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

by Joe Laurinaitis

  For now, though, we had a main event showdown with the team of Magnum T.A. and Ronnie Garvin for the Crockett Cup.

  As I’ve mentioned, Magnum and Garvin were two tough sons of bitches who didn’t take crap from anyone, and the fans loved them for their gritty, common-man gimmicks. Garvin especially was notorious for his extra hard punches and chops and was even known then as The Man With the Hands of Stone, often winning his matches with a single right-hand punch.

  Prior to the Crockett Cup Tournament, during a match with Arn Anderson for the NWA World Television Championship, Tully Blanchard and J.J. Dillon jumped in on Anderson’s behalf and kayfabe broke Ronnie’s hand. So for our match together that night in New Orleans, Garvin was in full kayfabe with his hand heavily taped from wrist to fingertips. When we entered the ring, we showed both Magnum and Garvin respect by not rushing the ring as usual. Even when we casually stepped through the ropes, though, the fans exploded into cheers for the Road Warriors.

  The match wasn’t a long one, but it was a real barn burner. One thing I really remember is Garvin biting Hawk on the head. That’s the way Ronnie was: scrappy as hell, tougher than five Hollywood stuntmen, and relentlessly going toe-to-toe with anybody willing. He used every form of biting and stretching a guy out until you damn sure never forgot what a match with him was like. Years later, I think I still feel sore from some of my matches with Ronnie.

  When it was time to take the match home, believe it or not, Magnum hit a powerslam on yours truly, and Hawk ran in to break up the pin. When Garvin stepped in and all four of us were in the ring beating the hell out of each other, I had a clear shot at Ronnie with a running clothesline. I nailed him, got the pin, and that was it. We won the first ever Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup and were handed a fake check for one million dollars. Man, I wished it was real.

  But again, who was I to complain? I had my contract from Crockett, my beautiful wife, Julie, was pregnant with our new baby, and Paul, Hawk, and I were standing head and shoulders above the rest in tag team wrestling and were leaving a giant Road Warriors footprint everywhere we went. If ever there was a feeling of a golden age in my life, it was right then and there in early 1986.

  SERVING UP ANOTHER BIG PRESS SLAM IN JAPAN. 1986.

  10

  SNACKING ON DANGER AND DINING ON DEATH

  After winning the Crockett Cup, Hawk and I didn’t have much time for celebrating as we had to make a mad dash to catch a red-eye flight to Minneapolis for WrestleRock. Verne had been heavily promoting the event on TV during the last couple of months and really wanted to be competitive with the big shows that the WWF and NWA were pulling off.

  WrestleMania II had happened on April 7 and was another resounding success, sending ripples of pressure out to guys like Verne and Jimmy Crockett to step up to the plate or die off and go away. Verne’s answer was WrestleRock, and he brought us in for the main event: a tag team cage match with the Freebirds.

  Even though Hawk and I were happily committed to our new home in the NWA, we were more than willing to help Verne out one more time. When we arrived at the Metrodome that Sunday afternoon, we were excited to hear the place was jammed with 23,000 fans ready to see some great action. In the back, we saw so many guys we hadn’t in a while, like Harley Race, the Fabulous Ones, Mike Rotunda, Barry Windham, and even good old Sgt. Slaughter.

  Another guy who was there that Hawk and I hadn’t really met before was Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, who was booked in a tag match with Greg Gagne against Bruiser Brody and my old Gramma B’s bouncing colleague John Nord. I remember being right next to Greg near the bathrooms when he started complaining to Verne about Snuka, who may or may not have been drinking can after can of beer and dabbling in a certain substance while getting ready. “How in the hell is Snuka going to work tonight?” Greg asked. “He’s all fucked up.”

  Right after the words left Greg’s mouth, Snuka, who was probably about ten beers in, stepped around the corner with a look of rage. He’d heard everything. “Fucked up? Fucked up?” Snuka said to both Greg and Verne. “Wait right here. I’ll show you fucked up.”

  Snuka disappeared into the bathroom. We heard some familiar animal noises, and a second or two later, he came out rubbing his nose—I guess he had a bad cold or something. He went straight up to Greg with an even more deranged look on his face than before. “Now. Now I’m fucked up, brother.” And then he stormed off.

