The loss of Road Warrior Animal at the age of 60, is yet another lost link to the past, and fans 30 and up likely have special feelings about the final Road Warrior to leave us.
Joe Laurinaitis was part of the most popular and influential tag team of their time, perhaps of all-time, and even if they weren't the best tag team ever in "working quality" (My vote would go to either incarnation of the Midnight Express with Bobby Eaton with either Dennis Condrey or Stan Lane), the Road Warriors are easily the most remembered by wrestling fans older than thirty from their youth.
The first of their time, the Road Warriors used a muscleman look combined with squash matches filled with real pounding of hapless opponents and rarely taking even a punch in return to become the innovators of their style and the number one tag team to fans of the time.
It was difficult to put your company's tag titles on the Road Warriors because like Andre the Giant, once you gave them a title, you would have to eventually take it away, and not only would you have to figure out how to have the Warriors agree (and they were known to be difficult when asked to lose), but you also would have to have the team that beat them be credible enough that the fans would buy the result because in their eyes- no one could beat the Road Warriors.
For example, the Road Warriors held two world titles during their dominant period ( Even though they held the WWF titles, that stint wasn't as dominant) the AWA and the NWA.
Both title losses were controversial, didn't come off well, and showed the difficulties in having the Road Warriors losing at all, let alone by pinfall.
Their loss of the AWA titles in September 1985 to the less than remarkable team of Jimmy Garvin and Steve "Mr. Electricity" Regal only occurred when all of three of the Freebirds charged in to interfere and essentially took five on one for the Warriors to lose and their 1989 NWA title reign ended when the extremely fast count by heel referee Teddy Long allowed Steve "Dr. Death" Williams and Mike Rotundo (a very underrated team) to lift the championship from the Warriors, each defeat showed the problems in having the Road Warriors lose.
Fans couldn't imagine anyone beating the Road Warriors and promoters didn't bother trying to force-feed the issue as the Warriors almost never lost and if they did, it had to be against overwhelming odds.
Still, as an attraction, there were very few that could match the Road Warriors and those squash matches were must-see television with the Warriors running from the locker room and pounding opponents into submission usually in two minutes or less.
I'm not sure what really got the Road Warriors over the most- the physical squash matches, the painted faces with the spiked shoulder pads, or their promos, but the combination of the parts certainly created the most memorable team of the 1980s.
As the 1980s began to draw to its end, the Road Warriors weren't as unique as they once were.
The WWF had created their own painted face tag team in Demolition (Bill "Masked Superstar" Eadie and Barry Darsow, also remembered as Krusher Khrushchev and later as Repo Man), the NWA created the Powers of Pain (Barbarian and Warlord), a larger team with bigger muscles that later moved to the WWF, and the more spectacular Steiner Brothers arrived on the scene as well.
Dusty Rhodes tried to turn them heel with the team finally winning the world championship from the Midnight Expres to emphasize their new attitude and had them turn on him with the infamous "spike in the eye" angle, but weeks later Rhodes was released for the violence of the role and the Road Warriors were fan favorites again without explanation.
The fans just weren't going to dislike the Road Warriors no matter how much the promotion may try to make it so.
When the Road Warriors finally arrived in the WWF, the long-awaited feud with Demolition awaited and it was a bit disappointing.
The feud ended fairly quickly and despite the Warriors getting the better end of the battles, it was unfulfilling, not that was the first or last time that a dream angle was was dropped in the lap of McMahonville only to be fumbled like a Mark Sanchez miscue.
The Road Warriors slowly moved away from the spotlight with more and more trips to Japan with the occasional stop in with WWF and WCW and when the WWF tried an embarrassing 'suicide' angle with Hawk, the fearsome Road Warriors didn't seem so fearsome anymore.
Hawk passed away in 2003 and Animal didn't have his heart into his occasional wrestling appearances without his long-time partner.
Animal still had the spotlight as his son, James, would be one of the best linebackers in Ohio State history and Buckeye fans often dressed in Road Warrior garb during James' time in Columbus with Animal getting more than his share of television time with interviews during games.
James would play seven seasons with the Rams and currently works for the Big Ten Network.
The Road Warriors would remain in the spotlight personally as they were Ryan's all-time favorite team.
From the time he was old enough to talk and walk, he was a Road Warrior fanatic. Ryan has all of the various Road Warrior figures through the years from different toy companies when he was about five, his favorite hat was one from their initial stint in the WWF complete with one of the colors of the game- neon lime green.
One day, Ryan and Cherie came with me to meet my friend Greg at Subway, where he worked at the time.
Greg had a friend working there as well and this fellow was playing/teasing (whatever) with Ryan, took his beloved Road Warriors hat off, and literally jumped up and down on it with his shoes.
Ryan was very upset and after I helped him clean his hat, I walked over to this guy and said "Now you can jump up and down on your hat".
Confused, he said "this is a fill in the blank of cost of a game cap here"! and refused.
I told him he can jump on it or I can, his call.
When he protested about the expense of his hat, my response was "Ryan's hat is just as important to him and you had no problem with it, so let's even the score".
He then sadly began to jump up and down on his own hat, beating it up and getting it dirty.
The Road Warriors will be long remembered as the most popular tag team of their time.
The team that was too popular to turn heel and too popular to be a champion, the Road Warriors will always be special to the fans that saw them in their prime and maybe even to a guy that had to jump on his own hat as well...
No comments:
Post a Comment