10 WWE Tag Team Wrestlers Who Held Their Partners Back
4. Hawk (Animal)
Hawk's meandering and maniacal promo style at the peak of the Legion Of Doom's powers in WWE was far from all talk - man behind the makeup Michael Hegstrand had a wild side that at times significantly impacted the life and career of iconic partner Animal during their various runs with Vince McMahon.
Things were never as tense between the tag team legends and The Chairman as they were in the summer of 1992, with an acrimonious departure by Hawk costing his partner years of work in the only role he'd ever really known, as well as the wages that would have come with it.
Spending much of the year dodging WWE's increased drug and alcohol testing in order to imbibe plenty of both, Hawk dogged his shift in their SummerSlam 1992 scrap with Money Inc., then walked out of the company and his prolific partnership. Briefly teaming with Crush in the aftermath, Animal was deemed surplus to requirements soon after and the team wouldn't work together for nearly four years as a result.
Hawk left for Japan to form Road Warrior rip-offs The Hell Raisers, holding down singles and doubles runs in NJPW, ECW and WCW before a Nitro return alongside his regular pal in 1996. Hurt by his partner's erratic decision-making, Animal didn't work at all between that return and his disappointing WWE exit.