The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling (41 page)

Looking back, though, all of it was God knocking at my door. The moment of truth came when they did what the Christian faith calls the altar call. Let me explain. An altar call is when a preacher invites you to come up in front of the congregation and invite the Lord as your Savior. Responding to an altar call means you have to decide to check your ego at the door and say, “Do I really want a relationship with God?” You admit you’re a sinner and say the sinner’s prayer.

For me, this was where the rubber met the road. I was having an internal struggle.
Do I go? Do I not go?

Then a miracle happened. I’m convinced the Holy Spirit worked through my boy James, because he took me by the hand and said, “Daddy, let’s go.”

How do you say no to that? So we went up, all of us, and together accepted Jesus Christ into our lives.

Keep in mind that Julie was baptized Presbyterian but didn’t ever go to church growing up, and I was raised Catholic (I still have ruler scars on my fingers from Catholic school to prove it), but by then we were disenchanted with it all. Becoming “born again” meant we could accept the Lord into our lives and have a true relationship with Him.

That moment at the Living Word really hit James. Since that night, he’s read a chapter of his Bible almost every night, and so have I. My daughter, Jessica, was too young at the time to really understand what was going on, but now she does. To this day, even though they’re separated by a few hundred miles, James still makes a point of sending Jessica passages of scripture through e-mails. It’s really inspiring how strong James has become in his faith.

As I look back on my life, I am so thankful to the Lord because I know that He protected Joey through his years serving in the Army, He’s protected James and Jessica through their years of intensely competitive athletics, and He’s protected me and Julie. Today, I travel telling people about what God has done in my life, and I know He guards me as I fly through the airways and when I’m bringing His saving grace into the devil’s neighborhood. God had His hand on me all along. I’m far from perfect. I lived a crazy life, but after giving me an opportunity to get my own name out there on every major television network over the years, God turned my life around to make His own name great. I have Him to thank for everything, especially for leading me and my family to the Living Word that night.

About a year after my family and I turned our lives over to Christ, Hawk, who had recovered enough to take some light bookings, called and said he had a show for us in June.

“I can’t, bro,” I told him. “I’m meeting with Nikita and Ted Dibiase (also born again) in Phoenix for the Athletes in Ministry Conference (AIMC).”

By this time, Mike was more than familiar with my faith and respected it. “Really?” he said. “Let me call you right back.” A minute or two later, the phone rang. “Hey, Joe, can Dale and I come, too, if we want?”

Wow. I was surprised as hell at Mike’s request but quickly said it was okay by me but to call the pastor in charge with Nikita and get all the details. And you know what? That’s exactly what Mike did.

But before any of us had a chance to get really excited about the trip, I got word of even more tragedy. On May 18, at a resort somewhere in Canada, Davey Boy Smith died of heart failure caused by drug usage. I remembered seeing Davey Boy a few years back at Owen’s funeral, and he looked as if he’d lost about 30 pounds of muscle, but he’d been battling a really bad pill addiction for years. In the end, all of Davey’s abuse finally caught up with him, and his heart couldn’t take it anymore. He didn’t make it to forty, dying just shy at the age of thirty-nine.

When I did arrive with the whole family (except Joey, who was in Iraq) at the Phoenix First Assembly, guess who was the first one to greet me. Mike, with an ear-to-ear smile. He was so excited to be there with everyone. You could feel the positive energy.

When I looked around the room, I saw all kinds of guys, including Sting, Terry Taylor, and Shawn Michaels, who were all newcomers to the faith as well. It was like a big family. And it was before the members of that family that Julie, James, Jessica, and I were baptized into our new faith by Nikita, Pastor Larry Kerychuk, and Phoenix First director Tommy Barnett right there in the congregation wading pool. At one point, Tommy Barnett told me he’d been a closet wrestling fan, but not anymore. He’s a fan and unashamed. You know, there was a time when believers were closet Christians, but the time for closet Christianity is over. Wrestling is cool now, and so is Christianity.

Later, when we divided into groups and it was time for the altar call like I’d been a part of at Living Word the year before, I got the surprise of my life when Hawk and Shawn both got up, hugged, and turned their lives over to Christ in front of the whole place.

It didn’t stop there for them. The great thing about being a Christian is that it’s not about going to church. It’s about having a personal relationship with the Lord, and that is what changes people. Those guys were a great example. They used to hate each other. I had a quick flashback to a time in Germany during our first WWF run, when Hawk, Shawn, the Nasty Boys, and I were going to this really high-class strip club. I think Knobbs was being too loud as we were walking into the building. I hadn’t even started down the stairs when Hawk and Knobbs came barreling back up. Hawk had grabbed him and smacked the taste out of his mouth and then turned to Shawn, who was also mouthing off, and picked him up against a garage door and, just before decking him, let go and walked away, laughing it off. Later that night, I found Shawn passed out in the hotel lobby and holding a wrapped up pillowcase filled with bottles, rocks, and all kinds of stuff. He had been waiting all night for Hawk to come back to do God-knows-what.

And now, ten years later, you should’ve seen those two crying in each other’s arms like babies. It was one of the most touching and enduring moments between two human beings I’ve ever seen in my life. It was something I think was long overdue for Mike. I could see some of those heavy personal burdens lift right off of his shoulders in that room.

When Hawk accepted Jesus into his life, there was such a change in him. He cleaned up a lot and became the true partner I remembered from the early days. When we’d talk on the phone, which was much more often than usual, he’d always end with “Hey, Joe. I love you, man.”

From that point forward, Mike really did become a much more lovable guy and, even more so, a dependable Road Warrior. We got back into action doing some independent stuff here and there, even doing a couple of shots at the end of the year into 2003 with Dusty Rhodes working for Jerry and Jeff Jarrett’s new NWA/ TNA (Total Nonstop Action) Wrestling out of Nashville.

Hawk and I felt we were truly climbing back on top of our game together in the ring. Our timing was right on, and the fans were making us feel like old friends. Things were really starting to look up, and then they crashed right back down again.

The phone rang. Another wrestling death. This time it was Curt Hennig. Picking up the phone those days was really starting to become a risky proposition.

I don’t want to start sounding cliché, but the sad reality of the situation is that Curt was found dead in his Florida hotel room on February 10 due to a combination of cocaine and Somas. That was the deadly game some guys used to play. They’d stay up all night doing certain substances only to take a bunch of something else to bring them down.

After years and years of spinning the wheel of chance, my buddy Curt, the fantastic Mr. Perfect, one of the most talented workers wrestling this side of Ric Flair, bottomed out at forty-four years old, leaving behind a wife and four children. One of his children, Joe, is now in the wrestling business himself.

After coming into TNA for those couple of tune-up matches and helping draw interest and ratings for the promotion, Hawk and I started to wonder if we might try one last go with the WWF, now known as WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) due to a name conflict with the World Wildlife Fund. After putting feelers out to WWE, we got a call in May from my brother John, who worked for Vince since WCW was bought out.

“Joe, I’ve got some great news,” he said. “Vince needs some prospective teams to feud with Kane and Rob Van Dam (RVD) for the tag titles. He wants you to have a couple of tryout matches on
Raw
and
SmackDown
.”

Hawk was beside himself with excitement. It was an opportunity he had waited for to redeem himself. “You watch, Animal. I’m going to do the right thing and go right in there and shake hands with Vince. I’ll tell him we want to come in and do some good business for the company. Hell, I’ll do the job personally to those guys.”

Ever since we’d bombed out of the WWF the second time in ’98 and had to sit out a year, Hawk found every reason in the book to push the blame entirely onto Vince. He kept a black hole of negativity and bitterness centered right in his gut. When he and Shawn became born again at the AIMC, Mike was finally able to see that everything in life is a two-way street and there needs to be compromise to make things work.

The Road Warriors showed up for work on May 12 at the First Union Center in my old hometown of Philadelphia. That night, when our classic WWF entrance theme sounded over the PA, the Road Warrior pop was alive and well. The crowd gave us a standing ovation and were chanting, “LOD, LOD.” It felt as if we’d never left.

When we hit the ring and started the match, Jerry Lawler turned to Jim Ross and said, “You can call them the Legion of Doom, but they’re more like the
Legends
of Doom.”

