1 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,040 They had the look. They had the power. 2 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:13,160 They had put it all together. It was a total package. 3 00:00:14,020 --> 00:00:19,180 The face paints, shoulder pads, and jack to the sky. Man, they turned their 4 00:00:19,180 --> 00:00:20,038 asses up. 5 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:22,020 I mean, they hit the ring like badass. 6 00:00:22,940 --> 00:00:29,400 We were two badasses trying to be wrestlers. They were wrestlers trying to 7 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:34,480 badasses. They were just like the guys in Mad Max. I mean, they were meaner 8 00:00:34,480 --> 00:00:35,580 the guys in Mad Max. 9 00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:41,060 In the history of professional wrestling, no duo has dominated the ring 10 00:00:41,060 --> 00:00:42,060 Hawk and Adam. 11 00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:43,660 The Road Warriors. 12 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:47,940 When we go to Japan, they were like Godzilla. 13 00:00:48,620 --> 00:00:50,460 You look at them and you win. 14 00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:51,759 Holy shit. 15 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:54,420 I hope they don't kill me. They were legitimate tough guys. 16 00:00:54,700 --> 00:00:58,760 They clawed their way to the top, becoming one of wrestling's biggest 17 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:03,900 attractions. But an unrelenting lifestyle for one ultimately led to 18 00:01:03,900 --> 00:01:04,900 downfall. 19 00:01:05,300 --> 00:01:07,900 Partied hard, played hard, lived hard. 20 00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:11,560 That switch would flip after the bash and bam! 21 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:13,500 I woke up this morning! 22 00:01:13,950 --> 00:01:18,810 This is where I felt sick. It becomes a way off as well as an escape. 23 00:01:19,250 --> 00:01:22,730 You'll feel like you want to be dead when we're done with you. 24 00:01:23,010 --> 00:01:24,730 The road can eat you alive. 25 00:01:25,290 --> 00:01:30,110 At the age of 46, road warrior Hawk unexpectedly passed away of a suspected 26 00:01:30,110 --> 00:01:34,490 heart attack. I literally cried like a baby. I mean, that was my friend. 27 00:01:34,910 --> 00:01:36,990 I've been through hell and back with this guy. 28 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:52,220 The art of tag team wrestling engages fans in a dynamic, far more complex way 29 00:01:52,220 --> 00:01:53,860 than one -on -one matches. 30 00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:59,560 The greatest tag team duos in history share a sixth sense, operating as two 31 00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:00,620 halves of one whole. 32 00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:02,780 There's no one without the other. 33 00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:10,120 And no team proves that more than Mike Hawk Eggstrand and Joe Animal Lorne 34 00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:13,780 Knight. In an era dominated by iconic personalities. 35 00:02:14,060 --> 00:02:17,600 Just what exactly goes through the road warriors' minds. 36 00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:20,000 Whose singles matches were the star attraction. 37 00:02:20,300 --> 00:02:24,900 The road warriors would break the mold as comic book heroes come to life. And 38 00:02:24,900 --> 00:02:29,540 post -apocalyptic warriors beyond the realms of birth. The most important 39 00:02:29,540 --> 00:02:33,960 to us has always been beating people up. Their larger than life personas 40 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:36,600 propelled them to main event status around the world. 41 00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:38,780 Winning titles wherever they went. 42 00:02:39,310 --> 00:02:44,090 But the price for success is often high. And in this episode, we reveal the 43 00:02:44,090 --> 00:02:48,250 heavy cost paid by both men and how their wrestling brotherhood met its 44 00:02:48,250 --> 00:02:49,250 heartbreaking end. 45 00:02:50,550 --> 00:02:54,090 I think tag team wrestling is the most interesting part of the wrestling 46 00:02:54,090 --> 00:02:59,310 business. Tag team wrestling is an art. It's a four -person athletic dance. 47 00:02:59,910 --> 00:03:02,030 A road warrior animal. 48 00:03:02,350 --> 00:03:06,210 What happened to the greatest tag team ever in the history of professional 49 00:03:06,210 --> 00:03:07,730 wrestling? The Road Warriors. 50 00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:12,780 There's more of a story told with the tag team than there is the single. You 51 00:03:12,780 --> 00:03:15,700 can't just put two guys together and make them a tag. 52 00:03:15,900 --> 00:03:18,560 You have to have two guys that really know each other. 53 00:03:20,020 --> 00:03:25,680 My name is Barry Darso. I was the repo man in Demolition Smash. 54 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:31,040 And I always thought we had incredible matches with the Road Warriors. What 55 00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:34,380 the Road Warriors successful was there were two guys that really clicked. 56 00:03:34,540 --> 00:03:37,080 Everybody believed that they could beat anybody. 57 00:03:37,690 --> 00:03:39,450 and they looked incredible. 58 00:03:39,930 --> 00:03:41,850 I saw the it. 59 00:03:42,270 --> 00:03:44,850 These two have the it factor. 60 00:03:45,930 --> 00:03:51,210 Paul Ellivine, manager of the Road Warriors for 20 -some years. The Road 61 00:03:51,210 --> 00:03:56,270 Warriors, it's a group that comes along once in every generation, and they're 62 00:03:56,270 --> 00:03:58,850 always copied, never duplicated. 63 00:03:59,190 --> 00:04:04,210 Hawk and Animal are just two no -nonsense badasses. Hawk was the off 64 00:04:04,210 --> 00:04:06,450 flyer guy, and Animal was like... 65 00:04:06,800 --> 00:04:08,060 The buck stopped here. 66 00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:12,160 Most teams had one big guy and one little guy. Here you got two freaking 67 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:17,860 monsters. They could do things in the ring that prior to them big guys didn't 68 00:04:17,860 --> 00:04:19,779 do. I'm going to keep it full on. 69 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:23,400 Not from Russia, although that's what I portrayed for many years in the 70 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:24,400 wrestling business. 71 00:04:24,480 --> 00:04:27,980 It was the chemistry of tag team. Picking the guy up to the shoulder and 72 00:04:27,980 --> 00:04:28,980 off the top rope. 73 00:04:29,820 --> 00:04:31,240 The doomsday, you know. 74 00:04:31,690 --> 00:04:36,810 He flew off of the top turnbuckle, and that was the ultimate finish in 75 00:04:36,810 --> 00:04:38,150 for decades. 76 00:04:39,070 --> 00:04:43,770 They knew what each other was thinking all the time, but sometimes Animal knew 77 00:04:43,770 --> 00:04:46,930 more than Hawk as far as what was going on. 78 00:04:47,270 --> 00:04:51,550 Joe was much more patient than Mike was. Again, you hear some of the stories, 79 00:04:51,650 --> 00:04:55,650 right, of how Mike would snap in an instant or fly off the handle. 80 00:04:55,890 --> 00:04:57,410 Oh, yeah, man, we got along instantly. 81 00:04:57,650 --> 00:04:58,710 I was like... 82 00:04:58,950 --> 00:05:04,710 18 years old, and I knew of Mike Hegstrand, known as a loose cannon, 83 00:05:05,110 --> 00:05:10,630 In 1977, Mike Hegstrand and Joe Laurinaitis are two kids growing up on 84 00:05:10,630 --> 00:05:14,550 streets of northeast Minneapolis, a tough, working -class neighborhood. 85 00:05:15,410 --> 00:05:20,630 You know, I was at Jesse the Body of a Tourist's Gym. I'm sitting there, and 86 00:05:20,630 --> 00:05:21,630 doing inclines. 87 00:05:21,820 --> 00:05:26,240 And I got like 315 pounds on the bar. And all of a sudden, in the middle of my 88 00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:32,400 set, I get this whack on my chest. This big, fat palm print. And he goes, Lord, 89 00:05:32,580 --> 00:05:34,860 you ain't right. You should be lifting more weights than me. 90 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:37,420 That was my meeting with Mike Eggstrand. 