Animal had briefly competed as the Road Warrior before Ellering paired him up with fellow Chicagoan Hawk to form the Road Warriors. In the early 1980s, in NWA's Georgia Championship Wrestling, Paul Ellering introduced a stable called "The Legion of Doom" that consisted of the Road Warriors, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, The Spoiler, Matt Borne, King Kong Bundy, Arn Anderson, The Iron Sheik and the original Sheik.
Their name (and to some extent, their look) was taken from the Mel Gibson movie Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior Georgia Championship Wrestling
The careers of Hawk and Animal spanned two decades, featuring stops in the National Wrestling Alliance, American Wrestling Association, All Japan Pro Wrestling, New Japan Pro Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, and the World Wrestling Federation, as well as numerous independent promotions across the United States. The Road Warriors began as part of Paul Ellering's Legion of Doom stable in Georgia Championship Wrestling in 1983. The duo headlined multiple events including Survivor Series in 1991 and In Your House 16: Canadian Stampede, and are regarded by many as the greatest tag team in professional wrestling history. Both men used the move as a team finisher throughout their careers, even when teaming with other partners. They also introduced a tandem maneuver known as the Doomsday Device. Their face paint and spiked armor were inspired by the Mad Max film The Road Warrior they were the first wrestlers to bring a theme from a movie into the wrestling world. Hawk and Animal were known for their impressive physiques, as their physical size was larger than most wrestlers of the era. In Japan in the 1990s, Kensuke "Power Warrior" Sasaki often teamed with Hawk and Animal, separately and together. For brief periods, other wrestlers were added as stand-in partners for both men.
Under either name, their gimmick was the same – two imposing wrestlers in face paint.
2005 The Road Warriors, also known as the Legion of Doom, were a professional wrestling tag team composed of Road Warrior Hawk (Michael Hegstrand) and Road Warrior Animal (Joseph Laurinaitis) They performed under the name "The Road Warriors" in the American Wrestling Association (AWA), the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and the name "Legion of Doom" (LOD) in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).