The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling (6 page)

Back home, everyone wanted to hear about my exploits in the world of professional wrestling. I let my feelings loose and made it clear that going down to Georgia was a horrible mistake and that Ole Anderson had fed me false hopes on the way to a dead end. Word got around quickly, and there was at least one person who took offense and decided to let me know: Rick Martel.

Rick was a well-established French Canadian wrestler who eventually became the AWA World Heavyweight champion before embarking on a run in the WWF as Rick “The Model” Martel. One day while I was working out at The Gym, Rick happened to be there and approached me with his two cents. In his thick French accent, he said, “Joe, I want to give you some advice. I know you went down to Georgia and didn’t have a great experience. But you might want to watch what you say about the business. You might get hurt.”

Oh, brother. Was he kidding? I cut him off. “Rick, let me tell you something. Those guys down there have my number and address. They can find me anytime. There ain’t no one down there I can’t handle, and that goes for you, too.”

Rick jumped back, surprised.

I didn’t mince words as I told him about being shuffled around from Atlanta to the Carolinas, starving. The expression on his face made it clear he didn’t care, so I saved my breath and went about my workout.

A couple days later, I was at my parents’ house with Joey when the phone rang. I couldn’t believe it. It was Ole. I guess his ears had been ringing down in Atlanta.

“Hey, kid. How’s it going?”

I wanted to reach through the phone and wring his neck. “You’ve got a lot of balls calling this house. You brought me down there, pushed me off to Crockett, and forgot about me.
I want to break your neck, man.
” I had so much pent-up frustration toward Ole that I blew up on him. I cussed him out left and right, calling him every name in the book.

To his credit, Ole listened, apologized, and explained things from his point of view. He said how his hands had been tied while fighting with Jim Barnett over GCW, but he assured me that things had been worked out and Barnett was gone. Then Ole asked me the big question: “Hey, Joe, you want to give it another try?”

Wow. I hadn’t seen that one coming. Truth was, I didn’t know. And that’s what I told him. We agreed to talk again down the road.

In the meantime, I went to work. Dropping weight had been depressing as hell. Now that I was eating and lifting normally, my body’s muscle memory kicked in and the pounds packed on. Before I knew it, I was close to 300 pounds again and feeling good.

I also got back in touch with both Rood and Mike Hegstrand. While I had been gone on my little adventures with GCW and MCW, Hegstrand and a healed up Rood had unsuccessfully gone to try their luck in Vancouver, wrestling for Al Tomko’s NWA All-Star Championship Wrestling. We exchanged stories of our less-than-stellar debuts and had a good laugh.

Mike told me that when those guys in Vancouver got a look at him, they had a revelation: “Let’s give this guy an evil German gimmick.” Mike hated it. They made him shave his head, gave him the claw as his finisher,
⁶
and named him Crusher Von Haig. “Aw c’mon. Not the claw.” Mike groaned. “Anything but the claw.” It was funny as hell. Crusher Von Haig was a typical, cliché gimmick that paralleled Baron von Raschke, a well-known wrestler in the AWA and NWA territories.

After only wrestling three matches, and vomiting after each of them, Mike had had enough. With Rood in tow, Mike fled Canada and came back to Minnesota. He couldn’t get there fast enough. They drove the entire 1800 miles all day and all night until they made it, almost killing themselves several times by falling asleep at the wheel.

Now that the three of us had been reunited, we all picked up bouncing shifts again back at Gramma B’s. There we were, working on a typical night, and who was there talking to Eddie again? Ole. Eddie had invited him back to take a better look at the pictures of all of us.

I said a quick hello but kept it short.

As Ole and Eddie were chatting and flipping through the pictures, one of them caught Ole’s eye. “Hey, where did you get this shot of Joe?” he said. “I haven’t seen this one before.”

Only it wasn’t me. It was Mike.

“Where was this guy the first time I was here?” He kept holding the pictures of Mike and me side by side. You could tell his wheels were turning. He saw something in us.

“Would the two of you be interested in coming down together? We could make you into a team,” Ole said. “I’ll make you my Road Warriors.”