91 00:05:39,460 --> 00:05:42,980 It was a grade school photo of Mike, and he was voted class bully. 92 00:05:44,500 --> 00:05:45,740 Yeah, you can see it there. 93 00:05:46,280 --> 00:05:47,720 I think that was staged. 94 00:05:50,030 --> 00:05:54,590 Mike's reputation in school was a strapper. His idea of a good time was to 95 00:05:54,590 --> 00:05:55,590 beat up someone. 96 00:05:55,790 --> 00:06:00,550 Just stay away from him. He'll be a great friend to you, but don't cross 97 00:06:00,850 --> 00:06:03,530 I'm Rich Hegstrand, Mike's older brother. 98 00:06:03,810 --> 00:06:09,270 And I'm Dan Hegstrand. I was four years younger than Mike. Mike was a lost soul 99 00:06:09,270 --> 00:06:12,690 as far as what am I going to do and everything. And our mom had passed away. 100 00:06:17,750 --> 00:06:19,350 You can do it. 101 00:06:21,140 --> 00:06:26,440 But he obviously found his way, but it was a bit of a road to get there. He was 102 00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:30,200 hyperactive. He didn't sit still. If he was sitting still, his leg was bouncing 103 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:35,740 up and down, and he had a lot of energy to lift weights and punch people. 104 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:40,580 The way we put it is I'm from the other side of the tracks. 105 00:06:41,150 --> 00:06:44,470 And Hawk was pretty much the toughest guy on his side of the tracks, and I was 106 00:06:44,470 --> 00:06:46,270 pretty much the toughest guy on my side of the tracks. 107 00:06:46,490 --> 00:06:49,990 My name is Scott Norton. I'm a professional wrestler from Minneapolis, 108 00:06:50,310 --> 00:06:54,750 Minnesota. I grew up with Mike Angstrand, known as Hawk. He was going 109 00:06:54,750 --> 00:06:59,490 of, like, mark his territory in his school. So he got a little brawl with a 110 00:06:59,490 --> 00:07:00,710 from South High School. 111 00:07:00,970 --> 00:07:05,450 Knocked his ass off. Got one with a guy from North High School. Knocked him off. 112 00:07:05,590 --> 00:07:06,489 Went to West. 113 00:07:06,490 --> 00:07:07,490 Same thing. 114 00:07:07,610 --> 00:07:09,130 And he would condition himself. 115 00:07:09,350 --> 00:07:10,239 He would... 116 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:14,560 Punch himself in the face, and I mean, it wasn't just a, I don't even want to 117 00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:15,560 hit my hand that hard. 118 00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:20,880 Fractures between each one of his teeth, you know, basically broke his face. 119 00:07:21,320 --> 00:07:25,960 Their hard -hitting lifestyle growing up in northeast Minneapolis would serve as 120 00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:29,740 a training ground for their careers in the ring, and their circle of friends 121 00:07:29,740 --> 00:07:34,820 soon expands to include a massively talented roster of future superstars. 122 00:07:35,390 --> 00:07:40,290 Pretty interesting that in Minneapolis was just a mecca of guys who ended up in 123 00:07:40,290 --> 00:07:44,990 the crazy, wacky world of professional wrestling. Mr. Perfect Curt Henning, the 124 00:07:44,990 --> 00:07:48,450 Road Warriors, and John Nord, and Barry Darso. 125 00:07:49,470 --> 00:07:55,490 Nikita Koloff, Rick Rude, Scott Norton, too, right around the same time. We all 126 00:07:55,490 --> 00:08:01,050 knew of each other. We got closer as Hawk would ask me to fill in working at 127 00:08:01,050 --> 00:08:03,630 this bar, Grandma B's, down in Minneapolis. 128 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:09,200 It's at one of Minneapolis' toughest bars that Joe and Mike get a chance to 129 00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:10,200 their teeth. 130 00:08:11,060 --> 00:08:16,100 Paid the bills, and it was a perfect outlet for him, I guess you might say. 131 00:08:16,100 --> 00:08:16,919 why was that? 132 00:08:16,920 --> 00:08:20,700 Just because he could beat up people and get paid for it, you know. I mean, it 133 00:08:20,700 --> 00:08:22,540 was just like wrestling, so. 134 00:08:23,180 --> 00:08:26,900 I can't mention any names, but the guy that used to own the bar we used to 135 00:08:26,900 --> 00:08:30,900 bounce at, he dealt in coke, and when someone owed him a lot of money, they'd 136 00:08:30,900 --> 00:08:33,640 say, hey, man, you need to go have a conversation with this guy. 137 00:08:34,140 --> 00:08:37,360 I remember one time, you know, Hawk had one leg, I had the one leg of the guy, 138 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:40,179 and we were hanging him over the Franklin Avenue Bridge here in 139 00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:42,440 We said, listen, man, you need to freaking pay up. 140 00:08:42,679 --> 00:08:47,140 At Grandma B's, there was a strip bar in the afternoon, and then they'd always 141 00:08:47,140 --> 00:08:50,800 have wet T -shirt contests and everything. So, I mean, it brought some 142 00:08:50,800 --> 00:08:52,140 worst of the worst guys. 143 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:54,080 Every night, something happened. 144 00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:57,760 Lo and behold, the bartender was Ed Sharkey. 145 00:08:57,960 --> 00:09:01,660 I mean, I knew a herd of Ed Sharkey before. She wrestled for Bernie Gagne in 146 00:09:01,660 --> 00:09:05,840 AWA. And he comes up to us and he goes, hey, we're going to do a wrestling 147 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:09,300 school. You guys want to do it? And we all did each other and said, ah, man, I 148 00:09:09,300 --> 00:09:10,500 don't know if I want to do that. 149 00:09:10,780 --> 00:09:13,260 And I'm thinking to myself, well, what could it hurt? 150 00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:17,520 My name is Eddie Sharkey. I've been in the wrestling business for, well, most 151 00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:18,339 my life. 152 00:09:18,340 --> 00:09:23,480 Starting on a carnival, I've been a professional wrestler, referee, 153 00:09:23,560 --> 00:09:26,100 trainer. I've done just about everything. 154 00:09:26,860 --> 00:09:31,880 Eddie ended up having a church in northeast Minneapolis, and he had a 155 00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:32,880 ring. 156 00:09:33,819 --> 00:09:37,900 Eddie was the character. He'd sit down there and he'd go, yeah, guys, good 157 00:09:37,900 --> 00:09:40,220 tackle, you know, good drop kick or whatever. 158 00:09:40,640 --> 00:09:42,940 But Eddie really never got out of his chair. 159 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:46,920 Well, you know, if I would leave the room or something, I'd say, now, don't 160 00:09:46,920 --> 00:09:49,620 a suplex. I mean, you know, you're going to hurt yourself. 161 00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:53,080 And I'd walk out of the room for whatever reason, and the one's got the 162 00:09:53,080 --> 00:09:54,500 in the air, and it's, oh, my goodness. 163 00:09:54,740 --> 00:09:58,540 Ed never showed us how to throw what they call today a working punch. 164 00:09:59,700 --> 00:10:02,100 So we would literally back up and go. 165 00:10:02,460 --> 00:10:04,520 Bam! You know, and punch each other. 166 00:10:04,780 --> 00:10:07,520 He knows if he broke it, he'd bleed like crazy. 167 00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:12,120 Eddie never really smartened us up on exactly what was going on until after a 168 00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:14,720 while he says, you know, well, here's what you do. 169 00:10:15,080 --> 00:10:20,200 Eddie soon realizes that this promising crop of talent might have a future in 170 00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:21,200 the squared circle. 171 00:10:21,420 --> 00:10:23,580 Oli Anderson was a very, very good wrestler. 172 00:10:23,820 --> 00:10:25,040 Another Minnesota guy. 173 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:29,460 And he became a promoter. He worked for Ted Turner, so he was the main guy. And 174 00:10:29,460 --> 00:10:31,060 he came up to Grandma B's. 175 00:10:31,420 --> 00:10:37,380 One night, some guy was misbehaving, and I had to escort him out. Well, I had 176 00:10:37,380 --> 00:10:41,100 one hand behind his collar and one hand on his belt loop, and I threw him 177 00:10:41,100 --> 00:10:42,100 through the front door. 178 00:10:42,240 --> 00:10:44,260 And we had this trip wire outside. 