The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling (35 page)

Unfortunately, the angle under which Ellering was repackaged turned out to be a half-baked disaster. During his time off, Paul had taken up the hobby of ventriloquism to entertain his three young children and had made mention of it to Vince and me. Because the LOD was now being heavily marketed toward the ever-blooming children’s fan base, it was decided that Paul would introduce a ventriloquist dummy named Rocco. Before I knew it, we were brought in for WrestleMania to tell the fans we were returning to our roots by reuniting with a very important figure from our past, Paul Ellering.

Slowly but surely over the course of the next couple of months leading into SummerSlam ’92, Paul began bringing out Rocco during interviews, claiming it was Hawk’s and my long lost childhood toy from Chicago. The story line with Rocco implied that we had a sentimental attachment to the doll and that we could draw strength and motivation from him the same way Undertaker did from the urn his manager Paul Bearer tightly clutched.

Maybe in the grand scheme of things Vince saw a possible product line launch of Rocco dolls and Rocco T-shirts, but the whole thing never really left the starting gate. Thankfully.

I’ve got to give it to Vince, though. Even with the couple of drug test suspensions that sidelined us, McMahon never gave up on trying to push us to the top of the WWF. More than likely, we were given additional chances that other guys probably wouldn’t have gotten.

When Hawk finally came back in the spring and we feuded with the Beverly Brothers and Money Inc., I think we were able to earn a little trust back with the office. We got the word from Jack Lanza that we were booked to go over Money Inc. at SummerSlam ’92 in England. I was hoping we’d finally be back on the fast track to the top and retrieve our titles from the Natural Disasters.

When the big day finally came on August 29 at Wembley Stadium in London, I approached my partner with some words of inspiration. “Mike, this is a big one. We really need this match against Dibiase and Rotunda to show Vince and everyone else we’re back to stay.”

Hawk agreed and said not to worry. “We’re gonna knock ’em all dead, Joe.” Little did I know that Hawk had already been drug tested before we’d left for the UK and was anticipating yet another suspension or his outright release at any time.

So with that information swimming around in Hawk’s mind, and my complete ignorance to it, he proceeded to take several sedatives in plain view of pretty much everyone in the Wembley dressing room. By the time we were gearing and painting up, he was lethargic, leaving little doubt in my mind that our appearance was in serious trouble.

I also knew that we had a huge entrance planned in which Hawk, Paul, and I would each be riding down the 500-foot walkway on custom Harley-Davidsons. When it was time to make our entrance for the first match of the night, Paul took off (with Rocco sitting on the handlebars), followed by Hawk and then me. The whole time we were riding down, I was hoping Hawk wouldn’t fall or crash, but I was treated to something much better.

When all three of us began to park our bikes, Hawk accidentally stopped and docked his Harley down too close to me. When I tried to get off my motorcycle, I was so close to Hawk’s exhaust pipe that my right boot and tights melted right onto the metal, frying my skin. As soon as I felt the heat and subsequent pain, I had to contain myself from letting anyone notice something had happened. I’ll tell you what, man, when I got in the ring and heard 80,000 fans chanting, “LOD, LOD,” I forgot all about my leg and felt like a wrestling rookie all over again.

SummerSlam ’92 was the first big WWF PPV to ever come to England, and the people came out in droves. The huge outdoor Wembley Stadium was sold out. It was the biggest audience I’d ever seen, and it was pure pandemonium. We even debuted our brand-new shiny gold shoulder pads and gold-accented tights, which had all been designed to complement our gold WWF Tag Team Championship belts. (Of course, by the time our new gear was ready, we didn’t even have the belts anymore.)

When it came time to wrestle the match, I was relieved to see Hawk manage himself pretty well against Dibiase and Rotunda. I clearly remember his stupor having a negative impact only when we realized it might be a mistake to attempt the Doomsday Device. If Hawk climbed to the top turnbuckle and fell, it would’ve been a total disaster, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and finish off Rotunda with a powerslam.

Funny thing is, when I threw I.R.S. into the ropes, Hawk was standing in my path. “Mike,” I hollered,
get out of the way
.” He barely made an effort to move, and I had to pull back on how big the slam was so he wasn’t kicked in the head.

