with beer chasers like it was the last beverage on earth, and he pushed a shot of whiskey my way.
Personally, I always thought whiskey tasted like piss, but out of respect for Roddy, I pounded it down and decided to pick his brain a little. “How do you do it out there?”
Piper was always great in the ring and seemed so relaxed. He looked at me and said, “It’s just experience, kid. Experience.”
Then I asked him a funny one. “Do you think I could ever make it to your level?”
He leaned back and smiled. “I hope you do well, kid, but it’s doubtful you’ll ever make it in this business.”
Talk about a deflation! I was so pissed that I went back to my room, lay down on the bed, and cursed Roddy Piper’s name. Old bastard, I thought. We’ll see who makes it.
When I woke up in the morning, a bunch of wrestlers were running around saying something had happened to Mike Rotunda (WWF superstar Irwin R. Scheister, I.R.S.). I had no idea what the hell they were talking about until Sarge bumped into me and told me the story.
Apparently, Mike had been completely hammered the night before and decided to go skinny-dipping. In order to make it to the pool, you had to scale a chain-link fence. Mike made the initial climb over just fine and had his drunken swim. However, when he was making his return climb over, he caught his dick on a piece of the fence and peeled back all of the skin from top to bottom. Mike was so drunk he didn’t even realize it, staggered to his room, and passed out.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when Rotunda woke up and saw blood everywhere, that he discovered what had happened. As the story goes, Mike performed a little self-surgery and pulled the skin back into place and held it until he made it to the hospital. What a nightmare!
Eventually, the months of traveling up, down, and around Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina were wearing me down. With the pittance I was making, I could only afford a half bag of pretzel sticks and a gallon of milk during any given week. Fortunately there were those like Sarge who would treat me to Burger King once in a while so I could
have a hamburger and fries. He also occasionally took me to shows in his big camouflaged limo, which was cool, but I was having real doubts about MCW. Contrary to Ole’s words, Crockett was not taking care of me at all.
My morale wasn’t the only thing shrinking. During those three months on the road, my weight dropped from about 275 pounds to 225 pounds. At night I stared at the ceiling and questioned every second of what I was doing. I also wondered how little Joey was doing at home.
While I was gone, Joey stayed mostly with Nancy, but my mom and dad brought him to their house for visits, too. I knew everyone in my family felt my attempt at wrestling was crazy, but I had to try it. I knew I could be a big earner for Joey if things worked out.
Right now, it wasn’t working for us. My frustration finally culminated into a meeting with Crockett. I went right into his office and explained my situation.
Crockett didn’t even blink when he told me there was nothing he could do. “This is the way the business works.” He said he was just doing Ole a favor until things cleared up in Georgia.
Well, I wasn’t waiting any longer. I’d had it. I decided to quit wrestling and go home for Christmas. I arrived back in Minnesota burnt out and with a bitter taste in my mouth. Reluctantly, I moved back in with my parents until I could get back on my feet. I imagined my father putting up job postings on the fridge again, and I shuddered. Feeling the pressure, I started doing any temporary work I could find to bring in some cash.
For a while I was loading boxes onto UPS tractor trailers from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Believe it or not, I even went back to my dead-end job and worked in what I called “the cave,” a dismal room where I had to assemble various high-tech machine parts. I wasn’t happy, but it was great to be back home and around Joey. Every time I looked into his eyes, though, I knew I had to get things seriously back into motion.
Back home, everyone wanted to hear about my exploits in the world of professional wrestling. I let my feelings loose and made it clear that going down to Georgia was a horrible mistake and that Ole Anderson had fed me false hopes on the way to a dead end. Word got around quickly, and there was at least one person who took offense and decided to let me know: Rick Martel.
Rick was a well-established French Canadian wrestler who eventually became the AWA World Heavyweight champion before embarking on a run in the WWF as Rick “The Model” Martel. One day while I was working out at The Gym, Rick happened to be there and approached me with his two cents. In his thick French accent, he said, “Joe, I want to give you some advice. I know you went down to Georgia and didn’t have a great experience. But you might want to watch what you say about the business. You might get hurt.”
Oh, brother. Was he kidding? I cut him off. “Rick, let me tell you something. Those guys down there have my number and address. They can find me anytime. There ain’t no one down there I can’t handle, and that goes for you, too.”
Rick jumped back, surprised.
I didn’t mince words as I told him about being shuffled around from Atlanta to the Carolinas, starving. The expression on his face made it clear he didn’t care, so I saved my breath and went about my workout.
A couple days later, I was at my parents’ house with Joey when the phone rang. I couldn’t believe it. It was Ole. I guess his ears had been ringing down in Atlanta.
“Hey, kid. How’s it going?”
I wanted to reach through the phone and wring his neck. “You’ve got a lot of balls calling this house. You brought me down there, pushed me off to Crockett, and forgot about me. I want to break your neck, man.” I had so much pent-up frustration toward Ole that I blew up on him. I cussed him out left and right, calling him every name in the book.
To his credit, Ole listened, apologized, and explained things from his point of view. He said how his hands had been tied while fighting with Jim Barnett over GCW, but he assured me that things had been worked out and Barnett was gone. Then Ole asked me the big question: “Hey, Joe, you want to give it another try?”
Wow. I hadn’t seen that one coming. Truth was, I didn’t know. And that’s what I told him. We agreed to talk again down the road.