179 00:10:44,620 --> 00:10:49,260 And we used to gauge each other by how many flips the guy could do around this 180 00:10:49,260 --> 00:10:53,460 wire. And when the guy gets done flipping, he lands right on Ole 181 00:10:53,460 --> 00:10:57,160 shoes. And all I did was say, hey, how you doing? And I turned around and went 182 00:10:57,160 --> 00:10:57,939 back in the bar. 183 00:10:57,940 --> 00:11:00,540 Next thing you know, Ole brings me down to Atlanta. 184 00:11:01,150 --> 00:11:06,270 While Ole recruits Joe to work in his Georgia territory, his future tag team 185 00:11:06,270 --> 00:11:08,930 partner has already been scouted by another promotion. 186 00:11:09,550 --> 00:11:13,830 Mike started first for Al Tomko up in Canada. 187 00:11:14,270 --> 00:11:17,830 Now, you men up there that are married to some good -looking wife, you know 188 00:11:17,830 --> 00:11:20,230 your wife takes a look at this man, she's going to go crazy. 189 00:11:20,830 --> 00:11:26,270 I went down for Ole Anderson as the road warrior singularly by myself. 190 00:11:26,610 --> 00:11:28,690 I look like a giant version of the village people. 191 00:11:29,150 --> 00:11:33,430 Now, keep in mind, when Joe broke into the business, he had got his girlfriend 192 00:11:33,430 --> 00:11:38,210 pregnant, and Joe did the right thing. And by that meaning, he got married 193 00:11:38,210 --> 00:11:42,030 because he wanted to, you know, raise his child. 194 00:11:42,330 --> 00:11:44,970 You know, I was spending all my money on making back home. 195 00:11:45,210 --> 00:11:48,910 I was wrestling nine times a week, making $150 total. 196 00:11:49,130 --> 00:11:53,190 You know, I lost 50 pounds of body weight. I said, I can't live off this. 197 00:11:53,190 --> 00:11:56,450 Mike's experience wasn't that great up in Vancouver. 198 00:11:57,050 --> 00:12:00,710 So we both came back to Minnesota. I actually could make more money on one 199 00:12:00,710 --> 00:12:03,130 -night bouncing than I was making looking there in two weeks. 200 00:12:03,690 --> 00:12:08,050 Ole Anderson came back into the bar, and Ed Sharkey showed him a picture that 201 00:12:08,050 --> 00:12:09,870 Mike had taken up in Vancouver. 202 00:12:10,270 --> 00:12:11,950 Ole thought it was a picture of me. 203 00:12:12,350 --> 00:12:18,290 Eddie Sharkey goes, no, that's not Joe, that's Mike. And Ole goes, there's two 204 00:12:18,290 --> 00:12:19,289 of these guys? 205 00:12:19,290 --> 00:12:23,050 Joe and Mike, you're a tag team. Be in Atlanta next week. 206 00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:26,120 You know, son of a bitch. Then all he called me up and said, hey, I want to 207 00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:28,040 bring you guys in as the road warriors. 208 00:12:28,740 --> 00:12:33,600 From rough and tumble beginnings in the Minneapolis bar scene, Joe and Mike are 209 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:38,080 about to be catapulted into super stardom and eventually towards their own 210 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:39,080 undoing. 211 00:12:43,700 --> 00:12:49,700 In 1983, Joe Laurinaitis and Mike Hagstrander recruited to wrestle in 212 00:12:49,840 --> 00:12:51,800 except this time as a tag team. 213 00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:56,700 They have no idea they're about to revolutionize the world of wrestling. 214 00:12:57,100 --> 00:13:00,560 Hawk, thanks for spending a few moments with us. What got you started in 215 00:13:00,560 --> 00:13:05,140 wrestling? I just started watching it one time and I thought if they could, I 216 00:13:05,140 --> 00:13:09,920 could do it better. And first time we appeared together on TV, you know, we 217 00:13:09,920 --> 00:13:10,920 both real green. 218 00:13:11,020 --> 00:13:16,180 And the Road Warriors moving up. The start of the Road Warriors on TV was 219 00:13:16,180 --> 00:13:21,080 surreal for Hawk and I because it was like, man, here's all these mega stars 220 00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:22,140 Georgia Championship Wrestling. 221 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:26,440 There's Sergeant Slaughter, and there's Tito Santana, and there's Dusty Rhodes, 222 00:13:26,680 --> 00:13:30,720 and I'm going, holy crap, there's some major superstars here. And then here we 223 00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:32,360 are, now we're a part of this. 224 00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:38,440 Upon their arrival in the territory, matchmaker Ole Anderson approaches his 225 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:40,860 tag team with a bold new idea. 226 00:13:41,680 --> 00:13:45,460 They actually handed us the belts when we got at the TV station. 227 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:49,540 They say, here's your belt, here's your belt, and we're going. 228 00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:53,060 Where do we say we want them? They say, I say, well, you want them in a tag team 229 00:13:53,060 --> 00:13:54,060 tournament in Chicago. 230 00:13:54,080 --> 00:13:55,240 From Chicago. 231 00:13:56,340 --> 00:14:01,460 Well, he says, this is going to be the new tag team, and they're Minnesota boys 232 00:14:01,460 --> 00:14:02,359 like you. 233 00:14:02,360 --> 00:14:03,360 Take care of them. 234 00:14:03,600 --> 00:14:06,280 The names, they both came up with themselves. 235 00:14:07,020 --> 00:14:10,200 I think Ole pointed at him. He says, you look like an animal. 236 00:14:10,820 --> 00:14:15,880 And then he said to Hawk, you look like, I forget what he said, but Hawk says, I 237 00:14:15,880 --> 00:14:17,100 think I'm a hawk. 238 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:19,680 So it became Animal and Hawk. 239 00:14:20,540 --> 00:14:25,660 After their very first match together, newly crowned champions Hawk and Animal 240 00:14:25,660 --> 00:14:30,420 soon joined forces with Paul Ellering. He acts as both their on - and off 241 00:14:30,420 --> 00:14:33,180 -screen manager, leading them to the big leagues. 242 00:14:33,900 --> 00:14:39,840 So I just took them from that day one. They jumped in my van, and that was it. 243 00:14:40,060 --> 00:14:41,900 Paul was great at... 244 00:14:43,130 --> 00:14:47,550 Fine -tuning us. You know, he said, go with your raw strength. Go with what you 245 00:14:47,550 --> 00:14:48,189 do best. 246 00:14:48,190 --> 00:14:52,370 We used to sit there at Denny's, and Paul would take the time to draw on a 247 00:14:52,370 --> 00:14:54,010 napkin. Animal, you're here. 248 00:14:54,230 --> 00:14:57,730 Hawk, you're here. Throw this guy into this rope after you make the tag. 249 00:14:58,190 --> 00:15:02,150 Hawk, you drop down. Let's incorporate that in. We had the motorcycle boots and 250 00:15:02,150 --> 00:15:04,910 everything, you know, and that's what we wore down to the ring. 251 00:15:05,210 --> 00:15:08,730 After about a month, Oli goes, hey, we got an idea for you guys. 252 00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:12,640 Remember the heel guy in the Road Warrior movie that had the red mohawk 253 00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:17,160 feather in his ear? Well, we want you to try and do something with the face 254 00:15:17,160 --> 00:15:22,160 paint. And that became an evolution because the early face paint was, you 255 00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:23,540 like a black eye or something. 256 00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:28,640 But we were trying different things at that time to try to get a painting of 257 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:30,600 expressing the way we feel. 258 00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:33,840 And Mike Hextrand goes, hey, I got another idea. 259 00:15:34,140 --> 00:15:35,380 What if... 260 00:15:35,680 --> 00:15:39,480 Animal shaves his hair into a mohawk to look like the guy in the movie. 261 00:15:39,700 --> 00:15:44,620 I'll shave my head in a double mohawk so when Animal bends over and I bend over 262 00:15:44,620 --> 00:15:48,200 and we plug our heads in, it looks like one unit. How did the spiked shoulder 263 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:49,900 pads kind of work its way into the fold? 264 00:15:50,140 --> 00:15:52,680 You know, that came from Animal. That was his idea. 265 00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:55,440 And it was genius on his part. 266 00:15:55,680 --> 00:15:58,420 I had a friend of mine that worked for Honeywell. 