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

by Joe Laurinaitis

  The great moments, like my brothers making their debuts in the business and Hawk and I finally winning the NWA World Tag titles, were unfortunately counterbalanced by the bullshit of losing Tully and Arn, Jim Crockett going bankrupt, and, of course, Dusty’s firing. It was all part of the insanity that is professional wrestling.

  Aside from all of the high drama at the workplace, though, the biggest news for me personally came before the 1989 New Year, when Julie told me little Joey and James were going to get another playmate. That’s right! My amazing wife was expecting our second child together and the third addition to the Laurinaitis clan.

  To prepare for the newest little bundle, I decided it was time to build our own house, one with plenty of room. And that’s what I did. We bought a good-sized lot in a really nice neighborhood in Hamel, Minnesota, and had a contractor go to work on Casa de Laurinaitis. It would take the better part of nine months to finish and would be ready in time for Julie’s expected delivery. Good planning, right?

  With Jim Crockett and Dusty removed from the picture of Turner’s WCW, there were some huge voids left to fill. Turner’s answer was to put a guy named Jim Herd in charge of the company. Herd was a former Pizza Hut executive from St. Louis who had once been the station manager of KPLR-TV, which aired the very popular NWA show Wrestling at the Chase. Everyone in the locker room was very skeptical of what the “pizza man” would deliver to WCW.

  One of the first decisions Herd made at Turner (after firing Dusty) was to place Ric Flair in the role of booker. It was welcome news to us. Ric was one of Hawk’s and my most trusted friends in the company, and we were relieved to see someone of his credibility step up and be the man calling the creative shots.

  Flair got right to work and immediately pushed for one of his greatest former rivals, Ricky Steamboat, to come to WCW. Back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Flair and Steamboat had a legendary feud in Crockett’s old Mid-Atlantic territory that helped propel both of them into superstardom. When the WWF started luring top names from the NWA around ’83 to ’85, Steamboat was one of the guys who made the jump. Now, a few years later, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat left the WWF, giving Flair an opportunity he was happy to seize.

  Steamboat debuted in January on World Championship Wrestling in a tag team match with Eddie Gilbert against Flair and Barry Windham. In a big moment on national TV, Flair the World champ was pinned by Steamboat, reigniting their old feud for the next four months.

  During that time, Steamboat defeated Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at the Chi-Town Rumble in February, successfully defended the title against Flair at Clash of the Champions VI in April, then finally lost the belt back to the Nature Boy at Music City Showdown in May. That little run of Steamboat and Flair’s really brought a lot of excitement to WCW and was a much needed morale booster. It sure seemed like things with Herd and Flair were going to work out fine. Yeah, seemed like.

  At the same time as Flair and Steamboat’s wars, Hawk and I remained the NWA World Tag Team and World Six-Man Tag Team champions by having a few battles of our own. Because Dusty had long been our six-man partner and was now gone, we needed a replacement. We asked Flair if we could bring in Tenryu from Japan, and he liked the idea. By this time, the experiment of turning us heel had pretty much disappeared without a trace. The fans just wouldn’t boo us.

  At Clash of the Champions V in Cleveland on February 15, we defeated the entire Varsity Club (Steve Williams, Mike Rotunda, and Kevin Sullivan) by DQ after Sting, Michael Hayes, and Junkyard Dog ran in for a nine-man brawl. After the win, Tenryu went back to Japan to focus on winning the Triple Crown, the consolidation of the all-singles titles in AJPW. When Tenryu left, the company decided to shelf the World Six-Man Tag Team Championship permanently.

  Five days later, on February 20, we successfully defended our World Tag Team titles at Chi-Town Rumble against Williams and Sullivan. After that, Ric came to us and said he wanted us to drop the titles to Williams and Rotunda at Clash of the Champions VI in New Orleans on April 2 (same day as WrestleMania V, which was once again offered as a free WCW alternative).

  We said, “No problem, Ric.”

  At the end of the match, Williams pinned Hawk, and referee Teddy Long gave a blatant fast count of only two but rang the bell and awarded the Varsity Club our titles. Easy come, easy go.

