One of the most influential tag teams of the 1980s, The Road Warriors — known to WWE fans as The Legion of Doom — were Animal and Hawk, a duo of huge bruisers decked out in face paint, unique haircuts, and spiky Mad Max style shoulder pads. Not only were they hugely successful, but they also spawned an entire genre of wrestlers, with imitators like Demolition and The Powers of Pain following in their post-apocalyptic footsteps.
While their career was plagued by drama and substance abuse issues as they jumped from promotion to promotion, capturing championships along the way even if the storylines weren’t so great, they’re an iconic tag team worth knowing about.
10 Managed By Paul Ellering
The Road Warriors were first introduced to fans in the early 1980s in Georgia Championship Wrestling and started out with their most famous manager: “Precious” Paul Ellering. A former wrestler who retired in the 1980s, Ellering had a heel stable named the Legion of Doom at the time, and so Hawk and Animal were part of that alongside Jake “The Snake” Roberts and Matt Borne (a.k.a. WWE’s original Doink), among others. In the later years, the duo would be paired with Sunny and, even later, Christy Hemme, but Ellering was the iconic one.
9 Fast Rise
Normally, a newcomer to the wrestling game would have to work hard and prove themselves to fans, promoters, and their peers before having tons of success, but Hawk and Animal were pretty much rookies when they debuted as The Road Warriors, and never seemed to experience an uphill battle in the ring. Instead, their killer gimmick and hard-hitting in-ring style propelled them to the tops of cars, and they captured the NWA National Tag Team Championship halfway through their debut year of 1983.
8 Tag Team Champions in WCW
The Road Warriors spent much of the 1980s being prominently featured on programming from Jim Crockett Promotions, which would later become WCW. During this run, they became top babyfaces in the promotion and not only feuded with legendary heels The Midnight Express but also took part in the first WarGames match, teaming with Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Koloff against The Four Horsemen.
They were also hugely successful tag team champions, enjoying a nearly two-year run with NWA World Six-Man Tag Title reign alongside Rhodes. In October 1988, they dethroned Midnight Express to become NWA World Tag Team Champions, a title they held for 155 days.
7 The Legion Of Doom
Backstage issues with WCW led to Hawk and Animal jumping ship to WWE in 1990. There, they took the name of their old stable and were renamed the Legion of Doom so as to not get confused with The Ultimate Warrior, who they teamed up with anyway. It wasn’t long before they beat The Nasty Boys for the Tag Team Championship, which they held for 165 days before dropping them to Money Inc. While Hawk and Animal didn’t initially have Paul Ellering in their corner, he eventually joined them in WWE in 1992.
6 Rocco
The year 1992 brought one of the more infamous (but not uncomfortable) moments of The Road Warriors career as Paul Ellering sought to better motivate Hawk and Animal and remind them of their roots. Taking them to a demolition site, Ellering unveiled their old ventriloquist dummy, Rocco, which they regularly beat up as children, and proceeded to bring Rocco to the ring for their matches. Accounts vary as to whether Rocco was an attempt to make LOD more kid-friendly or to embarrass them, but either way they hated it, and Hawk quit WWE over it.
5 The Hell Raisers
After departing WWE, Hawk headed overseas to New Japan Pro Wrestling where he formed a tag team with the up-and-coming Kensuke Sasaki, who adopted a Road Warrior-esque persona as Power Warrior. Named The Hell Raisers, Hawk and Power Warrior enjoyed two runs with the IWGP Tag Team Championship, and Sasaki’s profile was raised enough by the partnership that he had a successful singles career after they split. Eventually, Animal would show up in NJPW as well and would perform with the two as a trio, making it a unique kind of Road Warriors reunion.
4 Second Stint With WCW
Early 1996 saw Hawk and Animal return to the promotion where they were most successful, WCW. There, they had several matches including a Chicago Street Fight with Booker T and Sting at Uncensored, not to mention several title shots at Tag Team Champions Sting and Lex Luger.
However, by 1996 the Road Warriors were no longer the unbeatable powerhouses they used to be and never succeeded in capturing the tag belts. Add to that backstage disputes with management and the duo were gone from WCW in a matter of months.
3 LOD 2000
In early 1997, Legion of Doom had returned to WWE as the company was en route to the Attitude Era. During their initial period, they held the tag titles for a month and a half before dropping them to The New Age Outlaws. Soon after, Hawk and Animal disappeared for retooling and returned as LOD 2000, sporting new gear and a tweaked look, not to mention a new manager in Sunny. On top of that, their Legion grew as they gained a third wrestler in Puke (a.k.a Droz).
2 Hawk’s Drinking Problem As A Storyline
Puke’s inclusion in LOD 2000 proved to be a source of kayfabe tension between Hawk and Animal, and matters were worsened by Hawk’s real-life drinking problem becoming a part of the storyline. Eventually, it was revealed that Puke was enabling Hawk’s alcoholism in order to take his spot. To make matters more uncomfortable, the angle included a segment on Raw where Hawk climbed to the top of the TitanTron for suicidal purposes only for Puke to push him off under the guise of trying to retrieve him.
1 The End Of The Road
Hawk and Animal departed WWE in 1999 but made one last return in 2003 as a one-off challenge against tag champions Rob Van Dam and Kane. Hawk sadly died later that year, but Animal continued on, returning to WWE as half of the underwhelming LOD 2005 with Heidenreich. In the following years, Animal tagged with a number of partners including Rick Steiner for a match in Impact Wrestling and a reunion with Power Warrior in the late 2000s. In 2020, Animal would suffer a fatal heart attack at age 60.