267 00:15:58,810 --> 00:16:00,010 He milled me some spikes. 268 00:16:00,210 --> 00:16:03,870 I said, listen, man, I need some six -inch spikes. I want some four -inch 269 00:16:03,870 --> 00:16:05,050 spikes, some two -inch spikes. 270 00:16:05,290 --> 00:16:09,450 And I sat in my garage with my drill, and I drilled holes in those shoulder 271 00:16:09,450 --> 00:16:15,590 pads, licking my thumb like frickin' Picasso, right? Then I put some chains 272 00:16:15,590 --> 00:16:18,290 them, and that was the birth of the Road Warrior shoulder pads. 273 00:16:18,570 --> 00:16:22,370 They put them on, and it was just frosting on the cape. 274 00:16:22,910 --> 00:16:24,790 And, you know, the people just ate it up. 275 00:16:25,150 --> 00:16:28,230 These poor guys they're working against, I mean, they ran people over. 276 00:16:29,450 --> 00:16:33,670 I just apologized to them in the back, sorry for what's going to happen to you, 277 00:16:33,690 --> 00:16:35,890 pal, but your ass is getting kicked. 278 00:16:38,390 --> 00:16:42,790 They were bad boys, but when they were bad, they were very good. 279 00:16:43,310 --> 00:16:46,850 Man, as long as we stayed away from the guys nuts so we didn't break their nose 280 00:16:46,850 --> 00:16:48,310 or anything, it was cool. 281 00:16:48,770 --> 00:16:53,170 But if you look back, man, some of those clotheslines we hit guys with, guys 282 00:16:53,170 --> 00:16:56,660 were doing... Natural flip, we were hitting him so hard. 283 00:16:56,960 --> 00:16:59,600 This cable was spreading across the country. 284 00:16:59,820 --> 00:17:03,900 It was creating a revolution in the wrestling business. 285 00:17:04,680 --> 00:17:09,819 Unlike other promotions in the early 1980s, Georgia's World Championship 286 00:17:09,819 --> 00:17:16,720 Wrestling enjoys a primetime spot on Atlanta's TBS, the first superstation to 287 00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:19,060 broadcast across the entire USA. 288 00:17:20,449 --> 00:17:26,270 I told the guys, I think it was 84, I said, we can work the whole world. We'll 289 00:17:26,270 --> 00:17:27,730 just make it our territory. 290 00:17:28,230 --> 00:17:32,410 Paul would book us in the AWA, or he would book us for the Rougeauxs up in 291 00:17:32,410 --> 00:17:37,790 Canada, go to Puerto Rico for Carlos Colon, and then go to the NWA. And, you 292 00:17:37,790 --> 00:17:41,550 know, we were going all over the world, not tied to any one company. 293 00:17:41,870 --> 00:17:47,790 Paul's very instrumental in not letting the promoters manipulate us. We were one 294 00:17:47,790 --> 00:17:51,410 of the few tag teams that were main event every night in the arena. 295 00:17:52,310 --> 00:17:55,890 We never stayed any one place, and it kept us fresh. 296 00:17:56,170 --> 00:18:00,830 And it was always good because they'd bring us in, and the place would fill 297 00:18:00,990 --> 00:18:05,950 Everybody in the business recognized that road warrior pop. 298 00:18:06,170 --> 00:18:07,350 Just loud. 299 00:18:08,010 --> 00:18:09,850 I've lost all my hearing. 300 00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:15,300 Even today, if someone gets a good cheer going down the match, it's called the 301 00:18:15,300 --> 00:18:16,300 road warrior pop. 302 00:18:17,080 --> 00:18:20,840 At what point in your career did you realize that you guys were getting huge? 303 00:18:21,220 --> 00:18:25,880 You know, first trip to Japan, we got there, we get off the flight, we got to 304 00:18:25,880 --> 00:18:31,580 an interview. In this room was literally 150 photographers and reporters from 305 00:18:31,580 --> 00:18:33,200 all over the country of Japan. 306 00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:37,580 They said there was more reporters there than when Michael Jackson came over to 307 00:18:37,580 --> 00:18:39,780 Japan. We will fight tonight! 308 00:18:40,300 --> 00:18:42,420 Like we will never fight before! 309 00:18:42,900 --> 00:18:48,480 Well, Japan wanted us, and the Japanese people always like to be scared. 310 00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:53,500 You know, we're entertainers as well as wrestlers. 311 00:18:53,860 --> 00:18:55,120 Hey, you guys hungry? 312 00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:59,400 You know, the Japanese responded to us because we were so far ahead of our 313 00:18:59,920 --> 00:19:05,180 We were so nothing like the Japanese wrestlers. We don't care who it is. 314 00:19:05,180 --> 00:19:06,860 going to stop everybody in the country. 315 00:19:07,520 --> 00:19:10,540 I mean, we wrestled some top guys, man. You know, Killer Khan. 316 00:19:11,120 --> 00:19:15,600 When I pressed Killer Khan, Japanese people were like, what kind of an eye? 317 00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:16,840 Like, I can't believe it. 318 00:19:17,320 --> 00:19:21,760 Killer Khan was 6 '3", 6 '4", 365 pounds. 319 00:19:22,300 --> 00:19:24,180 I front -slammed him over my head. 320 00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:26,620 Then I gorilla -slammed him down. 321 00:19:28,120 --> 00:19:29,820 It was national news. 322 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:36,680 It was no secret that, you know, Mike liked the party. 323 00:19:37,020 --> 00:19:38,560 Partied hard, ran hard. 324 00:19:38,820 --> 00:19:42,480 There was nothing he wasn't afraid of. No situation bothered him. 325 00:19:43,100 --> 00:19:48,080 Mike got involved with these people. The Japanese mafia over there, they would 326 00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:50,660 pick him up and he would go out there and one of them the next, you know, he 327 00:19:50,660 --> 00:19:51,660 wouldn't see him for two days. 328 00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:55,880 He'd meet Japanese mafia over there and he'd tell me about if you made a mistake 329 00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:58,160 over there, they just took a digit off of your finger. 330 00:19:58,580 --> 00:20:01,760 And he'd come home with just stacks of $100 bills, which he declared. 331 00:20:02,860 --> 00:20:05,260 I think Joe was more the guy that... 332 00:20:05,630 --> 00:20:09,730 Would rather, you know, go out to dinner and go to the room and get some sleep 333 00:20:09,730 --> 00:20:11,890 so you can get up and have a great workout the next day. 334 00:20:12,170 --> 00:20:16,450 Where Hawk, he was wild. He wanted to go out to the bar. He wanted to do this. 335 00:20:16,930 --> 00:20:22,490 He had no shutoff valve to it, man. It was just like, go 100 miles an hour all 336 00:20:22,490 --> 00:20:23,490 the time. 337 00:20:23,730 --> 00:20:25,530 That's when it started hitting a nerve with me. 338 00:20:31,370 --> 00:20:32,490 By 1986. 339 00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:37,300 The Road Warriors have become one of the top wrestling attractions in the world. 340 00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:43,120 To be that good in that many different territories, it's unprecedented. 341 00:20:43,780 --> 00:20:48,220 My vision was, of course, to make money. You know, for all of us, this is an 342 00:20:48,220 --> 00:20:51,280 opportunity that only comes along once in a lifetime. 343 00:20:51,700 --> 00:20:53,240 Everybody out there, watch it! 344 00:20:53,930 --> 00:20:55,850 We'd like to kick your teeth in, too. 345 00:20:56,290 --> 00:21:00,830 My first reaction to seeing Mike and everything was, wow, this is amazing. 346 00:21:01,510 --> 00:21:08,010 And it just took you by surprise at how far he had come in such a short period 347 00:21:08,010 --> 00:21:09,010 of time, really. 348 00:21:09,370 --> 00:21:14,010 As their popularity grows, the promotions booking the Road Warriors 349 00:21:14,010 --> 00:21:16,610 they're not just getting a run -of -the -mill tag team. 350 00:21:16,810 --> 00:21:21,210 They're getting rising stars with a guaranteed sellout crowd. 351 00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:26,160 The greatest thing about the Road Warriors is that we never had to change 352 00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:31,300 were, whether we were babyface or heel. I mean, we were stone -cold heels until 353 00:21:31,300 --> 00:21:32,740 we wrestled the Koloffs. 