  That evening at WrestleRock ’86, the legendary “Superfly” Snuka still went out and wrestled without a hitch, even doing his trademark splash from the top of the cage.

  After the entertainment of Snuka and Greg was over, I started to settle into full Animal mode. The switch was flicked in my head, taking me from mild-mannered Joe Laurinaitis to the intense, butt-kicking Road Warrior Animal. A lot of guys in the wrestling business didn’t have the luxury of a gimmick like mine and Hawk’s that allowed us to separate ourselves from our characters. Guys like Flair and Nikita, for example, lived their alter egos all the time and were, in a sense, trapped for life. Hawk and I were able to walk around as Mike and Joe, without our paint jobs and spikes, and we didn’t have as much of an outside recognition factor with the fans, especially if we were at a bar or the mall. Man, it was great to be a Road Warrior.

  That night we entered the cage for our match with the Free-birds. Knowing full well it was going to be our last event with the AWA, we went all out. The same was true for Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin (an on-and-off Freebird since 1983), who were both moving on to different companies following the match: Hayes to WCCW in Texas and Garvin to Crockett’s NWA. The fans were totally hot for our match, and their cheers could be heard bouncing and booming off of every square inch of the enormous domed ceiling.

  Hawk started off first with Hayes, and the two of them ignited the match perfectly. Hayes caught Hawk with a flurry of punches, then got him up for a piledriver. Bam! As only he could, Hawk bounced over and, while Hayes was celebrating with his back turned, got right up and delivered a high standing dropkick. Then Hawk sent Hayes into the ropes across the ring, bounced off his own set, and collided with Hayes courtesy of a flying shoulder block. The second Hayes hit the mat, Hawk picked him right back up by his long and flowing golden mop of hair and pressed him high above his head before slamming him hard. Boom!

  Man, I could not wait to get in there and dish out some moves of my own. When I finally got the tag, it was Jimmy Garvin in the ring. I threw him into the ropes and caught him right off the bat for a graceful powerslam. Boom!

  The crowd exploded with cheers as if it were the first time they’d ever seen such a display, but they were about to get more. As soon as I got up, I knew it was time for my own press slam— but not an ordinary version. I pressed Jimmy up, held him there, then proceeded to pivot around in a circle so all of the people on each side could watch as I lifted him up and down for six full reps before dropping him face-first to the canvas. Jimmy crawled as fast as he could over to Hayes for a tag, but Michael wanted no part of it and walked away from him. The entire Metrodome roared with laughter, and even Hawk and I had to contain ourselves. Those guys were great together!

  The big finish of the match came as all four men were in the ring in a chaotic storm of punching and kicking. When the referee made Hawk go back to the outside, all of a sudden Garvin grabbed me from behind and positioned me in front of one of the corners, where Hayes was standing on the top turnbuckle. As Hayes jumped down to clobber me, I broke free from Garvin and he wound up hitting Jimmy instead. I covered Garvin, and that was all she wrote: the Road Warriors had won their last match for the AWA.

  Although WrestleRock was a big success, outdrawing the Crockett Cup by over 7,000 people, the AWA was now tilted at a steady decline. With teams like us and the Freebirds leaving for greener pastures, it would only be a matter of a couple years before Verne’s company would take the ultimate nosedive into the wrestling graveyard.

  After back-to-back performances at the Crockett Cup and WrestleRock, we spent
the next two and a half weeks wrestling alongside Dusty Rhodes in six-man tag matches against the NWA World Six-Man champions, Ivan and Nikita Koloff and Baron von Raschke. By this point, Krusher Krushchev (Barry) had legitimately and severely injured one of his knees in a match with Sam Houston and was out of the picture for the next few months, so Baron had stepped into his spot.

  Being booked with Dusty against those guys was about as good as it got. We were more than a team; we were a superteam. It was like Captain America teaming up with Superman and the Hulk. The fans couldn’t get enough of the three of us together, and on May 17 in Baltimore, we defeated the Koloffs and Raschke to become the new World Six-Man champs.

