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

by Joe Laurinaitis

  All of a sudden, we heard a familiar song that immediately grabbed our attention. It started with an unmistakable kicking bass drum: Doomp, doomp, doomp, doomp! Then that hanging power guitar chord came crunching in. Hawk and I looked right at each other and knew it was “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath. It was perfect, almost as if it had been written specifically for us.

  “I am Iron Man,” Ozzy Osbourne growled as the music played. Shit, if Ozzy was Iron Man, Hawk and I were definitely the tag team equivalent. Loaded with a ton of new attitude, we started counting down the minutes until July 15 and our debut at the Saint Paul Civic Center.

  6

  UNLEASHED ON THE AWA

  Going to the American Wrestling Association was our best decision for so many reasons. Hawk and I missed our families and were a little burned out from the toll it was taking. Being able to establish a home base in Minnesota was very important, especially to me. Now I could get my own place and take care of Joey and show my parents everything was working out with my career choice, even if it was a little left of center.

  Verne Gagne had an impeccable reputation for doing business the old-fashioned way: with a verbal agreement and a handshake. When we first met with Verne about coming in, we weren’t sure what he would offer us. Paul made it clear to Verne that we were main event players coming in for main event money. Verne couldn’t have agreed more. When we received our envelopes every couple of weeks, the paychecks lived up to Verne’s word. Believe me, that’s the best trait a promoter can have.

  On the media side of things, Verne had been running on KMSP-TV in Minneapolis with his AWA All-Star Wrestling program for years. He also had a successful Canadian production called AWA Major League Wrestling produced at a station called CKND in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

  The AWA was syndicated throughout all of greater Canada and had a huge following. But it wasn’t enough for Verne. Like a lot of the other promoters at the time, Verne saw what Vince was accomplishing and wanted in. After Black Saturday slapped everybody in the face and the offer from Crockett came to align the AWA and NWA for Pro Wrestling USA on ESPN, Verne jumped in with both feet.

  In 1984, ESPN was still a brand-new network trying to establish itself as a credible outlet. They were looking for dynamic programming to fill their air space and knew from the success of the WWE on USA that professional wrestling was worth a look.

  ESPN eventually signed a deal that summer for a weekly time slot on Saturday afternoons. With Pro Wrestling USA, fans got a chance to see wrestlers from two of the Big Three professional wrestling companies all on the same show. We came in while all of this was going down, and there was big excitement in the air. It was the new wave of the AWA.

  When we were thrown into the mix, we quickly had to get used to the new travel schedule and all of the new cities we’d be visiting. Hawk and I were still fresh off of the Mid-Atlantic and GCW touring loop of Southern states like Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky. The AWA was a whole new ball game.

  Now we were wrestling all over the Great Lakes region, in places like New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The AWA also stretched out to Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and even California, not to mention Manitoba. So when we hit the road, we’d hit a couple of cities in each state, such as Hammond and Indianapolis, then shoot right up to Green Bay and Milwaukee, and up to Brandon and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

  When we’d finally hit all of the cities and covered everything in the AWA regions, it was considered finishing a loop. Then we basically turned around and did it all over again. We were wrestling five to six times a week. No matter where we were in the middle of a loop, we’d have to be back in Minneapolis every Sunday morning for the TV taping of AWA All-Star Wrestling.

  The big wait was finally over, and it was time for our hometown debut at the Saint Paul Civic Center. Because we were from Minnesota, we got huge coverage from the newspapers and TV stations. Even though we were billed as Chicagoans, the native Minnesotans knew better.

  Our friends and fans pulled together and escorted us with a huge entourage of fifty loud Harley-Davidsons while Hawk, Paul, and I rode in the back of a vintage Excalibur like the grand marshals of our own Road Warrior parade. It was incredible.

  When we arrived at the back entrance, hundreds of fans were outside waiting for us and we didn’t know what to make of it. Here we were, the most savage heel tag team professional wrestling has ever known, and we had throngs of supporters chanting our names as we made our way into the Saint Paul Civic Center.

