The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling

by Joe Laurinaitis

  One night after working a show in Hapeville, Georgia, we were with Ole in his room at the Ramada Inn shooting the shit. He said he’d been thinking about our biker image and said it could use some tweaking. Truthfully, at the time, we looked like hulking versions of the leather guy from the Village People, and we knew we needed a change. Hawk and I were up for anything, so we started shooting ideas out left and right. What we came up with proved to be the first of two major breakthroughs in the evolution of the Road Warriors gimmick.

  “Hey,” Mike said, “I got an idea for our hair. Why doesn’t Joe shave his head into a Mohawk with one big strip of hair on the top of his head from front to back and I’ll do the opposite? I’ll have one small strip on the top left side and one on the top right. That way it’ll look like we could plug our heads into each other and it’d be a perfect fit.” I stared at Hawk as I tried to picture it. As crazy as it sounded to me, it really didn’t sound that crazy at all. So we did it.

  Hawk and I laughed out loud as we cut each other’s hair into the designs, questioning what the hell we were doing with our lives. When we were done, we looked at each other in the mirror and analyzed our work. We liked what we saw. It was different; it was perfect. All of a sudden, our appearance took on a ton of raw attitude. Guys our size never had haircuts like these. It became really easy for us to look really dangerous. But our little evolution wasn’t over yet.

  A few days after we invented our trademark hairstyles, we had a quick meeting with Ole and Cowboy Bill Watts. Watts was a gruff, no-nonsense retired wrestler who had won almost every major NWA title there was in his day, and now he was the promoter of MSW out of Louisiana. Ole and Bill were longtime friends and always worked out deals to trade talent between their territories.

  Ole decided Hawk and I were going to work a couple of dates for Watts and wanted to introduce us. When we all met, Watts was impressed with our size and liked what we were trying to do with the gimmick. He even had an interesting suggestion: “Why don’t you guys experiment with face painting?”

  Hawk and I looked at each other and kind of shrugged, as if to say, “Why didn’t we think of that?”

  So we bought tubes of red, yellow, silver, black, and blue makeup and started experimenting with designs. I even went back and watched The Road Warrior to get some inspiration, which worked like a charm. In the movie, there are guys running around with very primal, almost Native American-style stripes painted on their faces. With those images in my head, I sat down in front of the bathroom mirror and came up with my first paint job.

  From the middle of my left eyebrow, I started a red line that curved up and to the top left of my forehead, then repeated the shape with a blue curved line on the other side. The image reminded me of devil horns. From there, I drew an assortment of additional single lines on the sides of my face, under my eyes, and even on my chin.

  It wasn’t exactly a visionary work of art or anything, but I never really had anything to go on from the start. Hawk’s paint job was equally crude: a few red lines here, a blue and yellow one there, and he put a silver circle over one of his eyes.

  Hawk and I looked each other over and then started posing and grimacing in the mirror, sticking our tongues out. We didn’t know what to think of ourselves, but I definitely enjoyed the extra creativity of it all. One thing was for sure: with the paint on, I didn’t feel like Joe anymore; I was Animal. One look at Mike, and I knew he’d also checked out long ago in favor of Hawk.

  With only a couple of brush strokes to the face, we could step out of our normal lives and into the boots of Road Warrior Animal and Road Warrior Hawk. As a kid, I’d always wondered what it would be like to have a secret identity and superpowers like the Hulk and Superman. Now I knew.

  I’ll never forget the looks on the other guys’ faces the first time we revealed our new look backstage before TV tapings. We were in Atlanta in the offices of the little studio where we taped World Championship Wrestling. The studio had no real locker room to speak of, so the guys just changed in various partitions in the office. When Hawk and I emerged from our cubicle with the new haircuts and the paint, the banter of all the wrestlers instantly died into complete silence. No shit.

