30 Days of WWE Challenge, Day 06 - Favorite Tag Team

Road Warriors (aka Legion of Doom)

For a feel of the truly retro, this is the first category where I decided to go back to what they call “the good ol’ days”.

Tag team wrestling in sports-entertainment now is pretty much non-existent. Most of the teams now are thrown-together, either for the hell of it or for storyline purposes.

However, the team I selected for this day was, is, and always will be a team (sorry Bret for ripping ya off).

Raised in the mean streets of Chicago, Joe Laurinaitis and Mike Hegstrand, the Road Warriors, are the only team perhaps EVER to start on top and end on top.

Back in the early 80’s NWA (and no not the rap group), this team was definitely not what the crowds were used to. Instead of “everyman” physiques with methodical pacing, this team had a pair of Herculean bodies with a smash-mouth style that threw the tag ranks on their heads. With Paul Ellering at their side, they were as Joe called it, "…bad guys masquerading around as good guys.”

Not only did they win gold in NWA, but also in their stints in AWA and then WWE.

However in WWE’s first stint, that being 1990-1992, Hawk’s problems of excessive partying really started to become a hindrance to the duo.

Apparently after Summerslam 1992, Hawk stayed in London, joined the Hell’s Angels, and gave notice.

After a couple of years, they lived to forget and forgive and forged a second career.

They had a short but successful run in WCW, and then the duo made a second run in WWE.

While they won the tag titles again, they were definitely not as dominating as they once were. They lost to the likes of the New Age Outlaws (Billy Gunn and Jesse James) and the Disciples of Apocalypse (Skull and 8-Ball, who had Paul Ellering in their corner).

After a debacle of making fun of Hawk’s drunk-ness on air, the whole team was broken apart again. Apparently it was the end until a one-night comeback in 2003 when the LOD lost to Kane and RVD in a tag title match on RAW.

Shortly after that match, Hegstrand suffered a heart attack and died. The Road Warriors, at least the original incarnation, were officially done.

Although Joe would make a new “Road Warriors” duo with a young lad named Jon Heidenreich and win the WWE Tag Team Championships (Smackdown brand), it couldn’t hold a candle to the original, and after Hurricane Katrina struck Heidenreich’s hometown of New Orleans, Heidenreich left the WWE and Animal made the worst SINGLES heel run in a while.

Even those later missteps are forgivable because the original team, of Hawk and Animal, were probably the most innovative tag team in their day, and made SERIOUS bank wherever they went.