Road Warrior Animal Interview

"Oooooh what a rush."

To wrestling fans, those four words are the kinds that will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. They're the kind of words that will make your heart beat faster and they'll make you shift to the edge of your seat.

To those standing inside the ring, awaiting their opponents' entrances, those words usually spelled doom, as in Legion of Doom, a.k.a. the Road Warriors.

From their beginnings as childhood pals to their dominating rise and reign to becoming arguably the greatest tag team in the history of wrestling, there is no disputing the lasting impact that Joseph (Animal) Laurinaitis and the late Michael (Hawk) Hegstrand left on the professional wrestling landscape.

Together, they dominated tag team wrestling, holding tag titles more than 20 times for various organizations in their more than 20-year run. They also revolutionized face paint as part of a gimmick and they became known the world over for their ring attire and rough-and-tumble style.

Ooooooh what a rush, indeed.

Thankfully for wrestling fans (less so for their opponents), wrestling found the big men at a time when it was on the cusp of a global explosion.

For Laurinaitis, who will be in Brockville on Aug. 14 as part of a Great North Wrestling show, wrestling wasn't his first love. His young heart belonged to one of America's other pastimes.

"I grew up in a baseball household," the 55-year-old Laurinaitis said in a telephone interview. "My dad played for La Salle University in Pennsylvania and got drafted by two pro teams, so I grew up in a baseball household."

Laurinaitis himself played baseball throughout his youth in Chicago, right through his high school years, before he began working out and eventually discovered a new love, pro football. (His son, James, is a standout linebacker with the NFL's St. Louis Rams.)

It was as kids that Laurinaitis would meet the then boy who he would spend the majority of his life with, when he befriended Hegstrand. The duo would eventually find themselves bouncing at a bar called Grandma B's in Minneapolis, along with a couple other future wrestling legends, when a fateful encounter sent the duo down a path with destiny.

"You had myself, Hawk, Ravishing Rick Rude and Barry Darsow, who was Smash of Demolition, and Nikita Koloff, who had a broken leg at the time," Laurinaitis said of the staff at Grandma B's. "A lot of us were high school buddies. We all knew each other and we were sitting around and there was a guy named Ed Sharkey, who trained Jesse The Body Ventura, (there) and he said, 'Hey, I'm going to run a wrestling camp,' " Laurinaitis said. Sharkey clearly liked what he saw in the burly bunch of bouncers.

To a man, Laurinaitis said, they balked at the offer.

"Every one of us said, 'No, I'm not doing wrestling,'" he remembered with a chuckle, with laser-sharp hindsight vision.

The persuasive Sharkey would eventually get his men.

"We all broke down and we said, 'OK, we'll do the camp.' And we did it and every one of us made it," Laurinaitis recalled. "And Scott Norton did the camp, too, who was part of the NWO. It was kind of funny how we all went, all made it and all made it pretty big. I think we all were world champs, too. There was something right in the water that day."

So with baseball and football off the table, and pro wrestling now the focus, Laurinaitis and Hegstrand could never have predicted the success that was ahead for them.

Laurinaitis and Hegstrand would hit the proverbial wrestling jackpot in 1983 when, along with legends Ole Anderson and Bill Watts, they formed the tag team that would change the business.

"It was through Ole Anderson and Bill Watts," Laurinaitis said when asked about the birth of the Road Warriors. "Bill is a very smart guy and he and Ole got together because they wanted to trade talent between the UWF and Georgia Championship Wrestling. They said, 'OK, let's make the Road Warriors.' It was right after the Road Warrior movie (Mad Max 2). They called Hawk and I into a room and said, 'Hey, you know that movie Road Warrior?' "

It was suggested they paint their faces, and Hegstrand came up with the idea for the trademark Road Warrior hair cuts.

"We started off just putting a little paint here and there and then it evolved into the paint jobs we had on our faces after that," Laurinaitis said.

The Road Warriors were an instant hit. Their signature look, combined with their talent and in-ring style took the wrestling world by storm.

The Road Warriors became so popular, in fact, that even to this day, the legacy of their popularity lives on in the form of the expression "Road Warrior pop."

"Whenever anybody gets cheered in the wrestling business, they call it the Warrior pop, or the Road Warrior pop," Laurinaitis said. "You hear (World Wrestling Entertainment commentator) Booker T say it on TV all the time. That's when the crowd totally erupts for you. We were one of the few entities that had that kind of eruption. Whenever anybody gets something even close to it, they call it Warrior pop," he said, likening to another tribute within the business to the late great Gorilla Monsoon.

"It's just like when you get ready to go out to the matches, where are you at, you're at the Gorilla position, which is named after Gorilla Monsoon. We'll go down in history, in the life of this business, there'll always be the Gorilla position, there'll always be the Warrior pop."

