Interview with Animal

[Lil' Bitch 0]

“Part of my life is gone. Hawk and I have been best friends, brothers, everything.”

 

He was a consummate businessman. Hours earlier, he’d be in contact about The Road Warriors doing business here in Ireland. But now that wasn’t an option; in such little time the landscape of Road Warrior Animal’s life had changed forever.

 

Three days ago, Hawk, one half of what many consider to be the most popular tag team of all time, passed away in his sleep. I put the call through to Animal, totally unprepared to do an interview. “How are you doing?” I asked; and within seconds, we were on a journey through his life, his times, his partner, friend and confidant. Instinctively, I began taking notes on the beautifully candid web of truths, insights and memories he shared. By the tone of his voice and the manner of his delivery, it was clearly something he wanted to share with the fans, the fans that Hawk and Animal attribute their amazing success story to. There was a pure, unbridled honesty about Animal in the wake of tragedy that shone through from his opening words.

 

It took ten minutes for the business part of his mind to kick in, a reflection of Animal’s candor and sincerity. “Hey... are you taking notes on this?” he asked abruptly, no doubt hearing the feverish woodpecker-like tapping on a keyboard in the background.

 

“Yes” I answered.

 

And forward we went.

 

This wasn’t an interview, it was a conversation between friends who probably work far too much for their own good; so in accordance with the wishes of former world tag team champion Road Warrior Animal, I share with you the dignified and candid story of the Road Warriors.

 

The Last Time We Talked

 

Part of my life is gone. Hawk and I have been best friends, brothers, everything. Laughing, kidding around. He called me the morning before he died. "Man, these buggers are killing my head!" he grunted with a laugh. He was pulling the staples out of his head he got from a stray chair in his latest match. As we're laughing on the phone, he outright refuses to go to the hospital to have it done by professionals, as usual. “I'm not going to a doctor! Dr Hawk can do it!” he growled. We're like the two stooges.

 

As Close as Brothers, as Close as Family

 

Hawk wouldn't want people crying about him. Hawk had a big heart. My kids were like his kids. He'd just brag about them to everyone. He always used to say that he couldn’t have kids himself – he’d point to his face, and say “because I wouldn’t want to do this to them!” Hawk was so proud of my son James. James is 6'3 already, a high school football player. Hawk would brag about him so much. That was the way he was. I have one son in the army. He'd pray for them every day.

 

Hawk had a unique relationship with his wife. They share a bond and a love. People are lucky to even think about it in this world. Hawk and I talked just like every Joe collar worker out there; about the wife, the kids. Those were the first topics of conversation. Business came second. And every day, at the end of the conversation, not to be ashamed of it, Hawk would say “you know, Animal, I love you, man.” I’d say “I love you too, brother.”

 

Hawk and I had a relationship with the fans unlike anyone. The fans reacted to our look.

 

We're doing a book right now. I owe it to him to finish it and put it out. I hate to say it, but the truth is that his passing will help sales. Everything is coming from the heart, and it's true. We were almost done, man. We have so much footage! But it will be finished, and dedicated to his memory.

 

The New Hawk

 

One of the things Hawk and I never did was have big heads about the business, and we never forgot where we came from. We knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we had something special together. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t challenges. Hawk lived life to its fullest. "Here's hawk, he did it all and it did him in!" he used to say. “I want you to make sure it's on my tombstone!” I’d yell “don’t say that, man!” I didn’t want to hear that!

 

People can say what they want to say about being a born again Christian. Everybody acts like you can't talk about it in society, like it’s such a taboo subject. For Hawk, it started two years ago. I was going to a religious meeting, and Hawk called and asked if he could come. Since then, he has been a committed Christian. Hawk has thanked me every day for the last two years. All the events we did with Ted DiBiase, not only did we succeed in everyday wrestling, but now it was in the Christian end too. People believed in what we were saying. Guys like Austin now do an interview and you know when they’re misleading you, portraying a character over who they really are. We talk about our real lives, from being bouncers on up, no sugarcoating.

 

The Legion of Doom

 

The one thing Hawk wanted was for people to see that the last five years, he changed. The last Dream Poll they did on WWE.com, Hawk and I had 42% of the vote. Hawk was so proud of that fact… He was a man's man. He'd tell you to your face what he thought (laughs). After all these years, Hawk and I grew into one unit. I could look at his eyes in the ring. He and I looked at each other and had what I can only explain as ESP. I knew exactly what he was thinking, what move he was going to do, where I should be; and vice versa. We still had a lot to offer. We knew there was enough left in our business because of the fans that there was 3-5 years left of a good run. We wanted to go out that way, on top.

