
B. Dangerous
Remember the Time will take a nostalgic and opinionated look at ill-fated gimmicks, poorly conceived storylines, and forgettable moments in wrestling history. Now join me as we take a few moments to unearth that which should remain buried forever and do our best to Remember the Time…
Remember the time that The Road Warriors became the go-to template for tough-guy tag teams?

The Road Warriors began as a part of The Legion of Doom, a name boldly swiped from DC’s Super Friends franchise. But rather than consisting of villains such as Lex Luthor, The Joker, and The Penguin, this Legion was comprised of Road Warriors Hawk and Animal, Jake Roberts, The Spoiler, and their manager Paul Ellering. Over time they fine-tuned their Mad Max inspired gimmick and Roberts and The Spoiler were left behind.
Over the years The Road Warriors/Legion of Doom left a trail of bodies in an territory or promotion they competed in. Their popularity soared and for a time in the early ’90s, their image became almost as recognizable as that of Hulk Hogan or the Ultimate Warrior.
As with any pop-culture phenomenon, the end result was a slew of copycats. Here are just a few of the teams that clearly looked to the LOD for inspiration:
• The Powers of Pain

This team was custom designed to look like they were just as deadly as the Road Warriors in the NWA and frankly, they did a pretty good job. The Warlord and The Barbarian were both monsters, with solid talent inside the ring, and a great heel manager in Paul Jones.
Unfortunately, as is often the case, once in the WWF they were never as dominant as they should have been and once McMahon had the real article in the LOD, the Powers of Pain were broken-up and made to look ridiculous.
• Demolition

Demolition was solid in all ways. Ax had competed against the LOD in Georgia as The Masked Superstar and Smash had in JCP as one of the evil Russians.
In the WWF the stage was presumably set for a dream match between the two mega-teams, but unfortunately Ax was well past his prime and his health was not ideal, so in most cases we had the Smash/Crush combo instead and in some instances with S&M “gimp” masks rather than their traditional face paint.
In time, Demolition was broken-up as well.
• The Master Blasters

Kevin Nash and Al Green made up this Road Warriors replacement team (of sorts), who mostly just looked dirty for reasons I never fully understood. They didn’t last long and Nash went on to superstardom as Vinnie Vegas.
• The Dream Warriors

I don’t remember a ton about this team except that they showed-up a few times in my wrestling magazines and wrestled in Chicago (appropriate). At the time I thought they looked cool, but it was like 1990, so who knows?
• The Bladerunners

You may have heard of these weirdos. I hear that they went on to some degree of success after the team disbanded, but with cool names like Rock and Flash, it was almost a given!
Who have I missed? Do you remember anyone in your local territories who were LOD knock-off? If so, let me know in the comments.
That’s all for this time grappling fans. Until next we meet, Remember the Time…
The Road Warriors were the greatest tag team of all-time. What can you not love about 2 big badasses who looked the part but also wore spiky shoulder pads, face-paint, and mohawks? Plus, they were tough back in the day. I think the period when they were in NWA in the 80s and WWE in the early 90s was them at their glory years. SummerSlam ’92 was the peak in terms of their popularity but it was also the beginning of the end when they had to be with a fucking doll. They were never the same after that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Spot on, couldn’t agree more
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rocco the doll did them no favors but that is far from what killed their momentum entirely. Mike “Hawk” Hegstrand was under the influence of something at that Summerslam. It is pretty obvious in the match itself that he is not in condition to be competing. but once it became apparent that Hawk was not right, the card was changed to punish the team and take their push away. The rumor told continues that Hawk then quit the WWF by basically taking off with a chapter of the Hell’s Angels based in London in protest to being punished while Animal stayed and competed in the WWF until he was sidelined for several years due to a back injury suffered in a match shortly after the event.
Also worth noting is that another rumor tells of the Legion of Doom supposedly being set to win the tag titles at Wrestlemania 8, but again the plug was plugged on it and Hawk was suspended for failing a drug test prior to the event. The man’s personal problems are certainly well documented by many sources over the years. Had Hawk been able to stay clean during their early 90’s WWF years, perhaps things may have changed, nobody really knows.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Ascension.
And I would consider Sting and Ultimate Warrior as solo Road Warriors “knocks-off”. Facepaint, muscles, intensity…
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Dream Warriors’ manager kinda looks like an aged Shia LaBeouf
LikeLiked by 1 person
Al Green was not the original Nash partner. This other guy, name not known to me, was. He debuted with Nash on a Clash of Champions and proved to be the worst wrestler ever seen. After one more match, he quit.
LikeLiked by 1 person
https://www.thesportster.com/wrestling/whatever-happened-to-the-forgotten-tag-team-partner-of-this-wrestler/
There you go.
LikeLike
Not a tag team, but there was a wrestler named Jack Hammer in the USWA that was definitely Road Warrior knock-off
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Arn show podcast just went over Ole discovering Animal at a bar in Mpls. Pure happenstance. Prior to being the Anderson’s, Arn was supposed to team with another wrestler and I’m having a complete brain failure on the name now, but a known name, but this guy did something that Arn didn’t go into detail about and the punishment was losing that push.
Ole travelled to MN looking for new faces, not really seeing any just ends up at this bar that Animal (or hawk) was bouncing and the rest is almost history.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I believe that other wrestler was Matt Borne.
LikeLike
Tekno Team 2000
LikeLike
How exactly were Fortune and Watts LOD copycats?
LikeLike