-Simply put, they were the most badass tag team
to ever enter the ring.
We're talking about "The Road Warriors" tonight,
and I am joined by an absolute all star panel to discuss them.
We got Jake "The Snake" Roberts here tonight,
we have former Sheepherder and Bushwhacker Luke Williams,
and of course, the Road Warrior himself,
its "Animal," Joe Laurinaitis.
This is "Dark Side of the Ring After Dark,"
and it starts now.
♪♪
They are a tag team
all other tag teams now get compared to.
You know them -- we're talking face paint, shoulder pads,
spikes, leather chaps -- it's "The Road Warriors."
The "Legion of Doom" wreaked havoc all over the world
throughout their careers.
Got a jam-packed show for you tonight.
Our first two guests, they need no introduction.
I'll introduce them anyway to justify why I'm here.
First up, an absolute hero of my childhood and yours.
For my money, the best promo in the history of wrestling,
hands down, Jake "The Snake" Roberts.
Such a pleasure to talk to you.
-Ah, man. Thanks for having me.
-Also joining us,
one of the biggest badasses to ever do it, man.
He's another WWE Hall of Famer,
one of the inventors of the doomsday device,
you saw him in the documentary,
Road Warrior "Animal," Joe Laurinaitis.
Welcome to the show.
-Hey, Chris. Thanks for having me on, man.
It's a pleasure to be here, bro.
-Seeing Hawk's story, I'm left wondering...
seems like when wrestlers go down that road,
they go hard and fast.
Do you think there's something about the world of wrestling
that -- that pours fuel on the addiction fire?
-Well, I-I -- from from my place,
you know... [Sighs]
Once you get a taste of being in that ring
and you get into the adrenaline,
that's the most powerful drug there is -- adrenaline.
And, um, lots of times when you left that ring,
you weren't through.
You wanted more.
You know? I mean, it's the best feeling --
y-you -- you can't --
uh, you can't say in words what it feels like
to be in front of fans
and be able to manipulate their emotions.
You can make them happy. Make them sad.
You can make them do anything you want.
That's an incredible feeling
to have that much power over -- over fans.
And when you're in that ring and that adrenaline hits you,
nothing hurts anymore.
There's no pain.
There's no -- Th-- There's no nothing.
Everything's good.
Not many wrestlers got in trouble
while they were in the ring.
It was always after the match.
Unfortunately, some of us just couldn't say, "No," man.
-Now, like I said, I want to focus on the happier times.
Jake brought up manipulating the fans.
Animal, I got to stick it to you a little bit.
I-- The image in the documentary
of you guys in your original outfits,
when did The Road Warrior's pop begin?
'Cause i-i-- That was, like,
you looked like the village people.
Like, did the pop really start after all the -- the pi--
the spikes and shoulder pads clicked into place?
That -- That image was pretty amazing.
-You know, it -- -The pads are definitely
a mark up.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, yeah. I didn't know
whether to do YMCA in the middle of the ring
or what to do in the beginning, man.
But, uh, you know, I -- actually, I got a lot of stuff
in the very beginning, like the hat
and the -- the -- the gloves and everything else,
I actually got it from a-a sex shop,
to be quite honest.
That's where I got all the stuff that we wore.
But, uh, you know, uh, there's definitely for real --
-You still have the mannequin, don't you?
-Yeah, yeah. I still got --
I still got the blow-up mannequin, yeah.
But, uh, no, man.
Y-You know, it --
the -- the -- the word "pop" started happening, uh,
probably when we got to the AWA,
because we were heels most of our career
in the very beginning, right --
in the very beginning, the first couple years.
Then, you know, we went to the AWA
after a couple of years, and then we start wrestling.
You know, that was kind of like our hometown, hometown.
Right? And so we're in the same old Civic Center,
and you're against Larry "The Axe" Henning
and Curt Henning, you know,
and you're getting a standing ovation, you know?
Which was unreal at the time.
You know, beating up Vern Gagne, you're getting cheered,
or Greg Gagne, you're getting cheered.
So then, you know, I think after a while,
you know, and -- and this is one thing --
one thing we learned from Jake in the beginning,
because Jake was one of the original members of the L.O.D.,
he taught us a lot how to respect your craft.