354 00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:36,820 Probably some of the best matches that I remember are the Russian chain matches 355 00:21:36,820 --> 00:21:41,640 that we had against them. And now we're getting USA cheers and cheers from the 356 00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:47,380 fans. We were over so bad as heels, it made us great babyfaces. Your winners of 357 00:21:47,380 --> 00:21:53,490 the match, the Road Warriors. In early 1986, Carolina -based Jim Crockett 358 00:21:53,490 --> 00:21:58,670 Promotions approaches the Road Warriors with an offer to headline their flagship 359 00:21:58,670 --> 00:22:02,290 event. Dusty Rose called us and said, hey, we got this idea. 360 00:22:05,070 --> 00:22:06,450 A scaffold match. 361 00:22:06,730 --> 00:22:09,090 Had never been done on a national scale. 362 00:22:09,450 --> 00:22:13,450 Man, I was 310 pounds, 315 pounds, and Hawkins was 70. 363 00:22:13,710 --> 00:22:18,270 Then you had both the men at Express up there, they were over 200 pounds each. 364 00:22:19,070 --> 00:22:22,910 Three days before a scaffold match, Hawk broke a small bone in the bottom part 365 00:22:22,910 --> 00:22:24,070 of his leg over in Tokyo. 366 00:22:24,850 --> 00:22:28,950 We were in the old school, the show must go on. And he wrestled up there with a 367 00:22:28,950 --> 00:22:30,390 broken leg in a boot. 368 00:22:30,690 --> 00:22:34,870 You know, he didn't want to let the people down because it was sold out and 369 00:22:34,870 --> 00:22:36,130 was a big, big deal. 370 00:22:36,430 --> 00:22:42,250 Well, what you see in a lot of sports and wrestling is no different is there's 371 00:22:42,250 --> 00:22:44,310 injuries and there's pain. 372 00:22:45,610 --> 00:22:49,830 You just self -medicate after a while. You don't even go to a doctor. And then 373 00:22:49,830 --> 00:22:51,590 it becomes a vicious cycle. 374 00:22:51,850 --> 00:22:54,670 And that's probably where Hawk was at that time. 375 00:22:54,930 --> 00:22:59,430 So when and what signs did you start noticing when Hawk's lifestyle out of 376 00:22:59,430 --> 00:23:02,470 ring was kind of getting a little out of hand? It started getting bad. 377 00:23:02,690 --> 00:23:08,410 The latter part of NWA, WCW run before we went to WWF. 378 00:23:08,730 --> 00:23:13,610 The drinking's a no -brainer. I mean, that's, you know, Hawk was a straight 379 00:23:13,610 --> 00:23:14,650 vodka on the rocks guy. 380 00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:20,540 The muscle relaxers were a big part. I would say 85 % of the guys that died 381 00:23:20,540 --> 00:23:24,560 early in the wrestling business, the common denominator was the muscle 382 00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:31,340 I think Joe was very disappointed in Hawk, and he didn't let that out so 383 00:23:31,340 --> 00:23:32,269 knew it. 384 00:23:32,270 --> 00:23:34,530 But knowing Joe, I could see that. 385 00:23:34,730 --> 00:23:38,990 I think it's just like any marriage, you know, which it kind of was, that I 386 00:23:38,990 --> 00:23:42,110 don't think they always, you know, saw eye to eye on everything. So I think 387 00:23:42,110 --> 00:23:46,610 there was, you know, some friction there at times. It wasn't until we really got 388 00:23:46,610 --> 00:23:52,170 into WWF years where it really started to get bad. 389 00:23:53,170 --> 00:23:57,050 The Road Warriors have conquered the wrestling world with one big exception. 390 00:23:58,030 --> 00:24:03,390 and the pressures of performing in the WWF will soon set the stage for their 391 00:24:03,390 --> 00:24:04,390 downfall. 392 00:24:05,070 --> 00:24:12,030 WWF was always on our screen. It looked like they were the place to go in this 393 00:24:12,030 --> 00:24:16,310 wrestling war, if you want to be on the winning side, and we did. 394 00:24:16,610 --> 00:24:20,410 You're going to feel the pain by the hands of the Legion of Doom. 395 00:24:20,730 --> 00:24:24,370 Vince had just hired the modern -day warrior, Kerry Von Erich. 396 00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:26,400 You already had the ultimate warrior. 397 00:24:26,660 --> 00:24:30,040 And he says, hey, I know you guys have been the road warriors. Can you think of 398 00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,480 a different name that we could use to call you guys? 399 00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:34,860 I said, how about the Legion of Doom? 400 00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,600 Oh, that's great. I love the Legion of Doom. Let's call you guys the Legion of 401 00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:44,740 Doom. It was actually He -Man, the most powerful man in the universe. 402 00:24:45,740 --> 00:24:50,200 And Hawk would watch that all the time. He always watched He -Man. 403 00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:51,440 This was Hawk. 404 00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:53,740 Back at the Legion of Doom. 405 00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:58,780 And then he'd just start to make up stories. And this is while we're driving 406 00:24:58,780 --> 00:24:59,399 the car. 407 00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,700 And he'd just start to make up that we were the Legion of Doom. 408 00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:08,460 The WWF on the road was a grind. 409 00:25:08,740 --> 00:25:14,440 And you were busy 14 days on, 4 days off. All year long. 410 00:25:14,740 --> 00:25:16,520 So it's like your whole life is no sleep. 411 00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,180 But when you get in a ring, then all of a sudden you get an injury. 412 00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:25,440 Well... Now there's no sleep. You have to train. That injury doesn't go away, 413 00:25:25,540 --> 00:25:26,540 and you have to perform. 414 00:25:26,740 --> 00:25:30,260 So now all of a sudden you take a pain pill. Pretty soon you're drinking, 415 00:25:30,260 --> 00:25:33,780 taking pain pills, you're taking this, you're taking that. That's kind of the 416 00:25:33,780 --> 00:25:36,860 cycle that a lot of guys got into. 417 00:25:37,700 --> 00:25:43,280 But now Hawk's downward spiral is about to intersect with the Road Warriors' 418 00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:47,820 historic climb to the top and in front of a record -setting crowd. 419 00:25:54,670 --> 00:26:00,830 To the non -wrestling fan, I wrestled for many years in the WWF. The Godfather 420 00:26:00,830 --> 00:26:03,230 is probably what I'm most well -known for. 421 00:26:05,910 --> 00:26:06,910 All right. 422 00:26:06,990 --> 00:26:11,550 So, we're in this club, and then all of a sudden, for some reason, Vince decides 423 00:26:11,550 --> 00:26:13,930 to take everybody's finish. 424 00:26:14,230 --> 00:26:17,150 In the Road Warriors case, it hurt people. 425 00:26:17,510 --> 00:26:18,770 Have you seen their finish? 426 00:26:19,030 --> 00:26:20,710 I wouldn't take it in the ring. 427 00:26:21,390 --> 00:26:23,810 And Vince took that finish in the club. 428 00:26:24,300 --> 00:26:30,660 The CEO of this big company is taking people's finishes in a 429 00:26:30,660 --> 00:26:31,720 titty bar? 430 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:39,060 I was like... Just as the road warriors are reaching new heights 431 00:26:39,060 --> 00:26:45,260 at Vince McMahon's WWF, Hawk's substance abuse was becoming harder and harder to 432 00:26:45,260 --> 00:26:49,630 hide. That's when we were starting to get in the age of doing the pay -per 433 00:26:49,630 --> 00:26:53,950 -views now, and now we're doing the big, huge events and everything else. So 434 00:26:53,950 --> 00:26:58,230 there was a lot of respect and a lot of pride in what you did for your work 435 00:26:58,230 --> 00:27:01,650 because you wanted to be that guy that was going to be top dog in that pay -per 436 00:27:01,650 --> 00:27:06,310 -view. Those WWF years is when it started getting real kind of nasty. He 437 00:27:06,310 --> 00:27:09,270 fail a drug test, and then there would be three months off. 438 00:27:09,510 --> 00:27:12,670 And, of course, me being a tag team partner, I'd take three months off with 439 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:19,140 But Mike, again, he wasn't shy about hiding anything, whether it was his 440 00:27:19,140 --> 00:27:25,280 drinking or his drug use or his steroid use. He was pretty outspoken about all 441 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:26,019 of it. 442 00:27:26,020 --> 00:27:32,120 As Hawk drifts closer to the edge, over 80 ,000 fans await their match at 443 00:27:32,120 --> 00:27:36,720 London's Wembley Stadium, and things are about to come to a head. 444 00:27:37,020 --> 00:27:38,940 Wembley Stadium was a... 445 00:27:39,210 --> 00:27:44,130 Classic event because they had 90 ,000 people there. We were supposed to 446 00:27:44,130 --> 00:27:46,410 for the tag team championships in Wembley Stadium. 