 I
have been running DeansPlanet's Dead Wrester section as
a tribute to our fallen ring heroes for about two years
now and recently we have encountered a lot of deaths in
the wrestling world. But this most recent one with
Road Warrior Hawk has hit me on a very personal level.
I first encountered Hawk & Animal on ESPN which used
to carry a weekly AWA show. The Road Warriors dominated
and left those who opposed them a bloody mess. They would
come out to Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" which only
added to the mystique which surrounded these two painted
belligerents. During their AWA tenure, they defeated Baron
Von Rashke and The Crusher for the AWA World Tag Team Belts.
This brought an era of dominance that hadn't been seen before
in the AWA. I bought some wrestling figures around that
time which were made by a company named REMCO. As I look
at them today, I realize that they suck. The bodies
were all the same and the arms & legs aren't that easy
to manipulate to perform "moves" on other figures.
But back then, this was a dream come true. I had a shitload
of them including Flair, Martel, Abdullah The Butcher &
many more but Hawk and Animal beat them all in my living
room on the floor.
After one year of complete dominance in the AWA, they decided
to jump to the NWA. There they were met by teams such as
Ivan and Nikita Koloff, the Midnight Express & the Varsity
Club all of which found themselves on Animal's shoulders
in their finishing move, but the title eluded them thanks
to many double disqualifications. They then got a
little sidetracked and teamed with  Dusty
Rhodes & Nikita Koloff to form the Super Powers to beat
up the 4 Horseman. Along with Dusty, they later won the
now defunct 6 man tag team titles which they would end up
having for 3 title reigns.
It
was around this time that Hawk started a short stint as
a singles wrestler. I never got to see the matches
but I read about them in various wrestling magazines at
the time such as The Wrestler & Pro Wrestling Illustrated.
That year I dressed up as RW Animal for Halloween, mainly
because a mohawk wig was easier to find than Hawk's hair.
I painted my face and constructed my very own NWA Heavyweight
Title belt, the same one Flair wore at the time that Hawk
was trying to win. The images in the magazine portraying
the fear in Flair's eyes, Hawk's running paint and blood
red streaks dripping from Flair's blonde mane are unforgettable. Animal
also faced Flair a bunch of times and showed that they could
stand on their own in singles matches. Then before I knew
it, there were Road Warrior wannabes all over the place.
From the NWA's Powers of Pain & Sting to the WWF's Demolition
then The Ultimate Warrior...
They
entered the WWF as The Legion Of Doom in 1990 where I hoped
they would seek and destroy the imposters who called themselves
Demolition. They didn't disappoint. It was about two
years before they even lost by pinfall. During that time,
they kicked Demolition's ass as well as The Oriental Express
(Pat Tanaka, Kato) & The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart,
Jim Neihart). Then they had Sunny as a manager and Hawk
was pushed off the Titan Tron by new LOD member Droz. It
was around that time that I lost track because frustration
set in with what the WWF was, or in this case, wasn't doing
with The Legion On Doom.
So as I sit here, looking through my two Road Warrior scrapbooks
I made as a youngster, I would just like to thank Hawk for
the years and years of entertainment...
"Oh yeah, what a rush..."
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