And we really took a lot of that to heart.
And so, we respected our craft, and we always wanted
to try to be top dog, you know?
But we always used to sp-- you're only as good in wrestling
as the guy you're in the ring with.
And if they react to the way the fans are
as you're in the ring,
and then it becomes a happy dance, you know?
And sometimes, I think guys make the mistake of fighting it,
and they try to go against the grain.
And sometimes there's no -- no -- why fight it?
They're gonna like you, or they're gonna like you.
You know? Whether -- Jake will tell you,
whether he was the babyface or a heel,
if they liked you as the heel, they like you as the heel.
What are you gonna do?
I mean -- and especially in today's society --
-You still go out and do the same --
You still go out and do the same things.
-Same -- Same thing. -Nothing changed.
-And that's one thing that Hawk and I never --
Hawk and I made it a point to never insult
the intelligence of the fans and the people.
So we never changed our promo, our style, or anything
from whether we were a good guy or bad guy.
-That's right. -I think we got a louder cheer
when we turned on Sting and Luger one time.
We beat up Sting and Luger, left them laying,
and we got a standing ovation. -Yeah. Yeah.
-You know? So that's just, you know, g--
I-I-It was fun to be educated, to say the right way. You know?
-We have a scene from the episode.
Let's see how "The Road Warriors" were found.
-One night, some guy was, uh, misbehaving,
and I had to escort him out.
Well, I had one hand behind his collar
and one hand on his belt loop,
and I threw him through the front door.
And we had this trip wire outside,
and we used to gauge each other
by how many flips a guy could do around this wire.
And when the guy gets done flipping,
he lands right on Ole Anderson's shoes.
And alls I did was say, "Hey, how are you doing?"
And I turn around and went back in the bar.
Next thing you know, Ole brings me down to Atlanta.
-When we come back, we'll have more
with Jake "The Snake" Roberts with Road Warrior "Animal."
We'll be joined by WWE Hall of Famer
Bushwhacker Luke Williams.
This is "Dark Side of the Ring: After Dark."
Don't go anywhere.
♪♪
-Welcome back to "Dark Side of the Ring After Dark."
I'm Chris Gethard,
joined by Jake "The Snake" Roberts,
joined by Road Warrior "Animal."
And now joining us, he invented the "Bushwhacker Walk,"
you saw him licking his partner's head,
his opponents' heads.
He was one of the "Sheepherders,"
he was one of the "Bushwhackers,"
He was even on "Family Matters."
Bushwhacker Luke Williams, welcome to the show.
-Whoa. Good night, Chris. Great to see you, mate.
It's great to be on the show.
Boy, you have a good, forehead.
I'd like to give you a good lick...
-I do have a... -...Bushwhacker style.
-...a massive lickable forehead.
So, many people say it's a five-head,
and it would be an honor someday. It would --
I never thought I'd say this,
it'd be an honor to have you lick my head, sir.
-Long as it doesn't taste like sardines, mate.
[ Laughter ] -I don't think it does.
Now, I got to ask you,
we have two great tag team wrestlers here,
we also have one of the major masters
of wrestling psychology,
for all of ya, what makes a great tag team?
Joe, let's start with you.
-You know, I think that what separated Hawk and I
from other tag teams,
we kind of had telepathy.
You know? We kind of knew
where each other had to be in the ring,
we knew what was coming up next in the match, and --
and, you know, we learned from guys like Jake and Luke,
you know, you have your center of the ring,
you're keeping the guys on your side of the ring,
and all this other stuff.
The ring psychology we had
we learned from working with --
I mean, I was -- bro, I was blessed in the beginning.
Not only Jake and Luke, but Stan Hansen and Dusty Rhodes,
Tommy Rich, all of these great -- Mr. Wrestling --
all these great guys that taught us.
We just had a telepathy, and we just kind of had
a-a sense of where to be in the ring.
I think one thing that we could take with us
is that w-we kind of did that part right,
if anything right, in the wrestling business, right?
So, you know, i-it --
You just can't throw, I don't believe,
at any time -- throw two guys together.