  As we strode by, guys like Arn Anderson, Iron Sheik, Jimmy Valiant, and Tommy Rich tried to determine what the hell they saw. At that time in professional wrestling, very few of the boys wore face paint, and those who did didn’t have a gimmick like ours behind it. Wrestlers like “Exotic” Adrian Street, the Missing Link, who had also recently debuted, and the Great Kabuki were all unique, made-up workers who had found success with an approach completely different from ours.

  “Exotic” Adrian Street was a flamboyantly gay character and had been wrestling since the late 1950s. He wore glitter makeup, had colored pigtails, and enjoyed a long and successful run, winning multiple NWA championships in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). Interestingly enough, there was a brief time in early 1984 when Paul attempted to recruit Street for the LOD.

  The Missing Link was a brand-new gimmick for Dewey Robertson, who had wrestled as a straightforward babyface under his real name for years. He totally reinvented himself as the out-of-control madman by painting his entire face green and only speaking with grunts and screams. Link was an interesting character for sure.

  And then there was the Great Kabuki, a Japanese wrestler who achieved great fame not only throughout Japan but in the United States as well, especially in FCW in Tampa and World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) in Texas. Kabuki painted his entire face with white, black, and red in a traditional Japanese theater style and is also credited with inventing the spectacle of spraying mist out of his mouth into an opponent’s eyes, which was adopted by later wrestlers like the Great Muta.

  When we started entering the ring with face paint, people didn’t know what to think. Neither did we. All I knew was that a new attitude was taking over Hawk and me. Our expressions seemed to say, “Get out of our way, ’cause we’re coming, and it’s gonna be out of control.”

  With our new image, we not only crossed the line; we went way past the point of no return. Having Ole and Paul constantly telling us to be as unhinged as possible only encouraged us. We didn’t miss a beat as we pulverized whoever was in the ring and threw them out to the floor. Those guys always knew it was coming.

  Hawk and I also decided we needed a unique hometown billing that complemented our style. Although we were really from Minnesota, so were a ton of other guys, and we weren’t interested in having anything in common with anybody. Besides, Minnesota was far too nice of a place to hail from. Besides, “Minnesota nice” is a common phrase that’s great to describe regular people, but not the Road Warriors. We looked at a map to see what nearby cities would be cool, and we saw Chicago.

  Hawk and I had always heard about how tough the south side of Chicago was, filled with gritty biker bars, gangs, and all sorts of bad news. That suited us fine. Chicago had a notorious history, too, from being almost totally wiped out by fire in the late 1800s to being the old stomping grounds of Al Capone. This town had guts. From that point forward, we were announced “from Chicago,” and Paul started referring to us as the Monsters of the Midway during our interviews.

  After making our debut with the NWA National titles in June, Hawk and I picked up some serious steam by reinventing our gimmick. It wasn’t long at all before promoters from different territories took notice and wanted to bring us in for appearances.

  As with Ole and Bill Watts, promoters in those days happily did business with each other and weren’t in direct competition. This interaction was the bread and butter of the industry. Each territory had its own regional outreach and usually their own local television show to promote upcoming live events and perpetuate story lines to keep the people interested.

  When promoters started seeing and hearing about us, it opened up a whole new world and we never looked back. There was an unending parade of opportunities to make good money and increase our exposure. Calls star
ted coming in from all over the United States to come in and do shots.

  Joe Blanchard (Southwest Championship Wrestling in San Antonio), Eddie Graham (FCW in Tampa), Jerry Jarrett (Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis), Don Owen (Pacific Northwest Wrestling in Portland), and Bob Geigel (Central States Wrestling in Missouri) were a handful of the many established wrestling promoters we started frequently appearing for. Not only did we benefit financially, but we also became highly sought after and earned a strong reputation of being a highly dependable commodity.

  We also got to work with a lot of great teams outside of Georgia who helped make us seasoned workers. I remember encountering the team of Magnum T.A. and “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan during our very first appearance for Bill Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling in Shreveport, Louisiana. It was a hot August night in 1983 when we came to town to show everyone who the new badasses were.