As our hands were being raised, I glanced down at the announcer’s table, where Vince was, shaking his head.

I put it all out of my mind and thought,
All right, we had an acceptable showing, the fans love us more than ever, and everything’s looking up to another title run.
It sure sounded good in theory.

After the show, Heenan came up to me and said Vince had been cursing Mike off camera the entire match.

Great
.

The reality of what happened post-SummerSlam was that while Paul and I were on our flight back to the United States (during which I told Paul to permanently “lose” Rocco) for a TV taping in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Hawk was hanging out with the London chapter of the Hells Angels with no intention of joining me. It wasn’t until I was painted up and waiting with Paul at the Hershey Park Arena for him to show up that I knew something was wrong.

Vince came in looking grim and told me Hawk quit.

He what?

“Mike called the office today looking for me but only got my secretary,” Vince said. “He told her to relay the message that he’d had enough and was quitting the company.”

I was hoping it was a joke, but Vince wasn’t even slightly smiling. Hawk had no interest in owning up to his latest drug test failure and figured he’d take off on his own without letting me know. Man, I was pissed beyond belief and probably more confused than anything. I never imagined the end of the Road Warriors/Legion of Doom would go down this way.

Then I started wondering what Hawk’s quitting meant for Paul’s and my future with the WWF.

“Well, Joe,” Vince said, “our deal was for both Road Warriors, not Road Warrior Animal. I’ll have to see what we can come up with.”

Great. It sounded like the kiss of death. In the meantime, I went home without work and Paul quietly semiretired from the business yet again.

Finally, after about two weeks without hearing from Hawk, I got the long-awaited call.

“Hey, Joe, what’s going on?”

It was a little too casual for my liking, and I let him know it. “What the fuck do you think’s going on? I’m sitting at home wondering where my next check’s going to come from to take care of my family.”

Hawk apologized, as he always did, and went on to explain how he was a grown man and wasn’t going to let anyone (Vince) tell him how to live his life. He also said he’d been talking with Masa Saito and Brad Reinghans for some time about having the Road Warriors come and work exclusively for NJPW. “Our money in the WWF never panned out like Vince said it would. We made less and less money each year there than we did with Crockett. That wasn’t the deal.”

Hawk was right about the money part not being what we’d hoped for, but I was still committed to finishing up our scheduled bookings in the WWF. “I can’t go with you, Mike. I’ve got work to finish up for the both of us here first, and then I’ll think about it. But I’m really fucking upset with the way you handled this.”

He said he knew and that he’d make it up to me in the long run, and we hung up.

I wouldn’t talk to him again for almost six months.

Coincidentally, the next day after my phone call with Hawk, I took off for Japan myself to wrestle a couple of singles matches, including a handicap match against both Beverly Brothers on September 15 in Yokohama. Right in the middle of the match I was given a double-suplex and didn’t land right. I knew I was in trouble the second I hit. Pain shot through my lower back, and I quickly told Mike Enos (Blake Beverly) we needed to take the match home.

When I got to the back, all I could do was lie down on a bench and wonder why things were going the way they were. Not only was I dealing with the emotional hurt of Hawk’s desertion, but now to complicate things even more, I had a herniated C5 and C6 vertebrae.

After loading up on pillows, ice packs, and painkillers, I endured the most insufferable series of plane rides in my life to reach Minneapolis. When I finally got home and walked through the door to be attacked with hugs from Joey, James, and Jessica, I knew it was going to be a loooong time before Road Warrior Animal would see the light of day. Now it was time to rest, think things over, and enjoy being Joe the family guy.

After I had been officially diagnosed with my back injury, not only did I immediately schedule the necessary surgery to fix it, but I filed a significant insurance claim with my policy carrier, Lloyd’s of London. Being a professional entertainer in such a high-risk environment like a wrestling ring, I’d known it was a smart move to take out a personal injury policy with Lloyd’s a few years back. Now, my wise decision was literally paying off.

It was during this time, around mid-December of 1992, while being laid up after my successful spinal fusion surgery that I got a call from a wrestling magazine reporter looking for my opinion on the Hell Raisers.

Huh?
I had no idea what the guy was talking about. My mood started to plummet from groggy and grouchy to completely livid as I learned that Hawk had formed a new team in NJPW based completely on our Road Warriors gimmick.