  Our momentum kept on growing, too. Adding a little cherry on top of our NWA success sundae, we decided to hit Japan for a little business and represent our new company for the first time. Dusty liked the idea of me and Hawk heading over to Japan and even urged us to take the Crockett Cup and our Six-Man belts along to show off our NWA pride, which was cool with us.

  We only wrestled a couple of times during that short trip, but it was more about showing off our American triumphs. Each time we launched down the aisle, Paul was right behind us holding the Crockett Cup high as a symbol of what the Road Warriors were all about: winning.

  During this particular trip in Japan, on June 7, we faced Jumbo and Tenryu for the last time in 1986, and the match ended with a bang. The mounting tension between Jumbo and Hawk finally hit the fan. As I mentioned, Hawk was convinced Jumbo was botching crucial high spots whenever he had the chance. After about the third or fourth time we faced them, Hawk made it abundantly clear that he’d knock “that motherfucker” out if he did it one more time. Well, this was one more time.

  I don’t even remember exactly what happened, but I think Jumbo may have forgotten Hawk was going to give him a running clothesline off the ropes followed by a jumping horizontal punch, and it looked like a mess.

  When the match was over, Hawk breezed right past me, muttering, “That’s fucking it. I’ve had it. I’ll show that motherfucker not to botch my moves.”

  I thought, Oh, shit. Animal, you better get your ass back there before someone gets killed. I had to haul ass to catch up to Hawk, who was charging like a bull past the fans to get to the back.

  Once we were in the locker room, Hawk went straight for the room Jumbo was in, which had its own glass door. I could see the unsuspecting Tsuruta taking a seat on a bench when Hawk raised his right foot and kicked the whole fucking door in. Crash! Flying glass went everywhere as Hawk continued right in and started screaming at the top of his lungs at Jumbo. “All right, motherfucker. Get up. You think you’re gonna fuck with my matches? No fucking way.”

  Though shocked, Tsuruta jumped up and started yelling back in Japanese.

  By that time, I already had my arms around Hawk. Our AJPW rep, Wally Yamguchi, wedged himself between the two. I remember he looked like a baby sapling in the middle of two great oaks.

  I managed to pull Hawk out of there and get him into our room, where he was able to calm down. Giant Baba came down to see what had happened and was rightfully upset about the door. I apologized for Hawk and told him it would never happen again and even offered to pay for the door.

  In the end, Tsuruta denied any wrongdoing and claimed there was never any problem to begin with. From that point forward, the two of them never raised another issue with each other and the whole thing wasn’t brought up again.

  We got back to the United States just in time for the Great American Bash, which only a year before had been the event responsible for catapulting the Road Warriors into the spotlight in the NWA as monster babyfaces. This year’s Bash wasn’t going to be a one-night event but a fourteen-city tour starting on July 1, hitting the biggest and best cities in the NWA’s fold. Even greater news came our way when Hawk and I were told we’d each get a shot at wrestling Ric Flair for the World Heavyweight Championship. I was floored.

  Apparently Flair would be wrestling with his title on the line every date of the tour, and Dusty thought it would be interesting to give him a diverse cavalcade of opponents, like Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Nikita Koloff, Ronnie Garvin, Magnum T.A., Hawk, and me. I thought having Flair booked against guys he normally wouldn’t face in singles matches was a stroke of genius. It not only gave the fans many dream matches they never thought they’d see, but it really mixed things up creatively, especially for Flair, to help make the Bash one of the hottest tickets the business ever saw.

  We had a great buildup for our matches with Flair each week on World Championship Wrestling. I think it all started off during one of our interviews when at the end Hawk mentioned the fact that he’d be facing Flair in a few weeks on July 1 in Philadelphia at Veterans Stadium for the kickoff of the Bash. He suggested to the champ that he’d better get in the gym because it sure didn’t look like he had been lately.

  Then the following week, Flair came out and addressed Hawk’s comments and said that if he had the guts he’d come out and get his face slapped on national television by the world champion. I’ll give you a few guesses as to what happened when Flair went to the ring for a rare TV match against jobber Tony Zane.