I was hesitant to have a big conversation about the idea until I talked to Mike.

When I did, we both decided that if Ole agreed to treat us right, we’d do it.

Ole and I spoke on the phone, and I made it clear that this was not going to be a repeat of my first trip down to Georgia. “Are you going to take care of me this time?” I asked.

“You two come down here, and I’m gonna make you my champions.”

Champions? That was all I needed to hear to give wrestling another chance. After all, the main priority was to be successful and make good money. Becoming champions would ensure both.

So Mike and I packed, said our brief good-byes, and hauled off to the airport. You can imagine the crazy déjà vu I was experiencing.

As soon as we got to Atlanta, Ole made his intentions clear. “You guys are my tag champions. Get ready. Your first match is coming up on TV, and you’ll already have the belts.”

It was a sudden and shocking revelation. When Ole had told us on the phone that he was going to make us champions, I’d thought he’d meant a little further down the road after we had more experience. Mike and I had to scramble to get ready. I went out and bought us matching outfits that were an upgraded extension of my Road Warrior outfit before. Now we had black leather chaps with long black wrestling tights underneath, matching leather gloves, vests, and hats, black motorcycle boots, and sunglasses (black for me, red for Mike). The image, like us, was raw and in an early stage but much closer to what we wanted to portray: two bad, mean monsters from the streets.

After I got all of our stuff, we went back to see Ole.

“What do you want us to be?” I said. “How do you want us to act and look? Who are we?”

Ole thought about it for a minute, then smiled. “After what I saw you do to Randy Barber last year, you’re going to be Animal.”

I liked it, but then we both looked at Mike and wondered what we’d call him.

As I continued to think, Mike shouted it out. “Well, I fly around like a hawk.”

I answered right back, “There it is, bro. You’ll be Hawk.”

And that’s how it happened. Right then and there, we would forever be known to each other and the public as Animal and Hawk, the Road Warriors. In and out of the ring, as per kayfabe, we pretty much became our alter egos full-time, and the people never doubted it for a second. It was pretty crazy to be given license to walk around looking and acting like the Road Warriors.

Because we were so green in the business, Ole paired us up with someone who would become an integral part of our lives and career for years to come: “Precious” Paul Ellering. Paul had been wrestling for a few years but had recently blown one of his knees out on two separate occasions. He was looking to step out of the ring but stay in the business. Paul was also a genius with an IQ of 162 and was a former junior powerlifting champion with a recorded dead lift in the 750-pound range. For the first few months, Paul was our voice while we stood on either side of him as silent, menacing enforcers. We were a complete presentation now.

The time finally arrived for our big TV debut as the Road Warriors on GCW’s
World Championship Wrestling
. While we were gearing up in the back, Ole walked up. “We’re gonna shock a lot of people today, boys.” Then he congratulated us and handed over the NWA National Tag Team Championship belts.

It was just like that. Without even wrestling in a single match, we were champions for the first time. It was an unprecedented move, but Ole had needed to make a quick decision.

As it turned out, Ole had been in a real jam with his most recent champs, Arn Anderson and Matt Borne (future WWF character Doink the Clown). Borne had been accused of statutory rape. The impending publicity wasn’t something Ole wanted brought to the company, so he made a change: Arn and Borne were out, and Hawk and I were in.

Officially, it was explained that a few days before our TV debut, we’d won the titles during a tag team tournament in Chicago. It never happened. What did happen was that the Road Warriors became NWA champions without having to wrestle a single match. On June 11, 1983, we made our first ever TV appearance for GCW and came out with the belts around our waists as if we’d always had them.

Having the NWA National Tag Team Championship title was a
huge
deal. It immediately established us with the fans as legitimate forces to be reckoned with, and the boys in the back realized we were going to be around awhile, too.

Ole later told me that from time to time a few of the guys would complain about our stiff style and instant push. “They wanted you gone,” he said. “I told them if they wanted you fired to go do it themselves because I sure as hell wasn’t going to.”

It was still hard to grasp, though. Only a few weeks before, Hawk and I were in Minnesota debating if we should go to Atlanta or not, and now we were champions. We were in the company of other known National Tag Team champion teams like the Freebirds, Brad and Bob Armstrong, and the Wild Samoans, Afa and Sika.

