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

by Joe Laurinaitis

  We were wrestling for Joe Blanchard’s Southwest Championship Wrestling (SCW) in San Antonio against the SCW Tag Team champions, Butch and Luke, the Sheepherders (later known as the Bushwackers in the WWF). The Sheepherders were a couple of crazy New Zealanders who had been in the business for twenty years and were well known for their violent and usually bloody escapades.

  Tonight, however, the escapades were courtesy of Hawk. Even after a few months in the business, our endurance wasn’t quite worked up that well and we still hadn’t conquered the nerves of live performing.

  About halfway through the fifteen-minute match, Hawk came stumbling over to our corner holding his stomach and breathing hard. He panted for a couple of seconds before announcing, “Animal, I’m gonna blow.” Without any further warning, Hawk leaned over and launched a bucket’s worth of bright green vomit out of the ring and down onto the floor.

  Fans in the first two rows didn’t have any time to react and were splattered by the projectile puke. Some of them started dry heaving as they got up to run away. Hawk looked right back at me with a big smile. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

  Butch looked at Hawk and said, “Atta boy, mate. Atta boy.”

  Right after that, Butch backed me up into a corner and stuck his tongue completely into my ear. Whoa! It freaked me out big-time. You never knew what was going to happen when you wrestled the Sheepherders.

  Back in Atlanta, Buzz’s little power trip as booker had reached the end of the line. When Ole came to check things out for himself, he didn’t like what he saw. He wanted Hawk and me to have the belts again immediately, so he set up a match in Canton, Ohio. When Buzz found out, he went ape shit.

  As I was finishing up my paint job in the bathroom, referee Nick Patrick came up to us and said Buzz was almost foaming at the mouth. “He looked totally insane,” he said. “Buzz told me that even though Ole told him to drop the belts to you tonight, you guys were going to have to take them back.”

  I told Nick, “Give that sawed-off little prick this message: ‘Animal said he’s going to flip a coin to see if he or Hawk knocks you out first.’”

  When Nick reported back, he said that Buzz had stared and then muttered, “Yeah, we’ll see what happens,” and walked away.

  Ten minutes later, Nick came back with a really disturbed look on his face. “I thought you guys should know Buzz is back there taping blades to every one of his fingers. He’s a mess, so be careful.” Buzz was so out of it that he’d sliced his own hands up pretty good and was bleeding all over the place.

  Taping blades was (and still is) a traditional method wrestlers use to prepare for a match when someone is going to bleed from the forehead. They take a single razor and cut the corner off, which yields a short, thin shard of a blade. Then they tape the piece to one finger or wrist with white medical tape. When the time comes during a match to draw color on themselves, they unwrap the tape, grab the blade and while doubled over on the mat or outside floor selling an injury, they slice their head open and, presto, they’ve successfully bladed in professional wrestling.

  Up until then, we didn’t care about Buzz’s personal problems as long as they didn’t get in our way, and they usually didn’t. But now things were going too far, and Hawk and I were ready to take baseball bats and do some real damage if that’s how he wanted to play.

  When Brett Sawyer caught wind of what was going on, he went outside and sat in their car. He wanted no part of it.

  Fortunately, Ole found out what happened and went to talk some sense into Buzz. When Ole came back, his shirt was a bloody mess from helping take all the blades off of Buzz’s cut fingers. We were told Buzz had sobered up enough to go out and work with us. It turned out not to be the case.

  The bell rang and the match started, but Buzz wasn’t cooperating. He refused to sell any moves, and it really pissed off Hawk. Buzz and Hawk even got into a real wrestling match outside on the floor trying to take each other down, but they eventually broke it up. I can still see Hawk firmly planted outside of the ring near our corner, holding on to the bottom rope with both arms as Buzz kept trying to give him a belly-to-back suplex onto the concrete.

  Hawk was looking up at me as if to say, “Is this guy kidding?” The funny thing was that later, back inside the ring during the finish, Hawk nailed Buzz with a successful belly-to-back suplex of his own and got the pin.