  Just like anytime we dropped championship belts, it didn’t matter to us. We didn’t need them for credibility any more than Hulk Hogan or Flair himself needed their respective World titles. Once you reach a certain level of success and popularity, everything else is secondary. Championships are really meant to establish new guys and give them the rub as emerging main players. That’s the way it had happened for us six years earlier when Ole dropped the NWA National tag belts on our shoulders and said, “There you go! Now let’s see what you two can do from here.”

  With all of the change and transition, Hawk and I were experiencing by that February in 1989, we still weren’t out of the woods yet. The WWF, in a successful bid to bypass the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board’s 10 percent surtax on all televised sporting events, released a statement admitting that professional wrestling was staged. Part of the document declared that wrestling was “an activity in which participants struggle hand-in-hand primarily for the purpose of providing entertainment to spectators rather than conducting a bona fide athletic contest.”

  And there it was. A few keystrokes on a WWF typewriter and some Xerox copies later, the oldest and most important tradition of professional wrestling was wiped off the face of the earth.

  From a business point of view, I easily understood why Vince did what he did, but his modernization of the wrestling industry as “sports entertainment” forced the deliberate exposure of kayfabe on all of us. Wrestlers who had been laboring over their kayfabe gimmicks, injuries, and rivalries at all costs for the sake of protecting themselves and the business were now left out in the wind. You can see why more than a few guys weren’t happy about the WWF’s revelation. Nobody was ever supposed to pull the mask off of the Lone Ranger.

  The first few months of ’89 also saw a ton of new talent come into WCW. With the last of the other competitive promotions like the AWA and World Class Championship Wrestling fading away from the forefront, a lot of workers were running for the hills and found sanctuary in the NWA.

  Along with guys like Sting and Rick and Scott Steiner, who were acquired during the Crockett Promotions’ dismantling of the UWF, the talent roster in WCW now boasted great prospects like Scott Hall, the Great Muta, “Flyin’” Brian Pillman, Tom “Z-Man” Zenk, the Samoan Swat Team, Sid Vicious, Cactus Jack (Mick Foley), and “Mean” Mark Callous. There were also two new tag teams on the scene in WCW that I’d helped along the way, The Terminators and the Dynamic Dudes.

  The Terminators were the team of Al Greene and my brother Marc, while the Dynamic Dudes consisted of Shane Douglas and my brother John (Johnny Ace). Although The Terminators saw a lot of action in the ring, they didn’t see too many wins. Down the road a couple years, Marc and Al created a Road Warriors-inspired gimmick known as the Wrecking Crew and would become WCW World Tag Team champions.

  The Dynamic Dudes, two bleach-blond skateboarders, came onto the scene in early ’89 and were managed by Jim Cornette. Although initially put into a successful feud with the Midnight Express, the Dudes were dumped by Cornette and eventually decided to part ways. Johnny had been successful over in Japan, where he was doing his big brother—and the fans—proud. Shortly afterward, John went to Japan, where he caught on and did damn well for himself.

  By May, our suspicions about Jim Herd were proving to be true. After Flair was put in charge of booking, things went spiraling out of control like you wouldn’t believe. For starters, Herd didn’t know how to negotiate with the talent. After Ric went through hell to bring in Ricky Steamboat and wound up having a critically acclaimed series of matches, Herd failed to come to a contractual agreement with him and he walked. Just l
ike that, Steamboat was gone and it ruined the planned program between him and Lex Luger, which had already started.

  As big of a blunder as the Steamboat debacle was, it didn’t compare to the revolving cavalcade of horrible ideas Herd kept trying to introduce. The WWF had a heavily cartoonish roster of popular characters—Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, the Honky Tonk Man, and the Big Bossman (Big Bubba repackaged as a corrections officer)—all with elaborate costuming and props. Herd thought he could mimic Vince McMahon’s product and get the same results. Boy, was he wrong.

  This guy Herd actually introduced gimmicks like the Ding Dongs (a pair of masked wrestlers who rang bells during their matches), the Hunchbacks (a tag team that couldn’t be pinned due to their costume humps), and Big Josh (Matt Borne in a ridiculous lumberjack outfit with dancing bears). He even famously tried to convince Ric Flair to cut off his trademark blond hair and change his Nature Boy persona into a Spartacus gladiator gimmick.

