Athletes - Joseph Laurinaitis

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Joseph Laurinaitis

	Athletes - Joseph Laurinaitis

Joseph Laurinaitis (born January 26, 1960 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) better known by his ring name of The Road Warrior or Road Warrior Animal, is an American professional wrestler currently working for World Wrestling Entertainment on the SmackDown! brand.

WWE agent and former professional wrestler John Laurinaitis (Johnny Ace) and former wrestler of the tag team The Wrecking Crew Mark Laurinaitis (Terminator / Fury) are his brothers. Joseph's son, James Laurinaitis, plays linebacker on the Ohio State football team. In fact Sports Illustrated made a joke about borrowing his father's shoulder pads.

Career

For many years he teamed with Road Warrior Hawk. Together they were a muscular tag team called The Road Warriors. The Road Warriors burst onto the wrestling scene in 1983 wearing mohawks, dog collars, spiked shoulder pads, and face paint. Their interview style was vicious, yet charismatic and a bit humorous.

The Road Warriors wrestled across the globe, capturing the All-Japan International Tag Team titles, as well as every American version of the World Tag Team titles (WWF, NWA and AWA), a feat that no other tag team can claim.

Though the Road Warriors never officially broke up, Animal started making an increasing number of solo appearances in the late 1990s and early 2000s as Hawk struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. He became a high-profile player in the dying days of World Championship Wrestling, where his brother John had a powerful behind-the-scenes role.

Droz made his WWF debut on Monday Night Raw as an associate of the tag team. Dubbed "Puke", he was the unofficial third member of the group. He was involved in a storyline involving L.O.D. member Hawk's alcoholism. In this storyline, Hawk was seen by his partner Animal as unfit to wrestle and Droz was tapped to take Hawk's place in the tag team. The storyline ended with accusations that Droz had been the "enabler" of Hawk's problems and had dosed the L.O.D. member to take his place in the team. During this segment, Hawk infamously was shown to have fallen off the TitanTron. It was edgy and controversial segments like this that pushed the envelope of good taste that were a hallmark of the WWF's "Attitude" era.

In 2001 Michael Hegstrand (Road Warrior Hawk), was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a heart condition that stopped him from wrestling for a short while. He was able to overcome its effects and returned to a regular working schedule. He became a born-again Christian in 2003 and appeared at many of the religious wrestling events run by Ted DiBiase and Nikita Koloff.

Animal became a born-again Christian in 2003 and made occasional appearances on Christian based wrestling shows sponsored by Ted DiBiase and Nikita Koloff.

Road Warrior Animal and a fully-recovered Hawk made a surprise appearance on RAW on May 12, 2003 when they took on Kane & 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 were complete once again.

Long time friend and partner Michael Hegstrand, died on October 19, 2003 in the early morning in his home in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida at 46. His friends said he and his wife, Dale, had recently bought a condominium near their current home and were packing their boxes Saturday evening. Hegstrand said he felt tired and went to take a nap. When his wife checked on him about 1 a.m., he had died of an apparent heart attack. He had had battles with alcohol and drugs throughout his career and was an admitted steroids user.

Animal made a return to WWE on an episode of SmackDown!, where he was challenged by the then WWE Tag Team Champions, MNM to a title match at The Great American Bash. Finding a new tag team partner in Heidenreich, Animal went on to defeat MNM for the titles, dedicating the win to his late tag team partner Hawk. The two would team up for a few months as a reincarnation of the Legion of Doom, with Heidenreich adopting the L.O.D.'s shoulder pads, face paint and mohawk haircut.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Joseph Laurinaitis ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Joseph Laurinaitis; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay