10 Wrestling Facts We Didn't Know Last Week (Oct 27)

8. The Road Warriors Believed They Could Make Rocco Work

Up until now, it's been easy to imagine Hawk and Animal hated the Rocco character introduced for their WWF run in 1992. A ventriloquist dummy who was a constant source of inspiration to make them better pro wrestlers? Who came up with this nonsense? It turns out, it was the tag-team's own manager, Paul Ellering.

On the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast, Jim Ross revealed that Ellering was the one who had come up with the gimmick in the first place. That's not the big shock here though. Keller released an interview he conducted with Hawk 25 years ago right after he had left the company. In that never-before-heard clip, Hawk said he thought Rocco could work.

The Road Warriors weren't against the idea, far from it. Hawk and Animal actually believed it had merit and could help endear them to the WWF audience. They were wrong. Rocco was an aberration, and the kind of gimmick that should have been kept a million miles away from LOD.