 

Something that bothered Mike was that Vince McMahon never accepted his calls. Hawk wanted to call him up and be a man's man, say what had to be said. Vince and Hawk had some falling outs over the years, there’s no question about that; but Hawk was ready to put it behind them, and both sides could have benefited from giving the relationship another try. It wasn’t to be; but well, he'll get the last laugh now, brother! He's up there with Owen and Stu looking down. They’ve got (Brian) Pillman, Davey Boy, Curt Henning… Let me tell you something, they have a better territory up in heaven than anywhere down here right now, Hawk's going to make good money up there! (laughs)

 

Fans need to know that the Road Warriors were the Road Warriors, plural. Yes, we both individually could have done something great in this business, but... Hawk brought the best out in Animal, and Animal brought the best out in Hawk. What people don't realize about Hawk is that he was a very... a very loving and caring guy. He had the biggest heart and had the best intentions in the world. I know Vince McMahon held a grudge against him because Hawk had a mishap several years ago when he was under certain influences; but people knew it was the substances talking. It’s a real shame that some people just couldn’t let the situation go.

 

Hawk is a bigger man for how he has conducted himself these last few years, because he admitted and took care of his problem. Nobody's going to dump every vice they've got, but he worked hard every day to treat his family and friends with respect. People need to remember that. He was a true friend, a brother... I've been closer to him for twenty-one years than my own family.

 

Working with WWE

 

Hawk was so excited when the WWE called and asked if we could do TV (earlier this year). They told us it would be a fifteen minute segment; but by the time Austin got done talking, we had three and a half minutes. So we walk down to the ring, get set up in the corner how they like, and half the time is already gone. They wanted to know if we would get a pop. Well, we got a pop; there were so many signs in the crowd! The people erupted. We were really disheartened by what we were told afterwards. They said they didn't like the match; I said we just didn't have the time to do a real match. What kind of a match can you have in two minutes?

 

With the WWE when they said they'd do business (earlier this year), we wanted to retire with the WWE, like Kiss doing their retirement tour, a twelve year retirement tour (laughs). I kidded with Jim Ross, sent him an e-mail about a five-year retirement tour. All over Europe, Russia, the UK, we would have done good business. We were disappointed that we got the wrong call. We could have done good business for the WWE. Look at Kane and Rob Van Dam; they didn't mean anything as a team before they beat us on Raw. They have credibility individually, but not as a tag team; not until they wrestled The Road Warriors. The WWE teams are struggling. They never piped in cheers for us like they do for so many of them these days.

 

Balancing the business mind of Animal with the charisma and spontaneity of Hawk

 

Hawk was the guy who would flip out immediately and knock you out. I was the guy who would take it... take it... take it... THEN knock you out (laughs). Hawk, God bless him, he tried... but it wasn't within his chemical makeup to be a businessman. I didn't mind it. I prided myself on the technical end, the production end of the business. People don't realize that with the exception of the paint and haircuts – the haircuts were Hawk, the paint we did together - everything was my idea. The shoulder pads, the look, they were all things I came up with. All the production was my idea. I'd script a lot of the matches and tell Hawk his part - because that's what worked well for us. When (former manager) Paul Ellering left, that area (match writing) was open. It didn't make one of us better than the other. It made us function as a team.

 

Take a look at the interviews and you see the dynamic reflected. Hawk would be the wild guy who would go off the handle, and I'd close the deal, making the key points we needed to get over in the interview about our opponents, the titles, the storyline. When we got out there, I would snatch the really big guys and press them over my head. Hawk would do a lot of flying, where I did the ground, power work. (It’s really a metaphor for our whole lives). I was pretty much a jock, I had the jock mentality, not that I was better, but I spent so many years getting myself into shape that I didn't want to screw with that. Hawk was very much of each and every moment. He lived life at a thousand miles an hour.

 

Hawk Left WWF in 1992; Shortly Thereafter, the Road Warriors Split Up

 

I was offered to come back as a singles wrestler by the WWF, but I turned it down. Meanwhile, over in Japan, they tried to make Hawk and Kenski the Road Warriors. Hawk said no. So they called it them the Hellraisers.

 

I understand that Hawk had to leave the WWF at that point. Hawk needed to do it, and Vince McMahon didn't keep up his end of several promises that were made to us. We stuck to our word and gave 100%. Two or three different times when they didn't do what they promised, and Hawk just said "I can't take it any more." It was his way of rebelling – simply doing what he wanted to do. When he stayed over in England, like a businessman like you said, I fulfilled two of his bookings in Japan where I had Crush as my partner there. I took a double suplex and got dropped crooked, and I herniated a couple of discs.

 

Hawk said ‘I really want to do this thing with Kenski.’ I said ‘don't worry about it, build him up, we'll come back and turn on him, build up the story.’ We did a six man tag instead, I didn't mind that. I thank God that we could do this our whole career, our gimmick was so strong. People never forgot, because we'd go from territory to territory. We'd go to Oregon, Montreal with Dino Bravo. We never stayed too long in one place, but we worked them all. We'll take that with us forever. We won every championship there was to win. No team can ever say that again.