  Magnum and Duggan were the Mid-South Tag Team champions and established studs in their own right. Magnum was a handsome rebel type from Virginia Beach who didn’t back down from anyone, and Duggan was a longhaired, bearded wild man who had played for the Atlanta Falcons. The fans were sure to be treated to a brawl they’d never forget.

  As we were being announced in the ring, Duggan grabbed the top rope and started stomping his left foot repeatedly to get the fans to clap. It was one of his trademark mannerisms. I smirked and started to mock him by stomping my foot.

  I guess Duggan didn’t care for my imitation very much as he came running over and started hammering me with stiff forearms and punches. Magnum followed suit on Hawk, and we didn’t even have a chance to take our championship belts off before falling out to the floor. The crowd was on their feet the whole time, going absolutely nuts.

  We quickly recovered and jumped back into the ring to start the match. Hawk started off with Magnum, and you could tell neither was going to give an inch. I remember watching the playback and listening to the play-by-play with Bill Watts and a young, new announcer named Jim Ross. Watts in particular was really putting Hawk and me over, saying, “They’re like the reincarnation of the worst of the Hells Angels and the worst of Charles Manson’s Helter Skelter.” It was high praise—and accurate to boot.

  Though both tag teams put up a big fight, ultimately the referee declared Magnum and Duggan the winners by disqualification. See, there was a certain way business was done. When we were the visitors in another wrestling promotion, we knew we couldn’t very well go into someone else’s backyard and cleanly defeat their top talent. It would kill their credibility.

  At the same time, Hawk and I couldn’t be expected to be brought into another company and cleanly lose. It would destroy our mystique. That’s why you’d see a lot of disqualifications and double disqualifications. If done right, both teams would come out looking strong and possibly set up another confrontation down the way.

  It was also important to stand our ground with the promoters and bookers when visiting another territory. Otherwise, they could take advantage. For the most part, it was their main objective to keep the home talent over and not let some strangers come marching in, get all the heat, and then leave. It would flatten their business.

  In fact, right before our match with Magnum and Duggan had been set to start, Ernie Ladd, the booker for Mid-South, had walked in to discuss some ideas. At six feet nine, Ladd, “The Big Cat,” was a former American Football League star with the San Diego Chargers and recently retired pro wrestler. He said we needed to put Magnum and Duggan over and really make them look strong during the finish of the match. “At the end, when Duggan’s making his comeback against you guys, let him give you like six or seven clotheslines each before you duck out of the ring.”

  Six or seven clotheslines each? Did The Big Cat have brain damage? “Excuse me, Ernie,” I said. “Taking that many clotheslines makes us look weak. We’ll take two at the most.”

  Ladd stared at me, shook his head, and walked over to Hawk. “Yo partnah is a bad link in the chain.” Ladd walked out the door.

  Hawk and I started laughing.

  “Screw him,” I said.

  Ladd didn’t know us from a hole in the wall. In those situations, we had to be smart, speak up, and protect ourselves, or people would walk all over us.

  By the fall of 1983, Hawk and I were firing on all cylinders. We were in high demand, still held the NWA National Championship titles, and were constantly working on our tag team dynamics with Paul. Eventually we found a basic rhythm and began to get comfortable.

  Things were looking up, and I could be proud of my job when I spoke with my family. In November, I got the news from home that my parents wanted to come down to Atlanta for Thanksgiving dinner. After being away from him for about five months, I was finally going to see my son, Joey, again.

  My family arrived at the apartment I shared with Hawk and Jake Roberts. I scooped up Joey, and he started laughing. My parents had even brought Li’l Nan, who couldn’t believe her grandson was running around the country as a professional wrestler.

  Being with my friends and family was the perfect break from the hustle and grind of the business. It was especially great that I was able to bring Joey to the TV tapings on Saturday morning so he could get an up-close look at what Daddy was doing for work. I know somewhere there’s footage of Li’l Nan and Joey at ringside during our match.

