Road Warrior Animal joined Main Event Radio (CJLO 1690AM in Montreal, MainEventRadio.com) this on Sunday to discuss his autobiography, scripted matches, heart failures caused by drug usage, Road Warrior clones, the current state of tag team wrestling, getting inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and what is next for him.
Writing his book, “The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling”: I’m glad to be on the Main Event. It had been 8 years since Hawk died and I had a couple of publishers asking me to write a book. I didn’t want to do a book because there had been a lot of garbage books out there about the business. I didn’t want to write a kiss-all, tell-all, I just kind of wanted to write a chronological timeline of my career and that’s what I did. I have fans asking me all the time what I felt like about this particular time in my career, how you first started, or how it felt to win this title. I put it all down. No matter what country I went, we traveled all over the world."
How the Business has changed in the past 30 years: "I can’t say if the business is better or worse. It’s part of the evolution of the business. Back when I did it, we had more known characters with relationships to the fans. Everybody was a different character; everybody had a little bit of themselves which was their gimmick. I don’t know if that’s true today. It’s what made Hulk Hogan and what made Ultimate Warrior. There’s a little bit of us that was Road Warrior Animal, Road Warrior Hawk. It’s what made Ultimate Warrior popular. With the new guys, everything is so scripted today from when they wake up to when they go to bed. They are given a character. We developed our own. Not only that, but matches on house shows are now scripted from bell to bell. You gotta learn to adjust to the situation. But everything is just scripted."
On coming back in 2005: "I didn’t do scripted matches. I was working with M&M, try to teach them how to get that psychology. They were just young kids trying to learn how to get their scripts right. I said guys, you have to start to ad lib in here a little beat. You need to start second guessing and turning it up a bit when you get heat which they weren’t doing. That was my job to teach them that kind of stuff. And teach Heidenreich where to go, that was my job with him too. I just didn’t have a good time with it. It just wasn’t a fun time in my career. You had to be in my shoes, having your partner who you’re traveling on the road with all the time and he’s not respecting your gimmick. He was late every day on the road. It was driving me nuts. I was trying to be a businessman, and I didn’t need it. I already had a great career with my partner [Hawk] for 20 years, I didn’t need to re-live it all over again. It would have been 1000 times better if I had a different partner."
On other teams being “clones” of the Road Warriors: "Most of those guys were my friends. I could care less about them copying my gimmick. Everybody knew we were the original. Our reaction was different than any one of theirs. It wasn’t like they were stealing our thunder. It didn’t bother me at all."
Whether he have any regrets about his usage of steroids and if they had a part to play in the deaths of Hawk and others: "No, because steroids wasn’t the reason that Hawk died. Steroids had nothing to do with Hawk dying. I want to make that perfectly clear. Because when we took steroids in the younger part of our career they were legal and we took them under doctor supervision. They told us that we couldn’t take them anymore, that they were against the rules, so we stopped taking them. What killed Hawk and messed him up was going to Australia and getting free Xanax and Cocaine from people and doing the yo-yo effect. That’s what caused Hennig to die, that’s what caused [Rick] Rude to die, and that’s what caused Davey Boy Smith to die. You do all the upper stuff like Cocaine and then you do Morphine or whatever to bring you down and that’s what leads to making your heart explode. I was with Hawk in Australia and his wrestling pulse rate was 190."
Looking back, could anything more have been done for Hawk?: "I don’t know man. The damage was done to his heart. I don’t know. He had to have wanted to help himself at that point. He was a great guy. It didn’t change his heart or his personality, he still loved everybody and wanted to be everyone’s buddy."
Being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame: "I got the call about a month before we got inducted. My first thought was that it’s about time. I figured we would go in sooner or later. For whatever reason they waited until now. It was cool, it was still a special night. It was definitely 100% red carpet treatment. The WWE knows how to put on an event and they take care of the guys. Vince said to us in the meetings that it’s our night that it’s them celebrating us, and that’s what we did."
On the Hawk action figure coming into play at the HOF: "That was Ellering’s idea. I didn’t know he was going to do it. I had no idea he had it in his pocket. I think my brother or my daughter ended up with it somehow. I got a whole box of that damn figure. We had about 10 different sets of action figures over the years. Started with Remco in the AWA years ago."
What’s next for him: "While I was there I had quite a few meetings with different guys. I found out that I’m on the next four video games. They must be wanting to do something with me. I’m also going to be hosting house shows in May up in Canada and in South Dakota. I’m hosting one in Winnipeg, in Toronto, and one in Two Falls. The guest hosting will go on all month should it go well. I was supposed to be a part of another show but then it got canceled so I can’t talk about it. And they want me to be a mentor for one of the new guys. Not your typical manager role. It’s going to be 5 legends or Hall of Famers that are mentoring 5 other guys. I don’t know what it is. They told me that’s the idea that they told me they have. Let me know if it’s going to happen, because you know everything is subject to change (NXT Season 5?). I had a blast down in FCW. I got to teach some of the new guys such as Mason Ryan how to work like a big man. I’m a coach at heart. I always coached football, baseball, and tried to coach hockey with my kids."
Memories working in Montreal: "I remember wrestling at the old Montreal Forum. We used to stay at the hotel right off of Cote-de-Liesse and we would go to Le Biftheque and eat steaks. Montreal is a beautiful city. When he was our manager, Ellering used to book us there in June and July. During the summer there’s probably not a more beautiful place in the world than Montreal. You go down to the lake and there’s girls walking around and everything else. It’s a great place. We got to wrestle Dino Bravo and Rick Martel, the Rougeaus. We turned Haku babyface against the Rougeaus one time and then he turned back on us. We did a lot of different things. We wrestled all the top talent. A lot of history."
The current state of tag team wrestling or the lack of it: "Our business has always had peaks and valleys. We’re in a downturn for the business, as far as tag teams go. It’s going to go down and down and down. You’re starting to slowly see all these groups formed now. Out of these groups you’re going to have some tag teams formed. Hopefully you’ll end up getting a good nucleus of tag teams that can bring the division back up. The fans enjoy seeing the tag teams. They’re entertaining matches, there are four guys involved, and if you know how to do it you can make it a main event on your card. You need that on a card to help out, they can share the load with your singles world champion."
What makes a great tag team: Instincts. :I could look at Hawk and I knew every spot in the whole match. If he got lost I could tell him right where he was at. I made it part of my makeup to learn his spots. I knew that if I was working a spot, I could just look at him and he would know. It became second nature after all the years we worked together. That has to be learned over years of time for the young guys."