  God, I wish I could tell you I’m kidding, but I’m not. Herd was trying to erase the classic, very distinct line between the WWF’s product of over-the-top spectacle and showmanship and the NWA/WCW product of gritty, realistic professional wrestling.

  Hawk summed it up eloquently one night during one of our on-air interviews in a jab at Herd. “Some of us should stick with what we’re good at. For some, that means wrestling. For others, it means making pizza.”

  All the boys in the back popped huge for that one.

  I’m pretty sure I can safely speak on behalf of my brothers Hawk and “Precious” Paul when I say that the second half of 1989 and into the spring of 1990 simply wasn’t fun at all. That’s the best way I can explain it. From the day we started back in ’83 in GCW up till around the time Crockett had to sell in late ’88, we were having a great time. But now, as the turmoil between Ric and Jim Herd started to escalate, I looked forward less and less to showing up for work.

  Even now when I think back over my career, as great as our opponents were at that time—the SST, the Steiners, The Skyscrapers (Sid Vicious and “Dangerous” Danny Spivey), and Doom (Ron Simmons and Butch Reed), for example—I can barely remember a thing about our matches. It’s all a blur.

  Things had gotten stale, and Hawk and I were getting bored. What more did we have left to do in WCW, anyway? Maybe we should pick up the phone and give Vince a call up at the WWF. We didn’t know.

  It was decided that we’d stay as long as Flair was booker. We hoped he could turn things around.

  In the meantime, since my interest in WCW was waning, I was able to put some long overdue focus on my family. In the summer of ’89, my little Joey was eight years old, James was climbing along at two and a half, and on August 8 I got the call that Julie was ready to burst. I got my ass to the hospital with Joey and James in tow.

  As we had with James, we’d kept the gender of our new baby a surprise, and I had my catcher’s mitt ready for the big reveal. With one big, final push, Julie unveiled our beautiful new daughter, the first Laurinaitis girl born in fifty years. Keeping our letter J theme intact, we named our little sunshine Jessica. Now we were Joe, Julie, Joey, James, and Jessica Laurinaitis. What a crew!

  Now with Jessica and Julie, I had my two girls and my two boys. It was funny with Joey and James. All they knew was that one day we went to the hospital with Mommy and then, like magic, they had a baby sister of their very own. Those two lit up when they saw Jessica. In an instant, Joey and James became protective big brothers. I have pictures of them holding her tiny hands. I gotta tell you, moments like those are the ones that burn into your memory forever. No matter how old my babies continue to grow or how far away they may travel from me, I will still see them all together as they were that August day when Jessica was born.

  Soon Julie and I would make another big decision to bring our family closer together. We decided to take full custody of Joey and bring him home full-time. Julie and I could offer Joey a home where he had his little bro and sis always looking up to him, following his every move. It was the right thing to do, and everyone was excited to have him permanently under our roof.

  We got Joey started out in youth hockey, which he loved. The little guy fit right in, and none of us ever looked back. As always, Julie didn’t miss a beat. She made sure Joey’s transition was smooth and tenderly cared for him.

  It was also around this time that my parents had decided to retreat from the harsh Minnesota winters for a more favorable climate in Florida. My mom suffered from lupus, a disease that causes the immune system to treat the body’s own tissue as a foreign substance and produces antibodies to fight it. It was literally wearing her down with each passing day, but she never complained and kept as busy as ever.

  I returned to the road in September for Clash of the Champions VIII: Fall Brawl, where the Road Warriors defeated the Samoan Swat Team of six feet four, 260-pound Samu and six feet one, 375-pound Fatu. Those guys had great chemistry with us, and much later, in the late ’90s, I was happy to see Fatu get another run in the WWF as the dancing, “big ass in your face” character Rikishi. The other guys we faced in the closing months of 1989 worth mentioning were Doom and the Steiners—at Starrcade ’89.