And that's what, uh, they try to do a lot of times
is just throw two guys together and say,
"Oh, yeah, you're a great tag team."
-Luke, any other advice?
If there's young wrestlers out there right now
who want to form great tag teams,
what are some of the key things they should keep in mind?
-Well, today --
today, they need to come back to psychology.
I -- That's what, um, Joe was just talking about.
Butch and me, we were together for 35 years.
We were just, uh, molded as a tag team.
We could read each other.
Without i-- Without ever just talk to each other.
Just something that comes to you after a period of time.
-Now, Jake, when you look back at that era,
are you happy you were a singles wrestler?
'Cause I look at the tag teams of that era,
it seems like it was much less...
and maybe I'm just wrong.
It's certainly technique to it,
but also, these tag teams back then,
they were -- it looked like
they were gonna take each other's heads off.
I'm thinking "Steiner Brothers," here,
Dr. Death and Bam Bam Gordy, the "Twin Towers,"
like these guys were looking to kill each other.
And the "Sheepherder's," a lot of people
don't know the Bushwackers' a little bit more comedy.
Sheepherders, you guys used to bleed a lot.
Jake, were you happy to be a singles wrestler back then,
watching what these guys were doing to each other?
-Well, I may have been a drug addict,
but I God damn sure wasn't gonna wrestle tag team,
I'll tell you that.
'Cause, uh, you know...
those guys, you're absolutely right.
You have to know what the other guy's thinking
at all times.
And I don't think there's anybody out there
that wants to know what I'm thinking 24/7.
[ Laughter ]
I don't even want to do it, to be quite honest with you.
But I'll tell you something else the tag team has to do.
They have to be unselfish.
That's huge.
They got to be able to give, you know?
And, uh, that's the biggest draw back today,
is these guys aren't great tag teams
because they're not being unselfish.
They're -- They are selfish. Uh...
-Jealousy.
-They want to do the shine part.
They don't want to do the sale part.
Let me tell you something.
If you're gonna be good, you've got to be able to sell.
-Yep, I agree.
-This is a team that when they were right,
were unbeatable.
But as the documentary talks about it,
excessive partying caught up with Hawk.
See another clip from the episode.
-We went to --
from that London taping to Hershey, Pennsylvania
to do T.V.
And when we got to Hershey, Pennsylvania,
Paul Ellering and I are ready to do T.V.,
waiting for Hawk to do interviews.
Well, Hawk hadn't showed up yet. -Nobody knew where Hawk went.
Well, he's just not on the plane.
Nobody knew where Hawk was.
-Got a phone call.
And Hawk called, uh, Vince's secretary and said,
"Hey, I quit."
We're sitting there like, "Okay. Now what am I gonna do?"
-Animal decides he's not gonna
chase after his partner this time.
After performing the role of fixer for so many years.
-I think that I just got the time
to draw the line in the sand.
And, listen, man,
"Shit. I've had enough. That's it.
I'm frickin' done with this."
-When we come back, more with Luke, Jake, and Animal.
This is "Dark Side of the Ring: After Dark."
♪♪
-Welcome back to "Dark Side of the Ring After Dark."
I'm Chris Gethard, joined all night
by Jake "The Snake" Roberts,
Road Warrior "Animal,"
Bushwhacker Luke.
We're talking about The Road Warriors.
Now, "Dark Side of the Ring"
focuses on dark stories -- it's in the name.
I want to talk about Hawk outside of that stuff, though.
Uh, you know? That wasn't his whole life.
Luke, I hear that you lived with him.
Uh, I-- Something like that. I'd love some stories from that.
-Yeah, well, um, he came down from Minnesota,
where he was cutting a --
cutting a hole in the ice to fish,
to sunny Florida and on the beaches.
And, uh, he liked it so much, next minute he moved down
and got a condo down the beach from me.
So he was at my home, um,
about five days a week when we weren't on the road.
This was, um, the middle, um...
mid to late, um, 90s.
And that -- And that's how, you know,
we c-- we come very close.
And then, uh -- And that's where the trouble started.
[ Laughter ] -Jake --
-That's when the trouble --
we used to go to the gym in the morning
and work out around about 9 -- 9 -- 9 or 10 in the morning,
and then after that, to the beach.