Coming from “The King,” that compliment was as good as gold.

The rest of the match was pretty much a test from Vince to see how much we could sell for Kane and RVD, although I did get a nice powerbomb on Rob near the end. When it was time to take it home, RVD ducked Hawk’s Doomsday Device clothesline, setting up his Five-Star Frog Splash finisher. After getting pinned for the three-count, Hawk didn’t really stay down too long, and it came off as if he half no-sold RVD’s splash. Take it from me, after coming in and offering to do the job for Vince personally, Mike didn’t intentionally pull the roof down over his own head.

A couple days later at the
SmackDown
taping in Baltimore, I noticed our scheduled TV match was switched to a dark match
¹⁸
with no explanation. In about four minutes, we destroyed a much younger CM Punk and some other jobber with the Doomsday Device to the deafening pleasure of the fans. I remember right after the show, one of the guys from the road crew came up and told me our pops were so big that Vince’s backstage promos kept getting interrupted.

“What in the world is all that commotion out there? It’s ruining my interviews,” he’d said.

He was told it was the LOD.

After the show, we were told we’d get a call. The phone never rang.

At first I thought,
Maybe Vince thought we disrespected him because of Hawk’s unintentional no-sell. Or maybe Vince thought we were too old and didn’t fit in with his new WWE. Didn’t he see the way the people reacted to us?

The truth is, we wrestled a solid match, and if Vince truly had any intention of shaking up his tag team division, he should have had us win the belts right then and there on
Raw
. None of it really mattered anyway. It was over. Hawk and I had wrestled together in a WWE ring for the last time together. Mike was crushed.

After this disappointment, we did a couple of independent shows, including one with Paul Ellering for our twentieth anniversary together on June 7, 1983. “Precious” Paul even bleached his hair and goatee and pulled out one of his vintage blue suits for the occasion. I’m happy the three of us got to share that last moment together.

On October 19, 2003, the phone rang late in the day. I had a sinking feeling.

“Hey, Joe, did you hear?”

Hear? Hear what?
“No. Why? What’s up?”

“You mean nobody told you?” the voice replied.

Now I was getting annoyed. “Man, what are you
talking
about?”

“Mike died last night, Joe.”

I heard the caller say it, but I really didn’t believe it. I didn’t
want
to believe it. Nobody had thought to call me all day. My thoughts were racing, and it was all a blur. I finally snapped out of it and called Dale. She said Mike had been moving boxes the previous day into their new condo in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. After he’d made his last trip, everything was fine and they went to bed. Mike never woke up. He died of heart failure in his sleep.

My eyes started welling up when I got off the phone. I told Julie and James and Jessica the news, and we hugged and prayed. After forty-six years of hundred-mile-per-hour living, including twenty years of being the most imposing and comedic character in professional wrestling, Michael Hegstrand, my partner and dear brother, moved on to the next life. The mighty Hawk had made his last flight.

Mike’s body wound up being cremated and there were actually two funerals, one in Florida and one in Minnesota. Kenski even flew all the way from Tokyo and spoke at the service in Minnesota. In a very emotional speech through a translator, Kenski thanked Mike for being an honorable friend who’d unselfishly helped him become an established name in the business eleven years earlier. It was nothing but the highest respect.

The very next night on
Raw
, the show started off with a graphic of Mike along with the announcement by Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler of his passing. I’ll never forget the first match of the show when WWE Tag Team champions Bubba Ray and Devon, the Dudley Boyz, came out to face La Résistance (Rene Dupree and Rob Conway) with black armbands imprinted with
Hawk
.

In one of the greatest tributes Bubba Ray and D-Von could have paid Mike, they won the match with the Doomsday Device and celebrated their win by pointing to their armbands and then to the sky. Somewhere, Hawk was looking down and smiling. I know it.

You know, I think of Mike all the time and remember how he kept pushing everything to the edge. All of his death-defying antics and close calls were just part of his method of operation. Whether Hawk was at a bar, in a ring, or on the road, he pushed his life to the extremes in front of anyone who became an audience until he’d finally pushed everything completely over the cliff into oblivion.