  I’ll never forget when “Iron Man” started playing at match time. Paul put his arms around us and told us this was the moment we’d been fighting for since the day we’d started on June 11, 1983. He looked at us and said, “I want you guys to leave this locker room and sprint to the ring. Let everyone know this is your night and you’re taking it by storm.”

  If Paul wanted a blitzkrieg, then that’s what he was going to get. The crowd went berserk as we launched out from behind the dressing room door and ran to the ring ahead. People were putting their hands out for high fives, but they were getting too close and we had to shove them out of the way.

  I couldn’t help but remember being here as a fan when Hulk Hogan had feuded with AWA World Heavyweight champion Nick Bockwinkel back in 1982. Those guys had seemed bigger than life as I’d watched from the stands in my Hawaiian shirt and bib overalls. I never would have imagined in a thousand years I’d soon follow in their very footsteps.

  When we slid under the ropes and got to our feet, Hawk and I looked around and saw 18,000 people giving us a standing ovation. Even my parents and Joey were in the crowd. Hawk and I prowled around the ring, screaming at the top of our lungs and flexing.

  Across the ring, our opponents, none other than my old friend Curt Hennig and his partner Steve Olsonoski, or Steve-O as he was known, jumped out of the ring and let us have the moment. The match itself went by in a flash, but something happened with the fans that none of us expected.

  In a case of role reversal, the people were cheering Hawk and me every step of the way, making us makeshift babyfaces. Those fans went crazy every time we started beating the shit out of Curt and Steve-O. It reminded me of Bizarro World from the Superman comics, where everything was backward. For the most part, we weren’t used to anything but hostility from the audience, so it actually made the match hard to work at some points.

  In a lot of ways, that first big pop13 was the defining moment of our popularity. It was an example of the counterculture standing up and rooting for the bad guys. We were the guys you loved to hate. The whole thing was spontaneous and something we’d see more and more as time went on. It was an unstoppable movement like a runaway train.

  By August of 1984, a new mentality was developing. The punk scene of the late ’70s was pretty much dead, but the angst and rebellion wasn’t. It kind of turned into this new wave thing. Mohawks, tattoos, and an I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude were taking over with the disenfranchised youth across the country. With our dog collars, haircuts, and paint jobs, we fit right in with the misfits and antiheroes of the day.

  This generation was idolizing popular movie characters like Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street, Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cyborg in The Terminator. People took one look at what we were doing and instantly put us in the same category as their favorite science fiction and horror icons.

  In the ring that night in St. Paul, the tide began to shift in favor of the Road Warriors for good. Hennig and Steve-O were such great guys, too. They bumped and sold for us all night long and continued to do so for the next few weeks. Wrestling those guys primed us for our upcoming match for the AWA World titles against Baron von Raschke and the Crusher.

  But that night in St. Paul, Hawk and I walked out of the arena exhilarated. We hit the town with a few hundred of our newest friends and got hammered until morning.

  Now that I was living in Minnesota again,
I started working out at all of my old haunts. Hawk and I even became partners with Jim Yungner, owner of The Gym, to help finance a new facility. We loved The Gym, and it was a great way for us to get involved in a business outside of wrestling. It was also at The Gym that I started making the acquaintance of a beautiful blonde named Julie.

  Julie was a local champion powerlifter from Robbinsdale, and I had seen her around for the last year or so. Gradually she and I started developing a little rapport from bumping into each other. I asked around at The Gym and found out that like me, Julie was fresh out of a relationship.

  One day she walked right up to me, a big smile on her face. “Today’s my twenty-first birthday.”

  “Really? Here—take this and go have some champagne on me,” I said as I handed her a couple hundred bucks. I told her I had to leave town for a few weeks but that the next time I was in town we’d get together.

  A couple weeks later, I gave her a call. “Mind if I stop by?”

  “Sure,” she said, and it was a good thing, too, because I was right around the corner at a pay phone.