  On December 13 in Atlanta, we were put in the Iron Team tournament with the Steiners, SST, and Doom at Starrcade ’89: Future Shock. The team with the best two-out-of-three match record won the title of Iron Team. Well, by the name of the tournament, everyone should’ve guessed who’d emerge on top.

  In the first round of the tournament, we easily dispatched of Doom, who were for all intents and purposes another variation of our Road Warriors gimmick. Ron Simmons and Butch Reed were two big, tough, masked brawlers who were assembled by referee-turned-manager Teddy Long. Simmons was a six feet two, 270-pound two-time all-American defensive nose guard at Florida State University and former Cleveland Brown, while Reed was a six feet two, 260-pound former Kansas City Chief and an eleven-year wrestling veteran. They were a brand-new team with a ton of potential, but that night at the Omni in front of 6,000 people, they were just another couple of Road Warriors victims.

  The most dangerous team we faced that night (and maybe in our careers) were the current NWA World Tag Team champions, the Steiners. Rick and Scott Steiner, legitimate brothers and former collegiate wrestlers from the University of Michigan, were two of the greatest, most innovative workers. With Rick’s brazen, smash-mouth style of power moves combined with his younger brother Scott’s reckless and unorthodox array of suplexes and aerial maneuvers, they were among the greatest teams in wrestling history.

  At Starrcade with the Steiners, we put on a tremendous show, with both teams doing the majority of their trademark moves. In the end, though, the Steiners stole the win. After Hawk and I delivered a Doomsday Device to Scott, I fell back with him in a sort of belly-to-back bear hug so my arms were wrapped around his midsection.

  When we landed, both his and my shoulders were on the mat so that when the referee made the three count, Scott picked his right arm up at the last second and was credited with the pin. Damn, screwed again, wouldn’t you know?

  Well, not really. In the end, we went on to win the Iron Team tournament with a final victory over the Samoans, proving once and for all who the true Iron Team was. Did you ever doubt us?

  Starrcade ’89 also saw the return of Arn Anderson to the newly reformed Four Horsemen along with Sting and Ole Anderson. It was great to see Arn come back from the WWF, but he was originally supposed to arrive with teammate and original Horseman Tully Blanchard. After Tully and Arn spent the better part of a year as The Brain Busters under the management of Bobby “The Brain” Heenan in the WWF (even becoming the World Tag Team champions by defeating Demolition), things fell apart.

  In November, before the WWF PPV Survivor Series, Tully failed a drug test for cocaine, which proved to be a double-edged sword. Not only did the WWF release Tully for the violation, but then WCW decided not to take him back because of it as well. Arn had no choice but to return without hi
s longtime partner, even though the two of them had looked forward to reuniting with Flair and Ole. Left with nowhere else to go, Tully spent the next year or so making random appearances for the AWA and other independent promotions before ultimately retiring for good.

  It was a shitty end for one of the best workers I ever stepped inside the ring with. I saw that whole thing as another example of Jim Herd dropping the damn ball. Sure, Tully made a bad choice, but bringing him back into the mix with the original Four Horsemen would’ve been big business. Maybe even big enough to prevent the disaster looming on the WCW horizon.

  14

  WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES, SMASH YOURSELF A NEW ONE

  Even though Hawk and I approached the beginning of 1990 with a positive outlook and concentrating on doing good business, there were too many distractions. Ric and his creative team of Jim Cornette and Kevin Sullivan were under fire from Jim Herd for their booking decisions. According to Herd and some of the other boys, Flair was being self-serving by putting himself and the other Four Horsemen over in major angles. It was also thought that Flair was refusing to drop the NWA World title, which was bullshit because Ric had been carefully building up a feud with Sting for that very purpose. Unfortunately, it all went wrong for both of them.

  At the Clash of the Champions X on February 6 in Corpus Christi, Texas, Flair and the Andersons were in a main event cage match against Muta, the Dragonmaster (a new masked Japanese wrestler), and none other than old Buzz Sawyer, who was crazy as ever.

  The angle was that Sting had been kicked out of the Four Horsemen and was looking for revenge, especially against Flair.

  Near the end of the match, the plan was for Sting to come running down, climb the cage, and get his payback, thus setting up the feud with Flair for the impending title change.