447 00:27:46,690 --> 00:27:51,130 And getting ready to go out to the show. And we're doing a run through. 448 00:27:51,350 --> 00:27:55,750 Vince McMahon's trying to tell us what we're going to do. And I could just see 449 00:27:55,750 --> 00:27:57,810 where Vince is fuming. 450 00:27:58,090 --> 00:28:03,950 Because every time Vince tried to say something, I was going, Vince, I got 451 00:28:03,950 --> 00:28:06,930 idea. Found out later there was things. 452 00:28:07,340 --> 00:28:11,720 called Plastidils, which is another kind of little, like, a hallucinogenic drug 453 00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,480 that Hawkeye took, and it lasted, like, six hours. 454 00:28:14,700 --> 00:28:18,500 Here we are, got to drive motorcycles down to the ring. We went from semi 455 00:28:18,500 --> 00:28:23,720 event match against the Natural Disasters to wrestling Money 456 00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:25,300 think, the first or second match. 457 00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:30,680 As Animal watches his partner step into the ring, it's clear that Hawkeye is in 458 00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:31,920 no shape to perform. 459 00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,920 Get in the ring and they wanted us to do the finish, the doomsday off the top 460 00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,520 rope. And I said, we can't do it. He's going to fall off the top rope. And he 461 00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,460 goes, no, no, we got it. I said, look at him. He can't do it. They're watching 462 00:28:43,460 --> 00:28:48,260 him. And, you know, Hawk was kind of like inebriated, you know, quite a bit. 463 00:28:48,260 --> 00:28:50,160 so we changed the finish. 464 00:28:50,570 --> 00:28:54,950 talks like right in the middle i kind of push him out of the way and when hawk 465 00:28:54,950 --> 00:29:01,210 was on he was the best man nobody was better but when he kind of was like that 466 00:29:01,210 --> 00:29:06,410 it kind of really i wasn't very happy with him i knew there was a suspension 467 00:29:06,410 --> 00:29:10,510 coming on and i was freaking hot you know and it's like we're gonna spend 468 00:29:10,510 --> 00:29:14,790 millions of dollars on tv and do all this stuff for these guys now wembley 469 00:29:14,790 --> 00:29:18,610 biggest show ever if he came and messed up right there 470 00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:21,240 You're not the top guys anymore. 471 00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:27,560 Irritated by Hawk's recklessness, Animal chooses to go his separate way alone. 472 00:29:28,660 --> 00:29:33,960 We went from that London taping to Hershey, Pennsylvania to do TV. 473 00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,680 And when we got to Hershey, Pennsylvania, Paul Ehring and I are 474 00:29:37,740 --> 00:29:40,560 waiting for Hawk to do interviews. Well, Hawk hadn't shown up yet. 475 00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:42,260 Nobody knew where Hawk went. 476 00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:43,359 What do you mean? 477 00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,460 He's just not on the plane. Nobody knew where Hawk was. Got a phone call, and 478 00:29:47,460 --> 00:29:48,460 Hawk called. 479 00:29:48,590 --> 00:29:50,810 Vince, the secretary, says, hey, I quit. 480 00:29:51,450 --> 00:29:53,890 We're sitting there like, okay, now what am I going to do? 481 00:29:55,010 --> 00:29:59,270 Animal decides he's not going to chase after his partner this time after 482 00:29:59,270 --> 00:30:02,810 performing the role of fixer for so many years. 483 00:30:03,510 --> 00:30:09,370 I think they just got the time to draw the line in the sand and listen, man, 484 00:30:09,510 --> 00:30:11,190 shit, I've had enough. That's it. 485 00:30:11,410 --> 00:30:12,590 Frick, I'm done with this. 486 00:30:12,790 --> 00:30:16,670 You know, Joe's... probably in a panic, wondering how in the world are we going 487 00:30:16,670 --> 00:30:17,529 to solve this? 488 00:30:17,530 --> 00:30:20,050 You know, wrestling is your whole life. That's all you have. 489 00:30:20,270 --> 00:30:23,610 Your family's at home, and you're with the guys, and you finally get that push, 490 00:30:23,610 --> 00:30:28,410 and you can't have something be negative to bring you back down, and that's what 491 00:30:28,410 --> 00:30:29,229 was happening. 492 00:30:29,230 --> 00:30:33,190 Mike kind of, you know, the short fuse and losing his temper, and whether it 493 00:30:33,190 --> 00:30:37,150 with the promoter, could have a real impact on Joe's career and even 494 00:30:37,150 --> 00:30:40,050 career, right? So I'm thinking to myself, well, I'm going to be a 495 00:30:40,330 --> 00:30:42,390 and I'm going to serve out the date. 496 00:30:43,180 --> 00:30:47,680 that I had left with WWF to protect our name in case we ever want to come back. 497 00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:51,200 I said, man, I want to do these dates, Mike, so we leave on good terms, right, 498 00:30:51,260 --> 00:30:56,800 to be businessmen. I put my foot down, and Hawk was so out of his mind, he 499 00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:01,220 called up a couple guys and ended up working out his own deal in Japan. 500 00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:03,260 Like, screw the team. 501 00:31:03,460 --> 00:31:05,780 He just went on his own, then we were done. 502 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,880 Well, he took the gimmick over there and had Kenshi Sasaki dressing up as the 503 00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,460 power warrior and all spiked shoulder pads and face paint. 504 00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:19,320 I said, man, that's our gimmick. 505 00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:29,960 Hawk inadvertently leaves the future of the world's biggest tag team in limbo by 506 00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:34,300 replacing Animal and continuing the Road Warriors brand in Japan. 507 00:31:37,100 --> 00:31:44,020 In front of you lies the future and Tag Team Wrestling, my new partner, Power 508 00:31:44,020 --> 00:31:47,600 Warrior. What are you doing, bro? I'm not doing that here in the U .S. 509 00:31:47,860 --> 00:31:51,900 I'm not having anybody replace you. I'm by myself. 510 00:31:52,300 --> 00:31:55,840 I ended up doing a two -on -one match and I herniated a couple discs. 511 00:31:56,420 --> 00:32:01,160 Animal got injured and, you know, there were like two years there were. I didn't 512 00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,900 do anything with wrestling anymore and I didn't think I'd ever go back. 513 00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:11,400 While Animal lies in wait, recovering from his injury, Hawk presses on. But 514 00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,920 without the guidance of his partner, he spirals out of control. 