  No sooner did the bell ring for the match to begin than “Iron Man” started playing. The fans got up and started screaming as Hawk suddenly entered on camera and headed toward the ring. The second he got up onto the apron, Flair ran and landed a flying knee and pulled him inside.

  Flair attempted a couple of chops, but Hawk no-sold them and shoved Ric so hard that he flipped all the way into the opposite corner. From there, it was a murder scene. After nailing Flair with a flying shoulder block, Hawk pressed him high over his head and walked to the edge of the ring and threw him over the ropes into the awaiting arms of Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard, who had come out to interfere. While Hawk stood in the ring surveying his work, I guess he got sick of referee Randy Anderson and quickly tossed him to the outside floor.

  None other than Ole Anderson came sliding into the ring from behind and started pummeling Hawk with knees into the corner. Then all of the Four Horsemen, as they were known, swarmed Hawk and were totally leveling him.

  Of course, I came running out for the save, but instead of helping out and stomping some Horsemen tail, I was knocked to the floor by Flair and Blanchard. From there, Hawk and I received the worst professional wrestling beating of our careers. I was given a piledriver on the concrete floor, Paul was knocked out by manager J.J. Dillon’s shoe, and Hawk was flattened by an Arn Anderson gourdbuster. Nobody had ever manhandled the Road Warriors like that, and it made a big statement, even if we were outnumbered. But if anyone could’ve been booked into a believable position to smash us like that, it was the Horsemen.

  For my money (as well as the fans’), the Horsemen, named by Arn Anderson in reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Bible, was the most legitimate clique in the business. Not only were they four of the most reputable workers in the ring, but the Horsemen were masters of the interview promo.

  Flair and Blanchard especially always bragged about their Rolex watches, four-star hotels, custom suits, and high-class ladies, all of which were the creed. Tons of fans caught on, and at the shows you’d see college guys dressed up in suits and sunglasses putting up the four-finger sign of the Horsemen and yelling out Ric’s trademark, “Whoooooooo!” The Four Horsemen were crass, vilified, totally over with the fans, and among our personal favorite rivals of all time, no question about it.

  Needless to say, Hawk and I were chomping at the bit to wrestle Flair one-on-one. We knew we’d learn so much from Ric in the ring and that he’d give us the rub, making us look like a million bucks. That’s the way Flair operated. The better he made you look, the better it made him look as a resilient champion who could take all you had for up to sixty minutes and then still pull it out in the end. Hawk and I were both honored with the opportunity to step into the ring with The Man.

  When July 1 rolled around, it was time
for the kickoff of the Great American Bash, and everyone on the entire roster was pumped up for the big show. Even Hawk was so pumped up for his match with Flair that his vomit reflex from the nervous early days came back hard. “Joe,” he said, “I’m wrestling Flair, man. This is fucking intense.” Then he turned and ran for the garbage can.

  As much as I was at Hawk’s side for support, I was also a little nervous for my own match with Dusty against Ole and Arn in a cage. Between Hawk and me, we were clashing with three of the Four Horsemen, and we had serious axes to grind for what they’d done to us on TV. Dusty and I brutalized the Andersons and came away with a dominating win in front of an almost sold-out crowd at Veterans Stadium.

  Hawk’s match against Flair was an instant classic that came off perfectly. Ric bumped and sold as if Hawk were superhuman. He also must’ve press slammed Flair ten times in the match, which will tire out a person quicker than you’d think.

  The end of the match, which was a formula used for almost every one of Flair’s Bash title defenses, saw Hawk getting in some offense with a flying shoulder block. However, as Hawk launched at Flair, he ducked out of the way, resulting in referee Tommy Young getting knocked out of the ring instead. Then Hawk grabbed Flair and gave him a giant standing backbreaker, knocking Ric cold.

  When Hawk went for the cover, Tommy rolled back in, made a three count, and called for the bell. Hawk won the title!

  Or did he? Tommy grabbed the belt and gave it to Flair, citing a DQ against Hawk for hitting him with the shoulder tackle. You should have heard that crowd and seen the shit they were throwing into the ring. They were so passionate for Hawk; it was incredible to see.