 

The challenges of dealing with Hawk’s years of hard living

 

It was brutal. I was parent, friend, babysitter, nurse and partner. All in one! For fifteen years. Hawk would be the first one to tell you that. He was really proud of that, that five years ago he cleaned himself up, and he could return the favor, to look out for me the way I’d done for him.

 

Everyone was proud of him. He made major steps that people didn't realize, that they didn't recognize and take to heart. Hawk really wanted to prove something to Vince, and it was a hard thing for him to accept that Vince wouldn't give him another look.

 

It was hard at times. It's brutal. Sometimes your partner was drunk. It was tough. But hey, I'll tell you what, never once was Hawk not able to do his job in the ring. As soon as the music played, he was ready to be Raod Warrior Hawk. Nobody can take that away from him. A lot of our situation with the WWF over the years comes down to positioning; We knew who was doing what (drug) all along, but when Vince was in trouble for juice, some of the boys got leaned on heavily and others not at all.

 

The Legacy of the Road Warriors

 

We had so much fun tagging together I don't know if we could put a finger on our favorite matches or guys to wrestle. But I'm not going to be a guy like Arn Anderson who disses and damns everyone and chops everyone's ankles out. Arn made a comment about us being idiots who couldn't tie our own boots, not to mention wrestle in main events, but let him feel that way. Arn got a nice big contact because of us, he got opportunities because of us. The Four Horsemen got popular because they wrestled Hawk and I. We had the Wargames going on. People forget about those. The scaffold matches.

 

We've been in every kind of brutal match in this business. Hawk broke his leg and two weeks later took his cast off and we did a scaffold match because we'd made a commitment to Jimmy Crockett. I taped up his leg and he went in there and did the match without missing a beat. I had broken ankles and hands. It's not like today, where you get a hangnail and you're out six months. We're not saying we're better than anyone, but we respect the business, and the show must go on. When Warlord fell on my eye, I was meant to be out six months, I was out two. My orbital socket wasn’t healed yet, but that’s what you used to do. You used to go to work regardless.

 

The Future

 

It's going to take a few months for everything to kick in, but I hope the promoters find it in their heart to do tribute shows. This is good business to them. They should think about it, Hawk would want it. It's good for everybody. I'd be happy to come in and be a referee, sign autographs, you know. When you have a gimmick like ours, nobody will ever top it. You will never see it again.

 

Being the most successful tag team out there, we're definitely writing the book. Aaron Lee is our publisher down in Palm Springs, Florida. We're taking bids from publishing companies. They know it's going to sell. This isn't a book from a Bobby Heenan or something else. It's a book from the greatest tag team of all time. They'll use us to sell it. We're going to dedicate it to Hawk. He would with me. Our hearts were the biggest things. I have to keep the name alive.

 

This is the end of an era. I own the names, LOD and Road Warrior Hawk and Animal, I've patented them for the last six, seven years, but I don't think I can go on with that name. I may as a tribute to Mike for a year, but nobody can replace him. It's like peanut butter and jelly! When they tried to add in Curly Joe to the three stooges it never worked, and there is no partner for Animal who can replace Hawk. The Road Warriors, The Legion of Doom; the team has retired, it retired with Hawk.

 

We made a commitment to each other that good or bad we'd stick by each other. I was going to honor that commitment to my partner, and he did the same thing. We made a tremendous amount of money in this business. We just wanted the chance, and we proved our point. We got a standing ovation in Philadelphia and Baltimore working for the WWF earlier this year. The (website) poll proved it. Hawk did what he wanted to do. He achieved his ultimate goal. He's laughing at the Warrior, laughing at guys who make fun of how he bettered his life and his surroundings. He's up there with God. If they were to die, where would they be? I know three quarters would go to hell! (laughs jokingly).

 

I know my partner changed his mind and bettered himself in the last few years. Maybe he had an insight… you just don't know. I've been there and felt the feeling when you do something good. There is a presence. A real presence. I feel it. It’s real. I have no regrets. We all do the best we can, we all have our challenges; and at the end of the day, Hawk believed in me and my family as I do in him. He took great pride in and had great appreciation for everyone in his life, his family, his friends, and you better believe the fans. Certain people can say what they want to say, but the crowd always erupted when The Road Warriors hit the arena floor. It was a special feeling we shared with everyone in the building when the PA came alive as Hawk growled those immortal words,

 

“Oh, What a Rush!”

 

1wrestling.com

[Steviekick 0]

That made me miss Hawk and LOD all the more. I'm just lucky that I was able to watch the Raw that they were on a few months back.

[Papacita 0]

Not to get caught up in these morbid superstitions, but it bugs me out that both LOD and Freddy Blassie made surprise appearances on that show, and now only months later, Blassie and Hawk are dead.

[Steviekick 0]

That is a morbid, but true observation, papa.

[TheOriginalOrangeGoblin 0]

Touching words from Animal and Papa that is a really weird coincedence.