That, Laurinaitis, admitted, is pretty cool.

"It means that we did our job well," he said.

If the Warriors' looks, facepaint and rugged domination weren't enough, their now legendary entrance took them to the next level altogether, Laurinaitis said.

"I think at the time, we were the first ones at the time using Black Sabbath, which was good music," he said, referring to "Iron Man" by Sabbath. "When the copyright laws came out, we went to the 'Oooohhhh what a rush,' and that just got over crazy. As soon as they heard that Oooooh then people went nuts. They knew, 'Oh crap, here it comes.' "

The trailblazing didn't end with the Road Warriors ring attire, makeup, finishing move and entrance themes, not to mention sheer dominance. It also extended to their popularity. In those days, you'd have been hard pressed to find a more popular pair of wrestlers on the planet. So popular were the Road Warriors, in fact, that no matter what they did, fans would cheer, Laurinaitis said. They were cheered as heels long before that became a phenomenon thanks to the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker and others.

"We probably were the first Stone Cold tag team," Laurinaitis joked. "No matter what we did, whether we totally annihilated somebody in the ring or we just plain beat them, people loved it."

In fact, the duo was initially formed to be heels, but a timely match at the Great American Bash changed that forever, Laurinaitis said.

"You've got to remember now, Hawk and I, in about our second or third year, it was right at the end of the Cold War, with (Mikhail) Gorbachev and president Ronald Reagan, and that's when they were calling for the big peace treaties. The Russians were still the bad guys and then we wrestled Ivan and Nikita Koloff at the Great American Bash and from that point forward, we were babyfaces. All it took was one match."

The Road Warriors, along with manager Paul Ellering, would dominate the tag team scene everywhere they went, eventually hitting the big time and landing in WWE, where they curiously became known as the Legion of Doom.

The name change, Laurinaitis said, was at the urging of Vince McMahon.

"People forget that Ellering, Hawk and I were always a member of the Legion of Doom," he said, referring to previous wrestlers that Ellering managed. "When we went up to WWE, Vince said, 'I already have the Ultimate Warrior, I don't want to have too many Warriors, so what can we call you guys?' I said to him, 'Why don't we call ourselves the Legion of Doom?' We weren't supposed to use the Road Warrior name at all, but we still did it in interviews anyway."

The Road Warriors/Legion of Doom would continue to dominate the wrestling landscape, winning titles and winning over fans, well into the early part of the 2000s. It was then that tragedy struck. Hegstrand, at just 46 years young, died suddenly on Oct. 19, 2003.

For Laurinaitis, he lost a lifelong friend, a business partner and someone he considered his own family.

"It's like any member of your family passing away," Laurinaitis said when asked how his partner's death affected him. "I'd not only known him from young, but from a business standpoint too, being together every day on the road basically for 250 to 300 days a year for 22 years. I knew his ins and outs. I could tell you when he looked at me in the ring if he got knocked on the head pretty hard and forgot where he was supposed to be and me telling him where to go.

"We had the telepathy with each other. A lot teams don't have that today. I don't know if any other team has that today, where you know what your partner is thinking. Everything today is so scripted out, guys go and rehearse matches, from front to back. You would never have caught Hawk and I going to the ring rehearsing matches. We liked the element of surprise like the fans. Hawk and I knew what each other was thinking right away."

Laurinaitis vividly remembers the last conversation he had with his lifelong friend.

"It was on a Saturday and I asked him, 'Hey man, what are you doing?' He goes, 'Ah, moving out of this condo on the beach in St. Pete into a house further inland to get away from the rougher waters.' He had just moved the last of his heavy stuff out of the condo into the house and he told his wife, 'I'm going upstairs to lay down honey, I'm tired, I want to go to sleep.' He went upstairs and never woke up."

Shockingly, Laurinaitis would not learn of his friend's death until the next day.

"I got a call the next day from one of my friends," Laurinaitis said, adding that he was cleaning his pool when the call came in.

His friend asked him if he'd received any calls that day, to which he said no and asked what was up.

"He goes, 'Heard anything from Mike or Dale (Hegstrand's wife) or anybody?'

"I said, 'No, why?'

"He said, 'Joe, Mike died last night.'"

Just like that, his friend was gone.

"Nobody called me. I think everybody was in such shock."

The loss of his friend and business partner affected Laurinaitis in many ways.

"It affected me emotionally, personally, financially," he said. "When you're synonymous, in this business, like we were, and you rely on each other for every pay cheque and every dime you make, and one goes, you kind of go, 'Uh oh.' "

Laurinaitis fondly remembers his friend, even a dozen years after his death, chuckling when recounting what he said was the only fight the duo ever had in their more than two-decade run in wrestling.