  Sure, it was a chaotic and uncertain match at times, but at the end of the night we got the win and the belts. I felt bad for Buzz because with us, the Mad Dog’s bark was far worse than his bite. Although he’d freaked out backstage and the whole situation was precarious as hell, he really didn’t give us any problems during the match. He sobered up enough to finish his job and drop the titles.

  Unfortunately, Ole was sick of his Buzz Sawyer problem and fired him from GCW shortly afterward. This was how the Legion of Doom started off 1984. It was one hell of a welcome into the world of professional wrestling.

  5

  DESTROY EVERYTHING THAT MOVES

  As we rang in the New Year of 1984, Hawk, Paul, and I toasted each other to our undeniable success. We were even given Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine’s Tag Team of the Year Award for 1983, which was a huge honor because the award winners were chosen by fan ballots and not some group of editors or online journalists. We also went on to win it in 1984, 1985, and 1988, becoming the only team in wrestling history to claim the award more than twice. Paul was even named manager of the year in 1984.

  In the span of six months, we had charged into GCW and helped breathe new life into the company. Ole knew how to aim and fire us at the public to keep them trying to catch their breath while wondering who and when we’d strike next. It didn’t matter whether you were a babyface or a heel; no one was safe. In those early days, I don’t think there was a single TV taping of World Championship Wrestling or a live event in Georgia where we didn’t interfere with someone’s match or interview. It’s what we became known for.

  Arn Anderson once said that when the boys reported to the studio in the morning to see the call sheet, if they were paired up with the Road Warriors, their hearts sank. Some guys would grab their bags and leave on the spot. All we knew was that we were doing what we were told by the guy who paid us and having a ton of fun in the process. We definitely lived our gimmick full-time, but there was never a direct intention to intimidate the other guys in the locker room. We saved that for the fans.

  Depending on what mood we were caught in, Hawk and I delivered mixed results for autograph and picture seekers. Usually right after an event, the fans gathered around the back exits of the arena and waited for wrestlers to come out. Most of the time, we took a minute to pose and shake hands; other times, some unsuspecting fan got more than he bargained for.

  One night after a show in Wheeling, West Virginia, Hawk and I were dead tired and hungry as hell. We didn’t want anything to do with anybody at that point. Scowling, we kicked the doors open. Even though we had do-rags tied around our heads, people still recognized us. As you can imagine, we stuck out wherever we went, all the time. One fan had the balls to get in Hawk’s way and shove a program in his face for a signature.

  Hawk grabbed it, autographed it, and coughed up the most disgusting phlegm wad I’ve ever seen and spat it right onto the cover before throwing it back. “There you go, kid. Enjoy.”

  When Ole heard about us doing things like that, we’d always get a phone call at the hotel. “C’mon, guys. Cut that shit out.”

  What did we know? We were just two big dummies figuring it out as we went.

  With the NWA National belts firmly around our waists, we fended off challenges from every team in the company. The Briscos (Jack and Jerry), the Lightning Express (Brad Armstrong and Tim Horner), and Wahoo McDaniel and Mark Youngblood were just a few of the teams thrown in our direction to no avail. The Road Warriors were the new breed, and this was our time.

  Eventually Ole started looking around some of the other territories to find some main eve
nt, money-drawing talent for us to work with. With some help from Paul, he found exactly what he was looking for in Memphis. Paul used to wrestle in Memphis and knew Jerry “The King” Lawler and Austin Idol were about as big as it got in promoter Jerry Jarrett’s Continental Wrestling Association (CWA). Lawler was the booker for Jarrett and was coming off of a major feud with comedian Andy Kaufman, who had been making appearances wrestling women. Lawler played it as if he was offended by Kaufman’s mockery of the business and set up a match between the two of them, which resulted in Kaufman receiving two big piledrivers and going to the hospital.

  The whole thing came to a famous climax on national TV when Lawler and Kaufman confronted each other on Late Show with David Letterman. As the two were seated, Lawler shocked the audience when he slapped Kaufman hard across the face for insulting him. The comedian responded by throwing his coffee in Lawler’s face. Of course, the whole thing was a work, but it was a good one and raised huge mainstream attention for Kaufman, Lawler, and the CWA.