  Around the same time that my family visited, Hawk and I entered our first notable feud with another team, the Sawyers. Brett and Buzz Sawyer were legitimate brothers who were far more rugged and experienced than most of the teams we’d faced at that point. They were bigger and had a brawling style. To top it off, Buzz was one of the most unpredictable and troubled guys in the business.

  Buzz “Mad Dog” Sawyer, as he was known, was notorious for wild mood swings, problems with drugs, and fights with the cops. Not long before this, for whatever reason, Ole had relinquished his own position as booker and given it to Buzz. Now that he was in charge, Buzz naturally wanted to put himself over and take the titles from us. “You guys don’t need the belts anymore,” he said. “You’ve got enough heat without them.”

  Hawk and I agreed. If it made sense, we never objected to doing a job.

  On Sunday, November 27, 1983, we dropped the belts to the Sawyers in Cincinnati and immediately rematched them a few days later in Macon, Georgia. Buzz, always the opportunist, decided to exploit his position by messing with us some more. Knowing full well that Hawk and I never went far beyond eight minutes on any given night, he announced that our match would be a sixty-minute Broadway. “I’m gonna make you guys puke,” Buzz proclaimed backstage.

  I’ll give it to him. As coked out and wild as he was, Buzz could go the distance. We saw him go all out many times against other guys, and now he was calling us out. Never wanting to be discounted as a couple of muscle-bound hacks, Hawk and I were totally up for it. We wanted to show we could hang with anyone.

  As we made our way down the aisle to the ring, I almost had to rub my eyes. Referee Nick Patrick had been pulled into the crowd right in front of us and was fending off punches from a bunch of guys. It was a classic case of some good ol’ boys getting way too drunk and carried away. This kind of stuff was standard fare in those days, though. It went with the territory. Hawk and I dropped character for a second and charged over as fast as hell. We started knocking every head that got in the way between Nick and us and helped him out.

  Bruised and pretty shaken up, Nick went back to the locker room, and we continued down to the ring. I grabbed a microphone and challenged anyone to come on down and try to jump us as they had Nick. The people grew silent. No one came. The most important rule of the unwritten wrestler’s code is to be safe and to protect yourself and each other at all times. If fans crossed the line, which they did from time to time, they’d better pray the cops got to them first.

  The match itself went off pretty much without a hitch. Hawk and I took it to Brett and Buzz back and forth as the fans stood to catch our action. Maybe t
hirty minutes into the match I was watching Hawk and Brett trade punches when I started thinking with amusement, Buzz thought he was going to make us puke?

  Right then, Brett threw Hawk out to the floor. I quickly jumped in and started a standoff with both Sawyers, giving Hawk time to recover. As I looked down to the floor, I caught a glimpse of Hawk crawling underneath the ring and then quickly scrambling back. He had a funny look on his face. Brett was walking around in circles, yelling at the fans and waiting for Hawk to return. All of a sudden, Hawk popped up and climbed back into the ring and we finished the match.

  Because Hawk and I weren’t used to going much more than seven to fifteen minutes in our matches, those sixty minutes seemed to pass like sixty years. We still had such a limited collection of moves between us that Hawk and I must’ve press slammed and clotheslined those guys a hundred times. What else could we do? At least Brett and Buzz had enough experience that when the action slowed down they’d place one of us in a submission hold on the mat. Being on the mat like that allowed everybody to catch their breath, while at the same time the crowd would start cheering, looking for some momentum to build up again. Really, the Sawyers carried us that entire match, but it was Buzz’s idea to begin with, so they knew how much work they had on their hands from the start.

  When we got to the back, I asked Hawk about his disappearance under the ring.

  “I threw up, bro,” he said. “There were buckets of soda and ice there, too, so I rinsed my mouth out before coming back up.”

  I couldn’t believe it. That bastard Buzz was right. He was going to make the Road Warriors puke. Well, at least one of them. Puking during a match back then wasn’t an uncommon occurrence with Hawk either, which he proved again a couple nights later in Texas.