"We never really came to blows," he said, adding, "He slapped me once, so I slapped him once and that was it. It was over stupid stuff. It was over frustration," he said, implying that it was over miscommunication during a match.

"He came back frustrated, yelling, and I said something and he said something and I said something and we both looked at each and we both slapped each other at all almost the same time and then 10 minutes later we were hugging and we never did it again after that."

The Road Warriors briefly lived on, in a reincarnated form with Jon Heidenreich, following Hegstrand's death, a decision that Laurinaitis made from a business perspective, one that he sounds like he regrets.

"I did it just to show that I'm a businessman," he said. "You know, Hawk and I did a couple of things with WWE that we didn't want to do. We didn't want to do Rocco. That (ventriloquist ) doll was a dumb idea, but we did it. We didn't want to do the drunk thing, falling off the Titantron, but we did it. (I) didn't want to do the Heidenreich thing, but I did it to try to show them I was being a businessman."

Laurinaitis felt that doing what was best for business on his part was never reciprocated by WWE.

"It was one of those things that was never appreciated or respected because at this stage of my career, I would love to be a coach, doing all of that stuff, but with them, it was never going to work out."

Never one to have regrets, Laurinaitis has moved on from the WWE, where his brother John still works behind the scenes, and continues to make appearances at comic cons, wrestling events and working on his charitable causes.

That said, he still cares very deeply about the business and isn't shy to express his feelings on any subject, particularly the state of tag team wrestling today.

"I think it's appalling what they've done to tag team wrestling," he said. "Now you're trying to revive tag team wrestling and it's almost too late. They don't have any credibility and the teams are dropping belts every other month. You have to understand, there were times when Hawk and I went years without losing the belts. Bruno Sammartino went 14 years with the title. People believe in that champion. People are not going to believe if that belt changes hands every month."

Laurinaitis called The Dudleys, Bully Ray and Devon, the last remaining true tag team in the business.

"I think the Dudleys are the last of a breed of long-lasting tag teams. I respect their work and I know the Dudleys have got great respect for the Road Warriors. They have expressed it numerous times, they did the dedication with arm bands for Hawk when Hawk died and they refer to the Warrior pop and everything else. Besides Hawk and I, I think you're going to see, in the annals of history, you're going to see Dudley Boyz running right under Hawk and I, over everybody else. I believe that."

As for whether the door remains open for an eventual return to WWE, Laurinaitis said the door has never been closed, but that he doesn't see it happening.

"I doubt it," he said. "I tried to become a coach and give back what I know in this business. How do you have guys coaching guys to be in a Super Bowl who've never been in the Super Bowl? If they don't want anybody who's been to the big dance coaching the guys, that's on them."

He then threw his support behind an upstart wrestling company.

"There's a new wrestling company starting up called Revolution. It's out of Vegas. They're going to back to basics, going back to kayfabe. Guys are going to build their own branding. It's a different philosophy and it's going to be a different niche and no six-sided ring. Leave that to Jeff Jarrett and his guys. I won't mention any names but some of the guys that are involved are all former world champs.

"I'll put my talents into that. I'm not going to spin my wheels and beg to go to WWE anymore. I'm not doing that. I've asked long enough, with my brother working there, and not getting a positive response. I've never burned a bridge with WWE, so I'm tired of trying, to be quite honest."

Laurinaitis said he can now look back at his and his late partner's legacy with a sense of pride.

"Now I get it," he said. "Now that I'm removed from it, I've had other businesses going on. When you look back now and you get to see all the fans and when you hear and you see, even from other guys in the business, what you've accomplished, you go, 'Wow man, I didn't realize I had that kind of effect on the wrestling business.' It's really humbling. We were just trying to go out there and do our jobs, and do it the best we can, but when you're one of the people who changed the face of what the business is today, it's kind of like 'Wow.'"

In the meantime, fans can come and meet the man himself on Aug. 14 at the Brockville Memorial Centre, where he'll be a special guest referee for the Canadian title match between the bizarre Hannibal and Darko.

Though being a referee wasn't necessarily his first choice, Laurinaitis said he has no problem doing so, and making sure it's a clean match.

"I don't prepare for anything," Laurinaitis deadpanned when asked how he'll prepare to referee the match. "I just go in there. If he gets out of hand, I'll have to put him in line," he said of Hannibal.

For Laurinaitis, getting out is more about meeting the fans than it is about getting into a ring.

"My main thing for coming out there is to see the fans. I bring my spike shoulder pads with me so fans can put them on for pictures. To give the fans what they want to come see and to give them a memory for life. That's what it's all about for me. To see all the great fans. That's what I'm more excited about than anything else."

That said, the Road Warrior in Laurinaitis is never far away.

"If Hannibal's a loose cannon, well I may just have to warm up a frickin' clothesline for him."