You know, I lived right on the beach.
Had a pool, 10 steps,
and it was in the sand from the pool --
from the swimming pool.
And then we'd be on the beach.
Of course, we had to have a c-- a couple of coolers there
with the -- the liquor, portable blender.
And, um, sit back, and the day would start.
-So you knew him as just a guy who can kick back on the beach
and have a drink, too. A guy who loves fish.
-Yeah, and we kicked back... -He was also that guy.
-...on the beach, and of course, um,
there was recreational drugs involved.
-There were.
It's -- It's come back around to that, after all.
-How can I say it nicely? Yeah, but --
Jake, any stories about Hawk jump out -- jumping out to you
that don't necessarily loop back to the partying, to the drugs?
-I'll tell you a good one on Hawk, though.
This was great. This was funny.
We moved in together.
And he -- he tells me, "Don't you ever go in my room.
That's the rule. You got it?"
I'm like, "Yeah, okay. I get it."
So, of course, if you tell me not to,
that means I have to.
You know, that's just the way it is.
Well, at the time, I had a girl living with me.
You might know her as the name of Missy Hyatt.
Missy and I decided we're gonna play a little riddle on Hawk.
So we went into his room.
I had her, uh, get some, uh, cream rinse hair --
for your hair, you know, cream rinse.
And we squirted some on his pillow.
And then we unscrewed his light bulbs. Okay?
And I had her break off a fingernail
and put it in his bed.
So when he got in bed, he'd lay on that fingernail,
then he'd stick his head on that goo.
And he'd put two and two together.
All that part worked really well.
It's what happened next, I didn't expect.
He didn't knock on my door.
He came through the ----ing door.
The whole goddamn door frame --
he didn't try to open it,
he just ran right straight through it.
And he jumped on the bed, and he's guzzling me, choking me.
Well, Missy tries to make him stop.
And he just pie faces her, man.
And, uh...
He didn't kill me. That's all I can say.
-Now, Joe, you know him better than anybody.
When you think of a story about Hawk
that's outside of the things we hear about the documentary,
what comes to mind?
-You know, first and foremost, I want to make it clear to you,
Hawk was the kind of guy,
he would give you the shirt off your back if you needed it.
The greatest guy.
I'll never forget the one time we're in New York City,
and we walk by --
and we're doing our first big photo shoot in New York --
and, uh, we walk by, and there's a-a whino --
there's pictures all over the magazines with it --
a whino sitting on a street corner.
And, like, you can tell the guy's down and out.
He's not had a bath, shower, probably food
the l-- in the last little last year.
And Hawk goes, "Hey, Adam. Well, I ain't got any money.
Give me 100 bucks."
And well, you know, and I give Mike 100 bucks
and he give it to the whino, and the man --
The way Mike's heart was,
I mean, the guy -- the whino guy just started crying.
You know, so, of course, he makes me feel bad,
so I had to dig another $100 and give him $100.
Seriously, the guy had 200 ba-- 200 bucks, he never took a bump.
You know? So... -Yeah.
-Yeah, but it was a, you know,
that's the kind of guy Mike was, man.
Mike was just that kind of guy.
-That's good to hear. -And he was very protective.
-Yep. -If he -- If he liked you
or loved you, bro, he was protective.
-It's really great to hear about that side of him, too.
-You couldn't talk bad about friends, about his family.
Yeah. Couldn't talk bad about a family, friends, nobody.
-Yeah.
-Really amazing to hear
about the many different sides of him,
not just the one from the doc.
When we get back, we got more with our powerhouse panel,
plus a sneak peek of next week's "Dark Side of the Ring,"
deals with the very tragic death
of one of the greatest of all time, Owen Hart.
We'll be right back on "Dark Side of the Ring: After Dark."
♪♪
-Welcome back to "Dark Side of the Ring After Dark."
I'm Chris Gether. I still cannot believe the panel
I am being allowed to talk to tonight.
We got Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Road Warrior "Animal,"
"Bushwhacker" Luke Williams.
Now, Luke, in the break, you said there's a story
about you and Hawk in -- and Puerto Rico.
-So we brought Hawk down to Puerto Rico.
