WWE’s Top 10 Most Controversial Storylines
By Tim Sherry
8. Exploitation of Road Warrior Hawk’s Personal Struggles
The Road Warriors will go down as the one of the best tag team’s in the history of pro wrestling. The duo of Hawk and Animal spent close to a decade wreaking havoc all over the United States and Japan before being signed to the then WWF in 1990. The team quickly became massive fan favorites and after a little over a year won the WWF Tag Team Championships from The Nasty Boys at SummerSlam 1991. They dropped the belts in 1992 and after some creative differences, Hawk left the company. After a major back injury, Animal too then left.
It took close to 4 years for Animal to recover from his injury but when he did, the Legion of Doom made their way back to the WWF. After another title run and then a repackaging to “LOD 2000”, they were poised for another go around. I mean, these guys were already hall of fame caliber wrestlers based on resume alone and the fans always loved them whether heel or babyface.
So that’s why it was puzzling and downright insulting that the company would treat the team with such disrespect. Against objections from both Hawk and Animal, an angle was devised to sensationalize Hawk’s personal demons. Hawk had well-known issues with substance abuse spanning a very long time. Animal spoke much about this in his auto-biography, even stating that Hawk was drunk during their match at the 1992 SummerSlam.
For a couple of months through the Fall of 1998, week in and week out, Hawk would come to the ring acting drunk and basically falling apart. This nonsense ended in November on Raw when Hawk climbed the Titantron in an apparent suicide attempt. After a slight push from new Road Warrior, Puke, Hawk fell. Shortly after this now named “Puke Killed Hawk” incident, both men left the company due to the stress of the angle.
It’s one thing to take a shot at a taboo angle with a new wrestler, it’s whole other thing to force a legend to embarrass himself in front of millions of viewers. The company did make it up to the team somewhat in 2011 when they, along with manager Paul Ellering were inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame. It’s the least they could do for tarnishing one of the all time greats.