Sometimes, the best stories and moments in wrestling happen when they're based on real life in one way or another. Other times, there's what we got from Road Warrior Hawk here. Michael Hegstrand, the man behind Hawk, was battling issues with drug and alcohol addiction, and the WWF pitched an idea where those addictions would be incorporated into a storyline on television. Hegstrand and his tag team partner, Joe Laurinaitis (Road Warrior Animal), reportedly told management that they didn't want to participate in the storyline, but it went on, anyway. In the storyline, Hawk would appear on television in no condition to perform, with the allusion being that he was "drunk". Over time, his "demons" would cause him to be suicidal, so one week, he climbed to the top of the TitanTron and was going to jump off. Puke (Darren Drozdov), who had been added to the group so that Animal could have someone to work with, climbed to the top of the Tron with Hawk, under the guise that he was going to "talk him down". What we saw was Hawk "fall" off the Tron, apparently dying before our very eyes. It was weird. It was sick. It was so bad that it was almost (key word: almost) comical. That would have been bad enough, but then things were supposed to take an even worse twist when Droz revealed that he actually pushed Hawk, wanting to officially take his spot in the Legion Of Doom. Pro wrestling, where murder on television, in front of millions of people, is deemed an acceptable act when you're trying to further your career. None of it really mattered, as both Hawk and Animal would leave the company shortly thereafter.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
