Road Warrior Hawk

Michael Hegstrand
File:Hawk1.jpg
Born	(1960-01-26)January 26, 1960 Chicago, Illinois
Died	October 19, 2003(2003-10-19) (aged 43) Indian Rocks Beach, Florida
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	Crusher von Haig Road Warrior Hawk Hawk Warrior
Billed height	6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Billed weight
Billed from	Chicago, Illinois
Trained by	Eddie Sharkey
Debut	June 6, 1983

This article is about the professional wrestler. For other uses, see Road warrior

Michael Hegstrand (January 26, 1960 – October 19, 2003) was an American professional wrestler. Hegstrand was best known for his appearances as Road Warrior Hawk, one half of the tag team known as the Road Warriors, with Road Warrior Animal.

Career

Mike attended High School in Minneapolis, at Henry High School where he graduated in 1976. After high school, Mike had various odd jobs to make ends meet. Due to his size and love of power lifting, Mike Hegstrand was an imposing figure and thus a very effective bouncer. He would work as a bouncer at Grandma B's in the Twin Cities where he caught the eye of Eddie Sharkey, a well known wrestling trainer. Sharkey thought that Mike along with Joe Laurinaitis, Rick Rude, and Barry Darsow could make it big in professional wrestling. In fact, he believed in them so much that he trained all four of them personally.

Road Warriors

For a more detailed profile on Hawk’s time as a Road Warrior see: Road Warriors

When Paul Ellering was looking to put together a stable of heels in Georgia Championship Wrestling called The Legion of Doom it was decided to put Joe with his good friend Mike Hegstrand and change their names to Animal and Hawk respectively; thus, the Road Warriors were born. To look more intimidating the two shaved their heads into Mohawks and started wearing studded dog collars, spiked shoulder pads, and face paint. The look and name was taken from The Road Warrior, helping to paint the two as no-mercy monsters. Their interview style was vicious, yet charismatic and a bit humorous.

The team was an instant hit, revolutionizing the tag-team scene with their power moves, no mercy attitudes, and innovative face paint that would spawn many future imitators in wrestling. In Georgia they won the NWA National Tag Team Championship four times before moving on to bigger promotions such as the American Wrestling Association in the US and All Japan Pro Wrestling in Japan, winning tag-team titles wherever they went.

NWA

Their hard hitting style, no nonsense attitude, and winning ways made the Road Warriors fan favorites wherever they went; even when they were booked as heels, the fans refused to boo them. They were so in demand that they started to split their time between the AWA and the National Wrestling Alliance until finally leaving the AWA for big money contracts with the NWA and a huge push for the monster duo. The move payed off instantly as they won the inaugural Jim Crocket Sr. Memorial Cup Tag-Team Tournament and feuded with the top stars of the NWA such as The Four Horsemen and the Russian Team (which included the Road Warriors’ old training buddy Barry Darsow). During their initial run in the NWA they helped popularize the War Games Match, the Scaffold Match and their trademark Chicago Street Fight.

In 1988 the Road Warriors engaged in a violent feud with The Powers of Pain (The Barbarian and The Warlord), the first team that could truly match the Road Warriors in power (and who were one of the most well known Road Warrior clones). The Powers of Pain even went so far as to injure Animal’s eye (kayfabe) during a weightlifting competition. When Animal returned, he initially wore a hockey goalie mask to protect his eye. The angle abruptly ended when the Powers of Pain left the NWA after finding out they were booked against the Road Warriors in a series of Scaffold Matches and they did not want to get hurt by falling off the scaffold.

Near the end of 1988, the Road Warriors captured the NWA World Tag Team Championship from The Midnight Express whom they mauled in short order to win the titles. After being the “Uncrowned champions” for a long time, the Road Warriors’ run with the tag-team titles was short lived. Crooked referee Teddy Long used a fast count to cheat the Road Warriors out of their titles. In their last year with the NWA, the Warriors feuded mainly with The Varsity Club, The Samoan Swat Team, and The Skyscrapers before leaving the NWA in the summer of 1990.

