The Legion of Doom — The Road Warriors are hands down not only one of the most influential tag teams of all-time, but one of the best tag teams ever in professional wrestling. The team of Hawk and Animal (along with “Precious” Paul Ellering) were not only the definition of bad ass, but they proved that tag team wrestling could be a top box office draw — sometimes even more than the world champion.
At Stand Alone Wrestling‘s Friday Night Fights in Brick, New Jersey last week we caught up with WWE Hall of Famer Road Warrior Animal to discuss his Hall of Fame Speech, his chemistry with his late tag team partner, and what words of advice he would give to up-and-coming talent today.
We’re honored to be standing here with one of the greatest and most decorated tag team wrestlers of all time, WWE Hall of Famer, Road Warrior Animal. Thank you for a few minutes. How are you today, sir?
Well, except for getting stuck in LaGuardia traffic in New York! (laughs) Bro, [I’m here at Stand Alone Wrestling’s] Friday Night Fights in New Jersey! I spent a lot of time growing up in Philadelphia and I had a lot of aunts and uncles that live in Jersey, you know Cherry Hill and stuff. So I’m very familiar with the East Coast. It’s always great to get back here!
Great to see you here! I wanted to ask about your Hall of Fame Speech (2011) when you said that you and your partner were of one body and one mind in the ring. Can you tell us about your in-ring philosophy and the chemistry you guys had?
Hawk and I had a telepathy, man. We knew what each other was thinking in the ring. He knew what my strong points and my weak points were. Vice-versa, I knew what his were. So when we got in the ring and he got his bell rung, I knew what he needed to do next. [We knew] what we needed to do make the match good.
We always had the ring generalship. In a tag match we always had that imaginary line down the middle of the ring — always keep the guy on your side of the ring so you don’t bury your opponents. Little crap like that a lot of guys don’t think of. You watch a lot of tag team wrestling today you’ll see they’re outside for five minutes! The poor referee is counting to 50! You’re burying the referee! That’s gotta be the [responsibility of the] ring general. So we kind of knew each other in that aspect, and that made matches easy for us.
What were some of your fondest memories of Hawk?
You know bro, I knew Hawk better than I knew my ex-wife and my family. I spent 22 years on the road with the guy. We were blood brothers but we WERE brothers.
There’s one thing that stands out. We were doing a photo shoot for Pro Wrestling Illustrated. We come up the 28th Street subway, riding subways, taking photos. We see this drunk guy sitting on the corner. He was a bum, and we could tell he was down and out. Hawk was the kind of guy that would say, “Hey Animal give me a hundred bucks, I’m gonna give it to this guy.” So he would talk me into giving a hundred bucks too, so the guy would walk away with $200. I’m sure he was probably buying booze for the whole friggin’ block! But it made his day and put a smile on his face. That’s the kind of guy Hawk was.
Lastly, what advice would you have for all these indie talents coming from one of the all time greats?
Know your craft. Know your lineage of the wrestling business. Too many people are getting into the business today because they saw someone on TV doing it. They don’t know what the guys or girls did to pave the way for them to get here. Know that and be respectful man! Shake everybody’s hand that comes in here that’s a legend in this business!
For more on Road Warrior Animal — including his upcoming appearance, follow him on Twitter at @RWAnimal.
Additional writing by Kris Nunez, Photo Courtesy of Standalone Wrestling.
