10 Wrestlers Who Piggybacked Their Way To Success
6. Road Warrior Animal
It's impossible and unfair to criticise Road Warrior Animal without first putting him over as one of pro wrestling's most awesome badasses.
The influential Road Warriors cultivated an aura like no other: no-selling, apocalyptic shredders, wrestling rarely looked as painful as it did when he and Hawk broke puny, hapless sh*theads in half in the AWA and JCP. Likely because it was; the reckless release power game and staunch refusal to look remotely weak underscored the act as something beyond formidable.
And then Hawk succumbed to a tragic and definitive series of substance abuse issues, leaving Animal to - quite fairly - make money on his own.
The issue is that his route to the main event of WCW wasn't particularly fair; leaning on the nepotistic influence of power broker brother John Laurinaitis, the older, less mobile Animal meandered through the tedious catastrophe that was Sin's main event - before resurfacing in WWE because Head of Talent Relations Big Johnny got him the gig.
There, Animal was saddled with his second goofy inanimate object in Heidenreich, sullying the great name of the Legion of Doom, before somehow embarking on an abysmal singles run.
John Laurinaitis did not want to sign Cesaro, initially.