  Austin Idol, the Universal Heartthrob, was a tanned, muscular, and extremely popular babyface who’d won the AWA International Heavyweight Championship title multiple times. He also challenged Harley Race and Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight title on several occasions. What was interesting about the team of Lawler and Idol was that those guys kayfabe hated each other and had been feuding in grudge matches for years.

  Fortunately, Lawler knew it would be a brilliant strategy and even better business opportunity to unite himself with Idol. By putting their differences aside, Lawler and Idol, the babyface heroes of the CWA, could challenge the evil Road Warriors for the NWA National belts in their own backyard in Memphis. It was top marquee billing all the way. To help promote our impending arrival to the CWA, Jimmy Hart approached us with an interesting idea from the “Mouth of the South.”

  Jimmy was a high-octane manager and creative force in the CWA who had also been right in the middle of the whole Lawler/ Kaufman feud. Outside of wrestling, though, Jimmy had also been the lead singer of the ’60s band The Gentrys. If you’ve ever heard that classic bubblegum era tune “Keep On Dancin’,” and chances are you have, you heard a twenty-one-year-old Jimmy Hart struttin’ his stuff. Jimmy was also one of the key driving forces behind the fusion of rock ’n’ roll and music videos into professional wrestling. In 1984, MTV was starting to catch on and Jimmy, having had his career in the music industry with The Gentrys, knew it was the next big thing.

  About a week out from our big match against Lawler and Idol, we got a phone call from an excited Jimmy. “Hey, baby, this is Jimmy Hart. I’ve got this song you need to come here and let me record. We’re going to put it on the radio and do a video, too.”

  Hawk and I thought it’d be fun, so we packed and drove all night to get to Tennessee for our big shoot. When we arrived in Memphis, Jimmy met us and took us to this recording studio downtown. We put our paint jobs on and were wearing cowboy boots, jeans, our leather chaps, custom Road Warriors muscle shirts, and dog collars. Jimmy said he had this rock tune he’d originally written for the former NWA World Heavyweight champion Terry Funk and wanted to give it to us.

  Jimmy fed us our lyrics line by line until the whole thing was done. It was like our first wrestling match: we had no idea what we were doing and had to be walked through the whole thing, and the end result wasn’t too pretty.

  Hawk and I stood together in front of a big boom mic in the studio and took turns singing lines that went something like this: “There’s talk in the street. There’s trouble coming down. Hawk and the Animal are coming to town. Everybody’s talking; they don’t say a thing. But everybody knows what the Warriors will bring.”

  It wasn’t exactly a toe-tapping classic, but it worked perfectly. When Jimmy took the song to the local radio stations, not only did they start to play it, but it quickly went to the number one most requested song of the week. The video of us in the studio made the TV rounds on both Memphis Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling along with promos from both teams about the big match.

  When the day finally came for our big showdown in February, Memphis was electric. The public had been eating up the whole buildup of the match for weeks and couldn’t wait to see the drama unfold. To be honest, neither could I.

  Inside the Mid-South Coliseum, a sellout crowd of 10,000 stood as Hawk and I made our way down to the ring. Lawler and Idol were already waiting for us as we stepped through the ropes and got right up in their faces. Paul was right there, too, waving his rolled-up newspaper in the ref’s face, telling him not to get in the way.

  The match started off with Lawler and me squaring off, so I launched at him with a kick to the stomach followed by a quick press slam. Bam! Lawler bounced off the mat and out of the ring. The crowd was stunned, and quite a few were applauding me as I posed and yelled. Lawler stayed out on the floor for at least a minute before deciding to come back in. I backed him up into a corner, and Lawler started saying, “Punch me. Come on! Punch me.”

  The last time I’d been in this situation was in Eddie Sharkey’s church basement fighting Rood. I’d tried to throw a nice working punch to his face and wound up breaking his nose. Since then, I’d avoided it at all costs. But, at Lawler’s request, I tossed a weak little punch toward his face and completely missed—like a strike in baseball. The funniest part was watching Lawler sell it as if I’d hit him with a sledgehammer. Even though I hadn’t laid a finger on him, he fell on the ground holding his face as if he’d been shot. He was great.

  When I walked over and tagged in Hawk, he and Lawler sized each other up. Hawk kicked him in the stomach, elbowed the back of his head, and then pressed Lawler high in the air before slamming him down. Again the crowd was almost silenced in awe, and again Lawler stalled for another minute on the floor. Right next to him, Paul was yelling in his face, calling him a coward.

  When Lawler did decide to get back in, Hawk was waiting for him and they locked up again. This time Lawler was able to back Hawk up into an empty corner and delivered a right fist to the face followed by a hip toss in the center of the ring. As Hawk was getting up, Lawler ran over to him and kicked him in the stomach, setting Hawk up for a piledriver. Lawler reached down, put Hawk’s head between his legs, lifted him up vertically, and crashed him down on his head. Boom!

  The piledriver was Lawler’s finisher, and usually no one got up from it. In fact, it kayfabe sent a lot of guys, like Andy Kaufman, to the hospital. Lawler got up and started celebrating as the crowd almost blew the roof off of the coliseum. The “King” had slain the beast. Right? Well, not exactly.

  You have to imagine the reaction from the audience as Hawk totally no-sold the piledriver and jumped to his feet as Lawler’s back was turned. It was something Lawler had suggested to Hawk before the show. Hawk loved that piledriver spot so much that he added it to his permanent repertoire and probably worked it a thousand more times during his career.

  When Lawler turned around and saw Hawk standing and huffing, his eyeballs almost popped out of his head, as if Hawk had risen from the dead. With clenched fists and every muscle in his body tensed, Hawk slowly stalked Lawler around the ring like Frankenstein or something right out of the movies. When they reached an open corner, Hawk leveled him with one punch. Lawler hung there on the ropes for dear life. It was amazing to watch.

  Here Lawler was, a longtime respected star in the business, and he was selling and bumping all over the place for a couple of rookies he didn’t know from a hole in the wall. It was because of professionals like him and Idol that Hawk and I were able to come off looking every bit the monsters we were billed as.

  Lawler knew that by taking all of the punishment we could dish out, he’d also be absorbing huge sympathy from the fans. He crawled around playing the martyr while Idol was always out of arm’s reach, pleading to be tagged in. That was the key. A worker like Lawler was brilliant in this type of situation because he knew exactly how to play off of the people desperately wanting him to get that tag
.

  Lawler would reach toward the outstretched hand of Idol, and then at the last minute Hawk or I would drag him away and pummel him some more. Finally after several attempts to get to his corner and with the tension of the fans at fever pitch, we finally let Lawler break away and give the hot tag to Idol.

  Boom! The whole Mid-South Coliseum exploded like a powder keg as Idol jumped through the ropes and began scoop slamming Hawk and me left and right. We probably took about three slams each. As we were walking around dazed, Idol grabbed us both by the backs of our heads and noggin-knocked us face-first into each other.

  When Lawler got back into the action, I split off with him in one corner, and Idol and Hawk were in the middle of the ring. I picked Lawler up on my shoulder and started to walk slowly backward. Not knowing Hawk was laid out right behind me, I tripped and fell with Lawler on top of me. Idol, seizing the opportunity, jumped onto Lawler so that I was being pinned by two people. The ref made a two count before I completely launched both of them off me with a big kick-out that impressed even me.

  The finish came with all four of us in the ring brawling. At the same time, Paul was trying to hold Idol against the ropes so I could hit him with a running knee. When I jumped toward Idol, he moved out of the way and I nailed Paul instead. Paul got up and tried to climb back into the ring, but the ref was wrestling him to keep him out. Then Paul shoved him down, causing an immediate disqualification. Lawler and Idol got the win, but we kept our belts and showed a whole new audience what the Road Warriors were all about.

  When we returned to Georgia, we continued to feud with everyone who got in our way. King Kong Bundy in particular had such a vendetta against us that anytime Hawk and I were double-teaming someone, you could rest assured Bundy would come running down for the save. Because of his massive size and surprising speed, Bundy was the closest thing GCW had to Road Warrior control, becoming an equalizer of sorts for anyone suffering from our attacks.