WWF

The Road Warriors immediately signed with the World Wrestling Federation and were pushed into a feud with the most famous of all “Road Warrior Clones”, Demolition (which once again included their old training partner Barry Darsow). Due to the ailing health of (Ax), he was replaced by Crush; however, the magic of the original Demolition was gone and the feud did not live up to the high hopes that the fans had.

Just over a year after signing with the WWF, the Legion of Doom won the WWF World Tag Team Titles and held them for about 8 months. When they lost the titles they briefly left the WWF only to return with long time manager Paul Ellering by their side, as well as a wooden dummy called “Rocco”. Both members of the L.O.D. thought the gimmick was stupid, as did most of the fans and it led to Hawk quitting the WWF, leaving Animal on his own for the first time in 9 years. When Animal suffered a severe back injury a short while later, everyone thought it was the end of the legendary team.

Hawk competed as a singles wrestler in Europe and Japan and although he won nearly every singles match he competed in, he was usually seen (by North American and Japanese fans at least) as a tag team wrestler. Thus, he always fought either mid-card opponents or made teams with better-known singles stars. When he joined New Japan Pro Wrestling he was immediately paired with Kensuke Sasaki, then simply known as a good mid-carder, as the Hell Raisers (Sasaki adopting the face paint and gimmick Power Warrior). The two dominated NJPW's tag team ranks for a while through their two wins of the IWGP World Tag Team Championship, but no North American promoter thought about bringing them as a team, due to Sasaki's affiliation with NJPW. As a singles wrestler, Hawk found success in Europe, winning the CWA World Heavyweight Championship.

In 1993 Hawk made sporadic appearances in World Championship Wrestling as a mystery partner of Dustin Rhodes and later as a replacement partner when Davey Boy Smith left the federation but nothing permanent ever came of it. In 1995, he reappeared in WCW. He helped Sting in a feud against Meng and Kurasawa, but a proposed singles feud with Kurasawa fell through due to an arm injury (in kayfabe Kurasawa broke Hawk's arm using a cross armbreaker, to let Hawk rest). Hawk returned the following year, but this time, he also brought Animal back with him as his back had finally recovered enough for him to return to active competition. During that time, Sting and Lex Luger had won the WCW World Tag Team Championship and the Warriors challenged them, to no success. The rise of the nWo precluded further challenges, and they headed back to the WWF.

After leaving WCW they returned to the WWF where the Legion of Doom took part in the feud between ”Stone Cold” Steve Austin and the Hart Foundation, siding with Austin. The Legion of Doom also became 2 time tag-team champions on October 7, 1997 when they defeated The Godwinns. In November of 1997 the Legion of Doom faced the newly formed New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) and shockingly lost the titles to the upstart team. After several unsuccessful challenges the L.O.D. were repackaged as Legion of Doom 2000 with manager Sunny, although she did not stay with the team for long.

Attitude Controversy

In 1998 the Legion of Doom became involved in their most controversial angle to date, playing off Hawk’s real life drug and alcohol problems. Hawk started to show up drunk or “unable to perform” on TV (according to the storyline). As Hawk proved more and more erratic and unreliable, a 3rd L.O.D. member, Puke, was introduced to team with Animal while Hawk dealt with his personal issues. The storyline ended with accusations that “Puke” had been the "enabler" of Hawk's problems, exploiting them to take Hawk’s place in the team. During this segment, Hawk infamously was shown to have fallen off the Titan Tron. It was a controversial segment that pushed the envelope of good taste and that was the hallmark of the WWF's "Attitude" era. Neither Hawk nor Animal approved of the WWF exploiting Hawk’s personal problems, essentially making light of them by turning it into a storyline and left the WWF.

After the WWF

While the Road Warriors never officially broke up, Animal started making an increasing number of solo appearances after they left the WWF as Hawk struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and generally did not appear at many wrestling shows during this time. In 2001 Hegstrand was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a heart condition that stopped him from wrestling for a short while. He was able to overcome its effects and returned to a regular working schedule later on.

Animal and Hawk became born-again Christians in 2003 and appeared at a number of Christian wrestling events run by Ted DiBiase and Nikita Koloff hoping to reignite their tag-team career. They also appeared in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in late 2002 and early 2003 as part of a group that opposed Vince Russo’s faction Sports Entertainment Xtreme but only wrestled one actual match for the federation.

Animal and Hawk made a surprise appearance on RAW on May 12 2003 when they took on Kane & Rob Van Dam for the World Tag Team Championship. Although Hawk and Animal came up short in their attempt to become three-time champions, it was clear that Hawk had defeated the demons that had once kept him from competing, and the Road Warriors had hopes of returning to the WWE.

Death

Hegstrand died on October 19, 2003 in the early morning in his home in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. His friends said that he and his wife Dale had recently bought a condominium near their current home and were packing their boxes the night before. Hegstrand said that he felt tired and went to take a nap. When his wife checked on him at about 1 A.M., he had died of an apparent heart attack. He had battles with alcohol and drugs throughout his career and was an admitted steroids user. At the time of his death, Hawk and Animal were working on a book entitled, Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaah O Whhhhhat a Ruuuuuush. After the book was completed, Animal dedicated the book to his late partner and childhood friend.

In Wrestling

• Finishing and signature moves

• Hangman's neckbreaker
• Diving clothesline
• Diving shoulder block
• Gorilla press drop
• Jumping fist drop
• Shoulderbreaker
• Powerbomb
• Spear
• Piledriver
• Scoop Slam
• Bear Hug

• With Road Warrior Animal

• Doomsday Device
• Double shoulder block
• Canadian backbreaker rack and top rope elbow drop combination

• Managers

• Paul Ellering
• Sunny

Championships and accomplishments

• All Japan Pro Wrestling

• NWA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Animal

• American Wrestling Association

• AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Animal

• Catch Wrestling Association

• CWA World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• Fighting World of Japan Pro Wrestling

• World Japan Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Animal

• Georgia Championship Wrestling

• NWA National Tag Team Championship (4 times) - with Animal

• i-Generation Superstars of Wrestling

• i-Generation Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Animal

• Independent Pro Wrestling

• IPW Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Animal

• Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling | World Championship Wrestling

• NWA World Six-Man Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Animal & Dusty Rhodes
• NWA World Six-Man Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Animal & Genichiro Tenryu
• NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-Atlantic version) (1 time) - with Animal
• Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup winner in 1986 - with Animal
• NWA Iron Team Tournament at Starrcade 1989: Future Shock - with Animal

• New Japan Pro Wrestling

• IWGP World Tag Team Championship (2 time) - with Power Warrior

• Professional Championship Wrestling (Texas)

• PWC Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Animal

• Pro Wrestling Illustrated

• PWI Tag Team of the Year award in 1983 - with Road Warrior Animal
• PWI Tag Team of the Year award in 1984 - with Road Warrior Animal
• PWI Tag Team of the Year award in 1985 - with Road Warrior Animal
• PWI Feud of the Year award in 1987 - with Road Warrior Animal and The Super Powers (Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Koloff) vs. The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and Lex Luger)
• PWI Tag Team of the Year award in 1988 - with Road Warrior Animal
• PWI ranked him # 15 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the year in the PWI 500 in 1991
• PWI ranked him # 47 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003.
• PWI ranked him # 1 out of the 100 best tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Road Warrior Animal as The Road Warriors in 2003.
• PWI ranked him # 50 out of the 100 best tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Power Warrior as The Hell Raisers in 2003.

• World Wrestling Federation

• WWF World Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Animal

• Wrestling Observer Newsletter

• Rookie(s) of the Year award in 1983 - with Road Warrior Animal
• Tag Team of the Year award in 1984 - with Road Warrior Animal
• Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996)

• Other Titles

• MEWF Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with The Comet
• MTW Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Bobo Brazil, Jr.

See also

• Road Warrior Animal
• Legion of Doom

External links

• RoadWarriorsInc.com (Official Road Warriors Website)
• Road Warrior Hawk at IMDb

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