Road Warriors / Legion Of Doom

Road Warriors

The Road Warriors were a professional wrestling tag team originally composed of Michael "Hawk" Hegstrand and Joseph "Animal" Laurinaitis, though other members were added later on in their career. They performed under the name "Road Warriors" in the American Wrestling Association, the National Wrestling Alliance, and World Championship Wrestling, and the name Legion of Doom (L.O.D. for short) in the World Wrestling Federation. Under either name, their gimmick was the same – two imposing musclebound wrestlers in face paint. In Japan in the 1990s, Kensuke "Power Warrior" Sasaki often teamed with Hawk and Animal, separately and together.

Generally recognized as one of the greatest tag teams in professional wrestling history, Hawk and Animal were well known as innovators, popularizing the use of face paint, using their massive physiques and power moves to win over audiences, and introducing a tandem maneuver known as the Doomsday Device. Both men used the move as a team finisher throughout their careers, even when teaming with other partners.

Road Warriors (Original Look

In the early 1980s, in NWA's Georgia Championship Wrestling, Paul Ellering introduced a stable called "The Legion of Doom" that consisted of the Road Warriors, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, The Spoiler, Matt Borne, King Kong Bundy, Arn Anderson, The Iron Sheik and the original Sheik. Animal had briefly competed as the Road Warrior before Ellering paired him up with fellow Chicagoan Hawk to form the Road Warriors. The stable was short lived and the name "Legion of Doom" soon referred only to the Road Warriors and Ellering with either name used interchangeably throughout their career. Animal reveals in the "Road Warriors: The Life and Death of the Most Dominant Tag-Team in Wrestling History (2005)" DVD set that the name "Legion of Doom" was taken from the Super Friends cartoon.

When Hawk and Animal signed with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in June 1990, Vince McMahon retired the Road Warriors moniker. They both made their TV debuts on the July 15, 1990 episode of Wrestling Challenge. In the WWF the team would be known only as the "Legion of Doom". Hawk and Animal immediately entered into a feud with Demolition, the team McMahon had supposedly created in their likeness three years earlier, which led into a televised six-man tag-team match where Hawk and Animal teamed up with Ultimate Warrior against all three members of Demolition. Ax was having health issues and an agreement was made to phase him out and eventually replace him with Crush. Ax was moved into a role as manager for the team with the hope of taking a front office position, which eventually fell through. The Legion of Doom / Demolition feud did not have the expected intensity because of the change and L.O.D. soon set their sights on the tag team titles. At SummerSlam 1991, the Legion of Doom defeated The Nasty Boys to win the World Tag Team Championship, becoming the only team to win world tag titles in all three of the top promotions of the 1980s. Hawk and Animal would eventually lose the titles to Money Inc. on February 7, 1992 after which they briefly left the promotion.

Legion Of Doom

LOD would return a short time later with original manager Paul Ellering. The team incorporated a ventriloquist dummy called "Rocco" (Originally Introduced as "Freckles" in front of a live crowd at a WWF TV Taping, the segment bombed so bad that it never aired) Which served as their “inspiration”, but this gimmick was short-lived. Hegstrand left the company in disgust with the Rocco gimmick immediately after SummerSlam 1992 ,going AWOL in London after the event with John Nord and missing the flight back to the US, while Laurinaitis stuck around, finishing the team's contractual obligations with former Demolition member Crush (now repackaged as a face) replacing Hawk on house shows, before an injury to his back forced him into a lengthy hiatus

When Laurinaitis’ back was finally healed enough for him to return to wrestling, the Road Warriors signed a contract with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in late 1995. Upon their return in January 1996, immediately started a feud with the returning Steiner Brothers, as well as Harlem Heat before moving on to challenging the WCW Tag Team Champions Sting and Lex Luger. The Road Warriors had several shots at the champions but failed to win the titles.

Hegstrand and Laurinaitis stayed with WCW for about six months, before leaving over a dispute with Eric Bischoff. The pair made claims that Bischoff promised them a second-highest paid contract, as well as a separate contract from Japan, something which he denies remembering.