515 00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:20,960 Like three different times he'd been rushed into an emergency room of drug 516 00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:25,080 overdoses. He told me a head -on collision with an 18 -wheeler and rolled 517 00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:29,300 pickup truck six times with no seatbelt on and walked away from it. 518 00:32:29,710 --> 00:32:34,790 You know, I don't know how many near -death experiences Hawk had. I know he 519 00:32:34,790 --> 00:32:35,569 a few. 520 00:32:35,570 --> 00:32:40,750 When he got Hep C, it's like he got slapped in the face. Like, wow. 521 00:32:41,250 --> 00:32:45,430 He's not the first wrestler that had contracted that. You know, guys in this 522 00:32:45,430 --> 00:32:46,430 wrestling business, man. 523 00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:51,680 Used to do some crazy things, you know, speedballing, mixing different drugs 524 00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:54,960 together, different things like that, where the old guys would share a needle 525 00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,540 and just go, oh, god dang, you guys are nuts. 526 00:32:57,860 --> 00:33:02,880 He was on the interferon, which is the medicine you get for hep C. He freaking 527 00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:04,580 cured himself of the hep C. 528 00:33:04,860 --> 00:33:09,060 But the worst part about it is the doctor gave him the green light to go do 529 00:33:09,060 --> 00:33:12,840 whatever he wanted to do. So he thought that meant, okay, I guess I can keep 530 00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:13,840 drinking and partying. 531 00:33:14,540 --> 00:33:21,220 Hawk's wild side shows no sign of slowing down. But in 1997, a new 532 00:33:21,220 --> 00:33:26,720 opportunity arises from the WWF and it's too tempting for either man to resist. 533 00:33:27,450 --> 00:33:32,830 Vince McMahon has been great to us, and the WWF has been great to us. And 534 00:33:32,830 --> 00:33:35,770 they're a class organization, and we only want to associate ourselves with 535 00:33:35,770 --> 00:33:36,770 class organization. 536 00:33:36,870 --> 00:33:40,050 I knew eventually that it would come back to what was going to be the Road 537 00:33:40,050 --> 00:33:45,010 Warriors. We were so unique in the way we did everything, and we were so unique 538 00:33:45,010 --> 00:33:48,310 as a tag team, and, like, nothing else like it in the wrestling business. 539 00:33:48,910 --> 00:33:51,130 Animal and I have become so close. 540 00:33:51,510 --> 00:33:54,190 We're probably the only tag team that's been around 14 years straight. 541 00:33:54,610 --> 00:33:56,070 We're pretty much a unit. 542 00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:01,720 Their new contract comes with a strict insurance policy, guaranteeing they will 543 00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:02,720 make their matches. 544 00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:09,420 But WWF introduces a third member to the team, 29 -year -old ex -Denver Bronco, 545 00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:16,120 Darren Drozdov. They introduced Droz, and he was going to be like the youngest 546 00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:17,679 member of the Road Warriors. 547 00:34:17,940 --> 00:34:21,219 Actually, I remember when I first saw them, you know, they've been icons 548 00:34:21,219 --> 00:34:23,280 forever. Hey, this is Droz. 549 00:34:23,580 --> 00:34:25,620 You know, I'm one of the... 550 00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:30,520 players they brought in for the Road Warriors to work with and had a great 551 00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:31,520 with them. 552 00:34:32,020 --> 00:34:37,500 While the WWF has enforced a contingency plan, it also sees the Road Warriors' 553 00:34:37,739 --> 00:34:41,360 real -life problems as something it can capitalize on. 554 00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,639 Vince McMahon came to us and said, hey, we want to do this angle with you guys. 555 00:34:46,699 --> 00:34:47,668 We're Hawks. 556 00:34:47,670 --> 00:34:50,870 We're going to portray him as drunk and having habits on TV. 557 00:34:51,130 --> 00:34:54,110 I don't know if he's inebriated. The referee's not going to start this match, 558 00:34:54,110 --> 00:34:56,449 he? Yeah, he'd come out, like, staggering around. 559 00:34:56,770 --> 00:34:59,310 You know, they were saying I was trying to separate them. 560 00:35:00,150 --> 00:35:05,050 We don't need him. You know, he's messed up again, so... 561 00:35:05,050 --> 00:35:07,890 Yeah, 562 00:35:09,010 --> 00:35:10,190 it was heartbreaking. 563 00:35:10,870 --> 00:35:16,490 But that's wrestling. They take the dominant part of your personality and... 564 00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:18,320 They just make it bigger. 565 00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,780 You know, it's kind of tough. It's like, you know, they're doing this, but he 566 00:35:22,780 --> 00:35:26,240 had been through it, and he didn't have a problem with it. They wanted Hawk to 567 00:35:26,240 --> 00:35:30,560 climb to Titantron, and they wanted me to, you know, they wanted me to portray, 568 00:35:30,740 --> 00:35:33,420 like, hey, Hawk, don't jump type of thing. 569 00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:39,860 Hawk, I wish I could say I know how you feel, but I can't, but I care about your 570 00:35:39,860 --> 00:35:43,780 life. Droz did a deal where they made up, made pretend he was going to go up 571 00:35:43,780 --> 00:35:45,180 Titantron and help Hawk. 572 00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:48,880 And Hawk had all his demons and everything else, and he was drunk up 573 00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,580 when he really wanted to go grab him, he really went and pushed him. 574 00:35:54,020 --> 00:36:00,760 You know, to be honest with you, I didn't really have it in me to want to 575 00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,700 angle that was too close to what was going on in real life. 576 00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:05,540 And that bothered me. 577 00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:11,720 The angle is not only unpopular with Hawk and Animal, but with the fans as 578 00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,600 And once again, the Road Warriors... 579 00:36:14,830 --> 00:36:17,690 make the choice to hit the road on their own terms. 580 00:36:18,190 --> 00:36:23,370 We're a wrestling Australia, and you got the beach, you got drinks, you can buy 581 00:36:23,370 --> 00:36:27,730 Xanax over the counter, and so it's just not a good mix. 582 00:36:28,290 --> 00:36:32,730 Rumor had it that three or four of the guys, and Hawk was one of them, had 583 00:36:32,730 --> 00:36:35,370 gotten a hold of some... 584 00:36:35,670 --> 00:36:37,670 Party essentials, let's just say. 585 00:36:38,090 --> 00:36:40,370 And they were pretty much up for two days. 586 00:36:40,810 --> 00:36:44,990 So when you're doing the coke and you're doing the muscle relaxer, you're going, 587 00:36:45,110 --> 00:36:47,790 yo, yo, yo, like a yo -yo. 588 00:36:48,330 --> 00:36:52,970 Your heart can't take that all the time. And as I'm looking around the arena by 589 00:36:52,970 --> 00:36:55,770 the entrance area there, I see this big crowd of people. 590 00:36:55,990 --> 00:36:59,410 I don't think to myself, well, somebody just came back from the last match and 591 00:36:59,410 --> 00:37:02,930 is laying down. And I push everybody aside, and it's freaking Hawk. 592 00:37:03,630 --> 00:37:06,130 And they're putting the oxygen mask on. I said, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? 593 00:37:06,670 --> 00:37:09,510 I said, well, you've got to go out and wrestle. They said, man, he can't 594 00:37:09,510 --> 00:37:12,950 wrestle. He goes, this guy's about ready to stroke out. And they took him to the 595 00:37:12,950 --> 00:37:16,950 hospital. Hawk had cardiomyopathy. His heart was about ready to blow up. 596 00:37:18,030 --> 00:37:22,350 And he calls me up and he says, animal, you've got to come get me. I said, 597 00:37:22,370 --> 00:37:23,370 what's going on, man? 598 00:37:23,530 --> 00:37:26,250 He goes, I am not dying in this freaking country. 599 00:37:26,819 --> 00:37:30,840 Hawk and I were literally, when we were on the road, we were brothers. It was a 600 00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:37,820 hard situation because there was such a love of the guy, but the hate of 601 00:37:37,820 --> 00:37:38,820 what was going on. 602 00:37:39,220 --> 00:37:43,960 So I went, picked Hawk up, checked him out of the hospital against doctor's 603 00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:48,760 orders, and from Sydney all the way to L .A. And I said, from L .A., he was 604 00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:50,580 going back to Tampa. I said, you're on your own now. 605 00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:56,240 When it seems Hawk and Animal's run as wrestling's most dominant tag team is 606 00:37:56,240 --> 00:38:02,320 about to come to an end, an unlikely event brings them back together in a way 607 00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:03,640 nobody expects. 