Remember The Time… The Road Warriors became the go-to template for tough-guy tag teams?

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…