15 Most Notoriously Unstable Wrestling Stars

9. Road Warrior Hawk

By 1998 Michael Hegstrand was a mess from his own personal demons. He had major drug and alcohol problems that were taking a toll on him both mentally and physically. At the same time WWE were throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick. Thus, WWE thought it would be a good idea to use the problems as a storyline to create scripted conflict between Hegstrand and his tag partner Road Warrior Animal (Joe Laurinaitis). The incorporation of Hegstrand€™s real life drug and alcohol problems into a wrestling storyline would be one of these awful ideas that did nobody any good, contributed nothing to ratings, and was hated by all involved. What was inexplicable about this was that this approach had just yielded horrendous results with Brian Pillman who had died the year before after a period of years playing up his own demons on screen. The lack of stability within Hegstrand€™s existence, and the WWE€™s insistence on exploiting his demons and issues for storyline purposes lead to both the Road Warriors quitting the WWE soon after. Hegstrand€™s demons were so serious they meant that he was pretty much unable to work for a number of years, until he became a born again Christian, and the Road Warriors would attempt to have another run in the industry together. While things were looking up for Hegstrand, unfortunately the years of abuse had taken their toll and sadly he died in 2003 of a heart attack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgwKg_ZWed0