Дорожные Воины: История Легендарного Тэга

American professional wrestler (1957–2003)
an American professional wrestler

While living in Minneapolis, Hegstrand attended Patrick Henry High School where he graduated in 1976. After high school, he had various odd jobs to make ends meet such as a butcher. It was while working as a bouncer at Gramma B's in the Twin Cities that he caught the eye of Eddie Sharkey, a well known wrestling trainer. Sharkey thought that Hegstrand, along with Joe Laurinaitis, Rick Rood and Barry Darsow could make it big in professional wrestling.

Hegstrand started his career as part of the Traveling All Stars. He was billed as "Crusher Von Haig" and wrestled in Vancouver. Soon growing weary of the road and becoming homesick. Hegstrand traveled back home with Rood. Later in 1983, fate struck again when Laurinaitis's partner for the night found himself in legal trouble. Needing a quick replacement, Ole Anderson gave Hegstrand a call, and he accepted the booking to team with Laurinaitis. Neither man knew at the time that they would make wrestling history that day. 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 pair Laurinaitis with 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, leather chaps, and face paint. The look and name was taken from Mad Max 2: the Road Warrior, helping to paint the two as no mercy monsters. Their interview style was vicious, yet charismatic and a bit humorous. Hawk was known for often beginning his promos with his trademark yell of "Wellllllllllllll! " and ending with his catch phrase of "Oooooooooh, what a ruuuuuuuuuuuush!" 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. 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, then wrestling as Krusher Khrushchev). During their initial run in the Mid Atlantic region of the NWA, they helped popularize the WarGames 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. The Samoan Swat Team, and The Skyscrapers before leaving the NWA in the summer of 1990.

The Road Warriors immediately signed with the World Wrestling Federation and were pushed into a feud with Demolition (which once again included their old training partner Barry Darsow). Due to his health, Ax was replaced by a new member of Demolition, Crush. (Popular rumor at the time cited a heart condition on Bill Eadie's part, but this has been discredited in recent years. An allergic reaction to shellfish while in Japan after WrestleMania VI was the real cause of Eadie's temporary health problem. He confirmed this in a shoot interview in 2007.) However, fans did not react as strongly to this new Demolition team as they had to the original configuration, and the feud was considered a disappointment. leaving Animal on his own for the first time in nine 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, Australia, 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). Hawk left ECW in 1994. Hawk competed in the independent circuit for Pro Wrestling America, Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation, Smokey Mountain Wrestling and Midwest Territorial Wrestling.

In August 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 promotion but nothing permanent ever came of it, and Hawk left after Starrcade in December 1993. In May 1995, he reappeared in WCW. In July 1995, 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 in January 1996, 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 New World Order 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. Animal and Hawk made a surprise appearance on Raw on May 12, 2003, when they took on Kane and 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 WWE. Later in 2003, Hawk made an appearance with the All World Wrestling League, a take off of the 'original' Big Time Wrestling that was owned by The Original Sheik who died earlier that year; it was run by the sons of The Sheik, Eddie and Tom Farhat. They decided to book Hawk for an event in Holt, Michigan; that event was the second to last time Hawk wrestled. Two weeks before he died, he wrestled his final match with Animal in Oshawa, Ontario, defeating Greg "The Hammer" Valentine and Buff Bagwell.

Hegstrand died on October 19, 2003, in the early morning in his home in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. He was 46 years old. 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 1:00AM, he had died of a sudden heart attack. At the time of his death, Hawk and Animal were working on a book about their careers. Animal returned to WWE in mid 2005 and decided to dedicate his entire run to Hegstrand, including his tag team title victory with Heidenreich at The Great American Bash. On the March 28, 2011 episode of Raw, it was announced that the Road Warriors would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2011. On April 2, 2011, the night before WrestleMania XXVII they, along with Paul Ellering, were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by Dusty Rhodes.