And that was the second anniversary.
When he got down there, I had --
I was on the phone there to him, but I booked him.
I said, "Hawk, you come down,
but you've got to speak -- stay clean --
be clean, and stay clean."
He says, "I haven't touched anything for 60 days."
Well, it was a four-day show, four-day weekend.
Anyhow, get to the end of the tour,
by then he was -- look like he'd been in a war.
You -- Been in a war.
When he got home to Dale --
when he got back to Dale, Florida,
she'd looked at him,
and said, "What the hell happened to you?"
And he says, "Oh, it's real down there. It's a lot of work.
It's real." He had a black eye.
He had burns on his forehead where they used,
some of the guys, to put their cigarets out
on his forehead -- out on his forehead, everything.
-Really crazy -- -And he'd sit there,
and you'd hear the sizzle of his flesh.
And I was telling him, "Stop that."
But he said, "What can you do?"
When Hawk goes, he goes all the way.
-Yeah. -Boy, this guy's got --
such a lovable guy.
He's got a great heart.
If he's your friend, he's like your brother.
If someone says something nasty to you,
he comes in front of you and takes care of business.
You know, if you need anything, he's right there.
If he loves you, he's right there
and he'll do anything for you.
He kind of --
But when -- when he's like that, you can't stop him.
If something's -- If some person says he's done this much,
Hawk says, "Well -- Well look at this.
Whoa, look at this."
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [ Inhales twice ]
Everything. And then he's --
Just no stopping him. -Yeah, there was no --
There was no, uh, no second or third gear, man.
It was his balls out, 24/7.
-Overdrive. -Now --
-Overdrive. You're right, man, overdrive.
-Since I got you guys here,
the wrestling nerd in me I keep mentioning,
I feel like the era that you guys were wrestling in
was a golden age of tag team wrestling.
Would it be okay with you -- I just want to throw out
the names of some of the other teams out there
that had these battles that looked so brutal.
just one sentence,
what you think of facing off with them.
Would that be cool, Joe?
-Sure.
Road Warriors versus the Steiner Brothers,
what's it like in that ring?
-Dog eat dog, man. You got to fight to survive.
'Cause if you turn your back and just don't --
if you you're not looking at the Steiner Brothers eye to eye,
they're gonna snatch you and throw you.
-Suplex City! -The "Nasty Boys" --
The N-- "Nasty Boys," known to be legit tough guys,
beat up Ken Shamrock.
What's that -- What's it like in there with the Nasty Boys?
-We had great matches with the Nasty Boys, man.
Na-- Nasty Boys were probably one of
the most underrated tag teams in our business.
And, uh, they were tough. They were tough. They were big.
They both were like 320 pounds.
They were big, hu-- big, mass of humanity in the ring.
-Alright, I want to thank everybody
for being with us tonight.
But before we go,
a sneak peek at the next "Dark Side of the Ring."
This one focuses on the life and tragic death
of a wrestling superstar
from one of wrestling's most prominent families.
I'm talking, of course, about the late, great Owen Hart.
Take a look.
-I remember hanging out with Owen that day.
We talked about the match. We talked about the finish.
Just normal stuff, hanging out.
We were sitting in the arena,
and he said that he was getting ready
to practice one of the things.
And he did that, and I watched him.
-I had a feeling that day that Owen was not
his normal, exuberant, enthusiastic self
about what he was doing that night.
And I remember saying something about, you know,
"Better you than me. I don't like heights."
He said, "I don't either."
I think that he was a little concerned.
And look, he's the one that's got to do it.
There's nobody that can do for him.
There's no stunt double.
There's a couple little things he said,
and maybe more specific, what he didn't say
led me to believe that he's not totally down with this thing.
-I cannot thank my panel enough.
Luke, thank you for being here.
Jake "The Snake," what an honor.
"Animal," Joe -- -Whoa, whoa.
-Can -- Can we say -- Can --
Can I just get a "What a rush"? I know it's Hawk's thing.
-In memory of Hawk, bro, I'll do as best I can.
[ Groaning ] Ooooooh, what a rush!
-That's all I wanted. Stay safe out there, everybody.
We'll see you next time.
♪♪