I knew he’d been running around the world doing indie shots for various promotions, but I guess he’d also promised Masa Saito and Brad Reinghans at NJPW that both he and I were coming over as a package deal. When Hawk explained he was coming without me, they decided to pair him with an up-and-coming rookie named Kensuke Sasaki (Kenskee for short) and form a new version of the Road Warriors. Thus, the Hell Raisers were born. They took Kenskee, painted his face, named him Power Warrior, and gave him a set of gear and shoulder pads identical to ours, except in green.

Hawk, or Hawk Warrior as he was called, kept the red and black theme from the WWF. They even went so far as to use another Ozzy Osbourne song, “Hellraiser,” as their entrance music. I was even told that the Hell Raisers had won the IWGP Tag Team titles from Tony Halme and our old friend Scott Norton.

The news made me sick. I told the reporter to get his pen ready. “You can tell the people that even if Hawk has Power Warrior as his new partner, he’ll never replace Road Warrior Animal and my rightful place as one-half of the Road Warriors. It’s disrespectful to put someone else into a spot I worked my ass off to establish.”

I think my point was made. A couple months later, I got a call that confirmed it.

“Hey, Joe.” It was Hawk. “I heard what you said about Kenski, and the office at New Japan ain’t happy. They think you’re burying him.”

Like so many times in the recent past, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I responded accordingly. “How is this my fault, Mike? You’re the one who abandoned me and decided to disrespect everything about our gimmick. You didn’t even discuss it with me first.”

Hawk went on to explain that with me out of the picture, Inoki suggested he team up with Kenski to establish instant credibility with the Japanese fans. He also said the Hell Raisers were temporary until I healed up enough to make my official comeback and reunite the Road Warriors.

Honestly, maybe it’s me, but I felt Hawk had a lot of nerve to call and complain about my totally justified thoughts. He was the one I felt put me in the whole situation to begin with. It had nothing to do with me trying to throw Kenski under the bus. Personally, I liked him just fine. The heat I vented to the reporter was strictly between Hawk and Animal or, more to the point, Mike and Joe.

Well, needless to say, the call didn’t end on a high note. Hawk dial-toned me at the last second.

It would be the better part of a year before we’d talk again.

Embittered by Hawk and the whole Hell Raisers situation, I completely withdrew from the pulse of professional wrestling altogether. I tossed my gear bag into the closet to collect some dust and turned all of my attention to my family and to coming back bigger, stronger, and better than ever before.

During my long sabbatical, I was able to reflect on where I was in life and what made me tick. It was my family. There was nothing better than coming home in those days. I would be so beat and in need of serious decompression, and the minute I’d come in the door, Joey, James, and Jessica would be all over me. Right then and there, the fatigue and pain would wash away. There wasn’t any therapy in the world a doctor could prescribe that matched the healing powers of being with my babies.

I remember coming home from Japan and being so jet-lagged that it would take days to recover from it all. My mind would be in another world while I’d be lying on the floor in the family room watching TV. I’d be propped up with a pillow against the family room steps, almost falling asleep, when all of a sudden I’d hear the sound of running feet coming down the hall behind me.
Bam. Bam! BAM!
Then it would get quiet. Too quiet.

BOOM!
All of a sudden, James would land on my chest laughing and tickling me while Joey would be attacking my legs. I was being double-teamed by my own sons, the Legion of Laurinaitis. Little Jessica, never one to be outdone by the boys, would join in and try to hang with her big brothers.

Joey, James, and Jessica got along great while growing up. They all really hit it off with one another. Before Jessica was old enough to really get involved in the scheme of things, my boys had been quite the duo. Even though Joey was five years older, James was the same size by around age six, so there was a lot of wrestling going on in the house.

Also, there was a lot of “monkey see, monkey do” with the moves the kids saw me performing on TV. Before I knew it, Joey and James were as good as their old man at delivering clotheslines and powerslams into the couch or swimming pool. They’d even put Jessica up on James’ shoulders so Joey could dive off the springboard and Doomsday Device her right into the water. They had such great chemistry together, a parent’s greatest blessing, and boy did they have a ton of fun.