  When I got there, Julie got all shy and ran up to her room to put something else on. She was so cute. I didn’t know what it was about her, but I knew she was for me. When she came back down, we visited for a little bit. Then I asked for a kiss. She gave me one, and I fell in love right then and there. I even told her I’d marry her.

  Julie may have taken guys’ hearts before, but now she’d captured the heart of an Animal. If ever there was a time when everything really started falling into place for me, it was then. Julie was amazing, I was providing for Joey, and the AWA was really starting to heat up.

  After a couple weeks of running with Hennig and Steve-O, Verne lived up to his word and told us we were winning the World Tag Team titles from Baron and the Crusher at the upcoming event at the Showboat Sports Pavilion in Las Vegas on August 25.

  Before we left Minneapolis, we cut a memorable promo for the big championship match in Vegas. It started with Paul coming out in a blue suit and tie to talk with interviewer Ken Resnick, yet another Minnesota native, while we stood off camera.

  In a slow, calculated delivery, Paul went into one of his classic monologues about Hawk and me as we walked on screen. “It could not be denied—275 pounds of muscle and 295 pounds of muscle. Crusher and Baron, you have signed the dotted line, and you have signed away the AWA belts, for destiny lies with the Legion of Doom, the Road Warriors. And your destiny, Crusher and Baron, lies in defeat.”

  Then Hawk grabbed the mic. “Hey, Crusher and Raschke, listen up. I want you to watch this. I want you to look at this.” As he was yelling, Hawk grabbed my arm and I threw a double biceps pose in my custom “I don’t care” tank top. “This here thing”—he pointed to my right arm—“I call it the level, and you know why I call it the level? Because that’s what you are when it hits you: level.”

  Then I lunged at the camera, mimicking a huge clothesline. It was an early classic, no doubt about it.

  When Hawk and I flew out to Las Vegas, we were blown away. On the marquee outside the entrance to the Pavilion was a giant “Welcome, Road Warriors and the AWA.” Hawk and I couldn’t believe it! All over the casino, posters with our faces on them were advertising the event. It was like what you’d see for a Pointer Sisters concert or something. We felt like big stars.

  As soon as we finished painting and gearing up in the bathroom, Paul walked up, smiling broadly. He was slapping his Wall Street Journal against his hand and staring at each of us. “Boys, this is the next step. The AWA titles are the granddaddy of them all. Let’s go take what’s ours and never look back.”

  Just as Paul finished, we heard the stomp of “Iron Man” playing in the air and knew it was time. We threw open the door and steamed toward the ring, with Paul right behind us. People were struggling along the aisle to get a glimpse of us as we paved our way through.

  When I got inside, Baron and Crusher stood, unimpressed. Those guys had been around the block. Baron was forty-three years old, and Crusher was fifty-eight. Now they’d found themselves as champions one more time. When we arrived, it was like a public changing of the guard. Everyone in the ring and in the audience knew this night was all about the Road Warriors.

  As expected, both Baron and Crusher were extremely stiff workers and didn’t hesitate to throw heavy punches and elbows. I found Baron von Raschke in particular to be very funny in the ring. Whenever he’d throw punches or kicks, he’d emphasize them with a loud sound effect like you would hear in the cartoons or the noise we’d all make when play fighting. The first time Baron started throwing punches with the sound effects, it startled the hell out of me.

  By the end of the almost fifteen-minute match, I was catching the brunt of things. Crusher threw me into the ropes and caught me with a knee to the stomach. Then he started winding up his right arm and hit me in the face with a bolo punch, his classic finisher.

  I kicked out, and in came Baron, who wasted no time in also throwing me into the ropes before clutching my forehead with his own finisher, the claw. As I was fighting off his grasp, Hawk came running in and jumped to the second turnbuckle and steadied himself.

  On the other side of the ring, Paul was distracting both Crusher and the referee, giving us the perfect double team as Hawk leapt through the air over me and delivered a big clothesline to Baron. Within three seconds, Hawk and I raised our hands with the AWA World Tag Team Championships held tight.

  It was the beginning of a new era for us and the AWA. For the next thirteen months, those titles were synonymous with our names. We even had Verne update the style of the belts, which were decades old, worn-out relics. When the new, red leather, chrome-plated belts arrived, Hawk and I kept the originals. I still have mine.

  Over the next four months, we feuded on and off with Curt Hennig and Steve-O and Baron and Crusher almost exclusively until we were put into a late fall program with the Fabulous Ones, Steve Keirn and Stan Lane.

  The Fabs were from Jerry Jarrett’s CWA down in Memphis and about the hottest babyface ticket in tag team wrestling. They both were about six feet tall and 230 pounds with long, blond hair and matching beards. When they came to the ring, they wore bow ties and glittery tuxedo jackets like Chippendales dancers. Those guys were a perfect contrast to our unbeatable monster gimmick, and we proceeded to go around the AWA loop with them time and again.

  We’d first encountered the Fabs when we were working for Ole during some shots in Memphis. Man, did those guys know how to work! Up until then, Hawk and I had never seen such intensity from another tag team. They bumped and sold for us like there was no tomorrow, and the fans loved the rivalry. We were perfect “good versus evil.” Although they were smaller and we press slammed them from one end of the ring to the other, the Fabs had heart and never gave up.

  After we won the AWA titles, we went right into a program with the Fabs that climaxed about four months later on a dramatic Christmas night in our backyard at the Saint Paul Civic Center. It was a huge, sold-out show for the holiday, and once again almost everyone we knew was there. Even my brothers, Marc and John, home from college on Christmas break, were in the audience. As you can imagine, Hawk and I wanted to put on a really special performance.

  While we were going over the plan with Paul, Verne came into our dressing room and said, “We want you guys to drop the titles tonight. The finish of the match will be the switcheroo.”

  The switcheroo was a move the Fabs loved to use to dupe their opponents. This is how it worked. Let’s say at the end of a match Lane was hurt and in danger of being pinned. The referee and the opponent in the ring would conveniently be distracted so that Keirn would slip into the ring and Lane would roll out, leaving a fresh Fabulous One to miraculously jump to his feet and come back for the win. The Fabs got the win, and the losing team came off as idiots to boot. Talk about insult to injury.

  The main problem with the switcheroo was that although Keirn and Lane may have had similar features, th
ey weren’t exactly twins, and it was a stretch to assume nobody realized there was a different guy in the ring. An even bigger problem, however, especially that Christmas night, was that Hawk and I definitely weren’t interested in coming off as the most ignorant jackasses on the planet by falling for the switcheroo in front of our hometown and losing the titles. If we were going down, we’d go down swinging.

  When Verne explained what he wanted for the match’s conclusion, we nodded as if everything was fine. But it wasn’t. Hawk and I were rising to prominence with the Road Warrior gimmick, and we wouldn’t let anybody undermine all of our hard work. We tried to appeal to Verne’s son, Greg Gagne, booker for the AWA, but he wouldn’t compromise. That left us to our own devices and imagination (which could be a bad thing for everybody).

  While we were wondering how to handle the situation, Paul in his infinite wisdom stood and told us exactly what we could do. “Listen, boys, you’re the ones holding all the cards here. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. If you don’t want to go down tonight, change the finish when you’re out there. Slam those guys right through the mat.”

  Hawk and I had never thought of doing anything like that before. To be honest, it was probably one of the most rebellious acts a wrestler could commit. But at that time and place, it sure sounded like a good way out to us.

  We decided to incite a DQ finish involving steel chairs. Paul told us he knew Keirn very well from his days in Memphis and whenever Keirn was abused and pushed to the limits during a match, you could always count on him to go get a chair and start swinging like there was no tomorrow.

  After both teams came out, the crowd was firmly in our favor. The Fabs weren’t used to being heels, but going with what the audience dictates is what ring psychology’s all about. We decided Hawk would start things off. I found it funny that Keirn himself was the one who came to the center as the bell rang.