In the meantime, I went to work. Dropping weight had been depressing as hell. Now that I was eating and lifting normally, my body’s muscle memory kicked in and the pounds packed on. Before I knew it, I was close to 300 pounds again and feeling good.
I also got back in touch with both Rood and Mike Hegstrand. While I had been gone on my little adventures with GCW and MCW, Hegstrand and a healed up Rood had unsuccessfully gone to try their luck in Vancouver, wrestling for Al Tomko’s NWA All-Star Championship Wrestling. We exchanged stories of our less-than-stellar debuts and had a good laugh.
Mike told me that when those guys in Vancouver got a look at him, they had a revelation: “Let’s give this guy an evil German gimmick.” Mike hated it. They made him shave his head, gave him the claw as his finisher,6 and named him Crusher Von Haig. “Aw c’mon. Not the claw.” Mike groaned. “Anything but the claw.” It was funny as hell. Crusher Von Haig was a typical, cliché gimmick that paralleled Baron von Raschke, a well-known wrestler in the AWA and NWA territories.
After only wrestling three matches, and vomiting after each of them, Mike had had enough. With Rood in tow, Mike fled Canada and came back to Minnesota. He couldn’t get there fast enough. They drove the entire 1800 miles all day and all night until they made it, almost killing themselves several times by falling asleep at the wheel.
Now that the three of us had been reunited, we all picked up bouncing shifts again back at Gramma B’s. There we were, working on a typical night, and who was there talking to Eddie again? Ole. Eddie had invited him back to take a better look at the pictures of all of us.
I said a quick hello but kept it short.
As Ole and Eddie were chatting and flipping through the pictures, one of them caught Ole’s eye. “Hey, where did you get this shot of Joe?” he said. “I haven’t seen this one before.”
Only it wasn’t me. It was Mike.
“Where was this guy the first time I was here?” He kept holding the pictures of Mike and me side by side. You could tell his wheels were turning. He saw something in us.
“Would the two of you be interested in coming down together? We could make you into a team,” Ole said. “I’ll make you my Road Warriors.”
I was hesitant to have a big conversation about the idea until I talked to Mike.
When I did, we both decided that if Ole agreed to treat us right, we’d do it.
Ole and I spoke on the phone, and I made it clear that this was not going to be a repeat of my first trip down to Georgia. “Are you going to take care of me this time?” I asked.
“You two come down here, and I’m gonna make you my champions.”
Champions? That was all I needed to hear to give wrestling another chance. After all, the main priority was to be successful and make good money. Becoming champions would ensure both.
So Mike and I packed, said our brief good-byes, and hauled off to the airport. You can imagine the crazy déjà vu I was experiencing.
As soon as we got to Atlanta, Ole made his intentions clear. “You guys are my tag champions. Get ready. Your first match is coming up on TV, and you’ll already have the belts.”
It was a sudden and shocking revelation. When Ole had told us on the phone that he was going to make us champions, I’d thought he’d meant a little further down the road after we had more experience. Mike and I had to scramble to get ready. I went out and bought us matching outfits that were an upgraded extension of my Road Warrior outfit before. Now we had black leather chaps with long black wrestling tights underneath, matching leather gloves, vests, and hats, black motorcycle boots, and sunglasses (black for me, red for Mike). The image, like us, was raw and in an early stage but much closer to what we wanted to portray: two bad, mean monsters from the streets.
After I got all of our stuff, we went back to see Ole.
“What do you want us to be?” I
said. “How do you want us to act and look? Who are we?”
Ole thought about it for a minute, then smiled. “After what I saw you do to Randy Barber last year, you’re going to be Animal.”
I liked it, but then we both looked at Mike and wondered what we’d call him.
As I continued to think, Mike shouted it out. “Well, I fly around like a hawk.”
I answered right back, “There it is, bro. You’ll be Hawk.”
And that’s how it happened. Right then and there, we would forever be known to each other and the public as Animal and Hawk, the Road Warriors. In and out of the ring, as per kayfabe, we pretty much became our alter egos full-time, and the people never doubted it for a second. It was pretty crazy to be given license to walk around looking and acting like the Road Warriors.
Because we were so green in the business, Ole paired us up with someone who would become an integral part of our lives and career for years to come: “Precious” Paul Ellering. Paul had been wrestling for a few years but had recently blown one of his knees out on two separate occasions. He was looking to step out of the ring but stay in the business. Paul was also a genius with an IQ of 162 and was a former junior powerlifting champion with a recorded dead lift in the 750-pound range. For the first few months, Paul was our voice while we stood on either side of him as silent, menacing enforcers. We were a complete presentation now.
The time finally arrived for our big TV debut as the Road Warriors on GCW’s World Championship Wrestling. While we were gearing up in the back, Ole walked up. “We’re gonna shock a lot of people today, boys.” Then he congratulated us and handed over the NWA National Tag Team Championship belts.
It was just like that. Without even wrestling in a single match, we were champions for the first time. It was an unprecedented move, but Ole had needed to make a quick decision.
As it turned out, Ole had been in a real jam with his most recent champs, Arn Anderson and Matt Borne (future WWF character Doink the Clown). Borne had been accused of statutory rape. The impending publicity wasn’t something Ole wanted brought to the company, so he made a change: Arn and Borne were out, and Hawk and I were in.
The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling Page 4
