As one of the most feared and popular tag teams of the 1980s and early 1990s, you would think that coming to the ring in their spiked shoulders pads and face paint was about the only gimmick that the Road Warriors needed to be successful. Instead, the WWE bookers in 1992 decided that their manager (Paul Ellering) needed to introduce a puppet to the act. This puppet was dubbed Rocco. Rocco served only briefly as the team's mascot and inspiration during the finals days (1992) of their original run in the WWE, but the puppet is probably best remembered as the reason that Road Warrior Hawk decided to quit his job with the WWE. Hawk had grown so disgusted with the storyline that he walked out of the company after SummerSlam 1992 as a direct result of Rocco. The Road Warriors would eventually return to the company in 1997.