608 00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:13,020 Animal is faced with no choice but to strike out on his own when Hawk's drug 609 00:38:13,020 --> 00:38:15,860 affliction threatens to ruin both of their careers. 610 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,700 I had just gotten home off the road. Got done working out at the gym. 611 00:38:21,210 --> 00:38:25,450 And there were six 300 -pound guys called the Christian Power Team. They 612 00:38:25,450 --> 00:38:26,109 this event. 613 00:38:26,110 --> 00:38:28,450 So I went to it. I was pretty impressed by it. 614 00:38:28,690 --> 00:38:30,590 Eventually, Joe shared that story with me. 615 00:38:30,830 --> 00:38:33,890 And I said, man, why don't you come out to this conference in Phoenix? 616 00:38:34,110 --> 00:38:36,110 Come on out. He goes, could Hawk come? 617 00:38:36,490 --> 00:38:37,490 They came to Phoenix. 618 00:38:38,030 --> 00:38:43,030 And I just remember Mike was the first one to the altar and wanted to make a 619 00:38:43,030 --> 00:38:47,070 decision to give his life to the Lord. And that weekend, we actually even 620 00:38:47,070 --> 00:38:51,250 baptized him. We did a swimming pool. We did a water baptism with him. 621 00:38:51,490 --> 00:38:55,010 And from that point on, Hawk lived in a good way. 622 00:38:55,330 --> 00:38:56,910 I think he found religion. 623 00:38:57,210 --> 00:39:00,290 And then he married a gal named Dale. 624 00:39:00,990 --> 00:39:04,850 And he was very happy with it. He was a different person then. 625 00:39:05,240 --> 00:39:08,820 with her. Now my motivation is different than what it was when I first started 626 00:39:08,820 --> 00:39:13,700 out. My motivation now is my family, my fiancee, to make sure that if something 627 00:39:13,700 --> 00:39:17,180 were to ever happen to me, she's not going to be hurt. He used to say, cat 628 00:39:17,180 --> 00:39:22,160 nine lives, but God gave me 10 so I can give my life to Jesus. He was moving out 629 00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:23,600 of his house off the beach. 630 00:39:24,229 --> 00:39:29,030 And he had just moved the last piece of heavy furniture in the house for his 631 00:39:29,030 --> 00:39:33,030 wife, Dale. And he said, Dale, I'm going to go upstairs and lay down for a 632 00:39:33,030 --> 00:39:34,030 little bit. I don't feel well. 633 00:39:34,350 --> 00:39:37,830 And I was out in my backyard, and all of a sudden I get a phone call. 634 00:39:38,030 --> 00:39:41,490 A friend of mine, Bob Muller, he goes, hey, have you talked to Mike? 635 00:39:41,870 --> 00:39:46,890 I said, yeah, man, I talked to him last night. He goes, huh, have you talked to 636 00:39:46,890 --> 00:39:47,890 him yet today? 637 00:39:47,990 --> 00:39:48,990 I said, no. 638 00:39:49,170 --> 00:39:51,030 He goes, Joe, Mike died. 639 00:39:52,330 --> 00:39:56,150 It was an early Sunday morning, October the 19th, when the world of wrestling 640 00:39:56,150 --> 00:40:01,590 was saddened to hear that Michael Hegstrand had passed away at the young 641 00:40:01,590 --> 00:40:06,750 46. And it wasn't that he OD'd or whatever, you know, it's just that his 642 00:40:06,750 --> 00:40:07,750 just stopped. 643 00:40:08,050 --> 00:40:10,790 It was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to go through. 644 00:40:11,050 --> 00:40:17,430 Well, it was, you know, I was just at home and an animal calls me up and tells 645 00:40:17,430 --> 00:40:20,050 me, you know, Hawk is gone. 646 00:40:23,010 --> 00:40:27,730 Joanie, my wife, I said, we got to get the 647 00:40:27,730 --> 00:40:34,270 black van 648 00:40:34,270 --> 00:40:36,310 and drive to the funeral. 649 00:40:36,650 --> 00:40:42,210 The old black van that I took him to the airport in, our first day together. 650 00:40:42,550 --> 00:40:44,490 I still had that black van. 651 00:40:44,770 --> 00:40:50,850 Went to the Kmart and got cans of black spray paint. 652 00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:52,560 cover up all the rust. 653 00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:58,100 And we got in the black van and drove all the way to Tampa. 654 00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:01,260 55 miles an hour. 655 00:41:01,500 --> 00:41:04,880 Got passed by 10 ,000 cars. 656 00:41:05,780 --> 00:41:09,020 Do you remember some of the things that he said, the eulogy? 657 00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,020 Yeah, I remember. 658 00:41:13,060 --> 00:41:18,040 Ah, October 19th, 2003. 659 00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:25,580 The dark clouds covered the bright sun. 660 00:41:26,580 --> 00:41:28,720 Today we lost our friend. 661 00:41:30,580 --> 00:41:34,640 Our brother of planes, trains, and automobiles. 662 00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:37,720 Many miles. 663 00:41:39,420 --> 00:41:45,720 If I could steal a line from the outlaw Josie Wales. 664 00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:49,980 Hawk, it is good that men like us. 665 00:41:51,090 --> 00:41:53,450 Met in the struggle of life. 666 00:41:55,930 --> 00:41:59,970 Hawk's death brings to an end a partnership that has not been matched in 667 00:41:59,970 --> 00:42:00,970 wrestling ever since. 668 00:42:01,190 --> 00:42:03,870 He was unique both in and out of the ring. 669 00:42:04,110 --> 00:42:09,350 A warrior, a partner, a friend, and a brother. 670 00:42:10,130 --> 00:42:11,610 He wasn't Hawk. 671 00:42:14,370 --> 00:42:17,430 Yeah. I think that is a key point. 672 00:42:18,050 --> 00:42:19,270 He was still Mike. 673 00:42:20,730 --> 00:42:22,470 I never looked at him as a hawk. 674 00:42:22,850 --> 00:42:26,270 He really gave a shit about his friends. 675 00:42:26,690 --> 00:42:28,210 He just had your back. 676 00:42:28,730 --> 00:42:30,770 He probably knew I needed it. 677 00:42:34,490 --> 00:42:41,410 The biggest compliment that I can make to Hawk is that everybody liked 678 00:42:41,410 --> 00:42:45,230 to be around him. So it was a huge void. 679 00:42:45,550 --> 00:42:49,180 And Animal would know a lot more about that than me. Because they've been 680 00:42:49,180 --> 00:42:54,620 together and always thought of as a twosome. Had a lot of things in common. 681 00:42:54,620 --> 00:42:58,660 mean, Jim worked hard. They were a great tag team. They performed unbelievably 682 00:42:58,660 --> 00:42:59,658 in the ring. 683 00:42:59,660 --> 00:43:01,880 But, you know, totally different. 684 00:43:02,220 --> 00:43:03,220 They were brothers. 685 00:43:03,300 --> 00:43:06,020 You know, brothers, they love each other. 686 00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:08,720 But they'll have a fight once in a while. 687 00:43:09,060 --> 00:43:12,520 I mean, there were times we were at each other's throat because we were together 688 00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:13,299 so much. 689 00:43:13,300 --> 00:43:17,180 But 99 .9 % of the time, we had a common respect there. 690 00:43:18,790 --> 00:43:21,950 It's over half my life, man. I was with Hawks. 691 00:43:22,390 --> 00:43:27,990 From being stars in Japan, to being family members, to being brothers, to 692 00:43:27,990 --> 00:43:30,890 everything else, you know, now what do I do? Now he's gone. 693 00:43:31,090 --> 00:43:32,310 And that's the hardest thing. 694 00:43:32,750 --> 00:43:35,650 Well, I think what we really remember is being a state team in professional 695 00:43:35,650 --> 00:43:40,690 wrestling. And I just like to go down as one tough dude and one tough partner. 696 00:43:41,310 --> 00:43:45,070 Hawks should be remembered as one of the, one half of the greatest tag team 697 00:43:45,070 --> 00:43:45,959 ever. 698 00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:50,600 He had one of the best punches in wrestling, one of the best interviews 699 00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:54,640 sure. Well, Hawk was definitely a character. 700 00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:58,260 To be honest with you, a part of the wrestling business died when Hawk died.