It really showed how much Ole believed in us, too. He knew we were raw but that with Paul at our side, we’d learn from one of the most brilliant minds in the business. As our manager, Paul developed a vaudevillian carnival ringleader type of gimmick complete with a top hat, blue coat with tails, a pink tie, and his trademark folded up issue of the
Wall Street Journal
.

Paul hyped us during interviews with quick, creative articulation and a deep, gravelly tone. “Here come the Monsters of the Midway,” he’d yell. “I’m bringing the world something that’s never been seen before. The most dominating tag team of all time! You better run for your lives.” Paul was a phenomenal talent and businessman and exactly what we needed. He made the claims, and we backed them up. It was a perfect circle.

One thing many people don’t know is that Paul was our real manager. All of the managers in wrestling at the time—guys like Bobby Heenan, Jim Cornette, and Jimmy Hart—were playing a character role. Paul, on the other hand, did everything from booking our appearances, flights, and hotel rooms to sitting us down and strategizing our matches.

Almost every night, Hawk and I watched as Paul would sketch out a ring and stick figures on a piece of paper. “Okay, guys, this is the ring. Now, we don’t want to do too much at one time, so pick two moves to add to the match every week. Once you’ve perfected the timing and execution, we’ll move on.” Then he pointed with his pencil and gestured with his hands. “Now, Joe, if you’re here, bring the guy back to the corner and tag Mike. Then throw the guy into the ropes. As you get down and let the guy jump over you, Mike’s going to clothesline the hell out of him.”

Paul was so fluid and easy to follow that we learned something new every night. As a result, our confidence started to increase and we were able to elongate our matches.

Paul was more than a manager to us. He was the third Road Warrior.

4

ASSAULT ON GEORGIA CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING

When Hawk and I came into GCW as the Road Warriors, Ole said we were going to be killers. He sure wasn’t kidding. I remember him saying specifically, “Listen, you guys. You can’t wrestle a lick, and you can’t talk. Shut your mouths and learn your craft. So for now, let Paul be your mouthpiece and murder whoever’s put in front of you.”

That was just fine with us. We trusted that Ole knew what he was doing, and I think he really enjoyed shaping our image as indestructible monsters. He liked to throw us into the mix whenever he could to show the GCW audience what we were all about.

One night during a sold-out show at the Omni in Atlanta, Ole decided to have us run in on Dusty Rhodes and make a statement. Dusty was a former NWA World Heavyweight champion and was about the most charismatic star that professional wrestling had to offer at the time. Fans absolutely loved him. So it was only natural that as Dusty was celebrating in the ring after a victory, Hawk and I ran down and started beating his brains out. The people were deafeningly loud, and it was the most exhilarating feeling I’d ever had in the business.

It was also the first time I worked with color.
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Dusty was notorious for epic displays of blood, and this was no exception. His forehead practically exploded while Hawk and I pummeled him with fists.

“Harder. Hit me harder,” Dusty kept shouting. “Open me up.”

We were only too happy to oblige.

Dusty was a master to watch as he drew the most sympathetic emotions from the crowd. Many were on the verge of tears. There’s no way to accurately explain how emotionally invested wrestling fans were back then. To them, this was as real as it got. Ole wasn’t finished with them yet, either. It was time to even up the score for Dusty.

As Dusty was being mercilessly manhandled, Ole had Stan “The Lariat” Hansen run down to even up the score. Hansen was a six feet three, 300-pound wild cowboy known for being stiff as a board, tough as nails, and blind as a bat without his glasses, which he never wore. He came down the aisle wildly swinging his trademark cowbell and hollering up a storm. As he tried to climb into the ring, Hawk and I ran full speed and knocked him onto the floor. The Lariat didn’t seem to like that one bit. After grabbing a steel chair, he climbed into the ring and started swinging for the fences.

Earlier in the evening before our rundown on Dusty, Ole had told us about the upcoming spot with Hansen and the chair shots. “Take as many as you guys can. Show everyone what the Road Warriors are made of.”