Tag Team Champions

After leaving WCW, the duo took various independent bookings both in the U.S. and Japan before signing with the WWF, making their surprise return on the February 24, 1997 edition of Monday Night Raw where they destroyed the Headbangers, despite both teams being counted out. The Legion of Doom would be heavily involved in the feud with the Hart Foundation siding with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ken Shamrock and Goldust at In Your House: Canadian Stampede. The Legion of Doom also became 2-time WWF tag team champions on October 7, 1997 when they defeated The Godwinns. In November 1997, the Legion of Doom faced the newly formed New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) and shockingly lost the titles to the upstart team.

The Legion of Doom would challenge the Outlaws several times in the next couple of months but could not win the gold. In early February 1998, the Legion of Doom disappeared from WWF television after the two men brawled on Raw, seemingly spelling their demise.

Hawk and Animal next appeared as Legion of Doom 2000, billed as an updated version of the Road Warriors “for the new millennium”, at WrestleMania XIV during a tag team Battle Royal. The duo sported a new look, including new shoulder pads and helmets (the helmets wouldn't last long, as Hawk got rid of his by throwing it to the crowd) and a new manager in Sunny. LOD 2000 won the battle royal and earned a shot at the tag team titles, but did not manage to win the gold.

LOD 2000... With Sunny!!!

Sunny soon left the team and Droz, then known as Puke, started to accompany them to the ring. At the same time, Paul Ellering returned, but sided with the Disciples of Apocalypse (D.O.A.), whom L.O.D. were feuding with at the time; Ellering and Animal explained on the DVD it was hard for them to rip on each other on promos. For the first time in the history of the Road Warriors they participated in a storyline where tension arose between the members, teasing a break up. In this storyline, Hawk was seen by his partner Animal as unfit to wrestle and Puke was tapped to take Hawk's place in the tag team as an official member. The angle played off Hegstrand’s real life alcohol and drug issues, going so far as to faking a suicide jump off the top of the TitanTron. After the angle bombed and both Hegstrand and Laurinaitis voiced their objections to it, the angle was dropped. The Legion of Doom made a very brief return, first on the March 22, 1999 Raw is War by attacking Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco in a backstage skit after the two impersonated LOD in a handicap match against Shane McMahon, on the March 15, 1999 Raw is War. Both LOD entered the pre-WrestleMania battle royal with the last two participants getting a tag team title show later at WrestleMania XV but both came up short. They would make one final appearance on the March 29, 1999 Raw challenging Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett for the tag team titles but failed to win them; they left the WWF afterwards.

The Road Warriors' last TV appearance as a team occurred on the May 12, 2003 Raw episode in a tag team match against the WWE World Tag Team Champions, Rob Van Dam and Kane. The Road Warriors had hoped to get a full time contract with WWE but nothing ever came of it. Hegstrand died five months later on October 19, 2003.

Animal & Hawk

Animal would later return to WWE in 2005, teaming with Heidenreich in a feud against the tag team MNM. At The Great American Bash on July 24, 2005, Animal and Heidenreich defeated MNM to win the WWE Tag Team Championship in a match personally dedicated by Animal to Hawk. After winning the titles Heidenreich changed his appearance, to a look that better suited the Legion of Doom image by shaving his hair into a mohawk and wearing face paint.

On August 18, 2005, Heidenreich was officially made part of the "L.O.D" and was presented with his own Road Warrior "spikes". Shortly after winning the tag team titles, Animal paid tribute to his late partner and friend by looking up to the heavens above and saying, "Hawk, this one's for you, brother!". During their feud with MNM, L.O.D. were joined by Christy Hemme, who acted as a valet/manager for a short while.

On the October 28, 2005 edition of SmackDown!, L.O.D. lost the tag team titles to MNM in a Fatal Four-Way tag match that also featured Paul Burchill and William Regal and The Mexicools (Super Crazy and Psicosis). A few months later, on January 17, 2006, Heidenreich was released from WWE. Animal continued to perform for WWE under his old persona, The Road Warrior, for a few months before he was also released.

On April 2, 2011, The Road Warriors with Paul Ellering were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

The Road Warriors are set to make an appearance in THQ's latest wrestling game WWE '12 making it their first appearance in a wrestling game together as part of the Legends roster since WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw.