Road Warrior Hawk
| Road Warrior Hawk | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Birth name | Michael Hegstrand |
| Born | January 26, 1957 St. Paul, Minnesota, United States |
| Died | October 19, 2003 (aged 46) Indian Rocks Beach, Florida, United States |
| Cause of death | Myocardial infarction |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | Crusher Von Haig Hawk Hawk Warrior Road Warrior Hawk |
| Billed height | 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) |
| Billed weight | 270 lb (120 kg) |
| Billed from | Chicago, Illinois |
| Trained by | Eddie Sharkey |
| Debut | 1983 |
Michael Hegstrand (January 26, 1957 – October 19, 2003) was an American professional wrestler. He is best known as Road Warrior Hawk, one half of the tag team known as The Road Warriors (The Legion of Doom in WWF), with Road Warrior Animal. Outside of The Road Warriors, Hawk was a sporadic challenger for world heavyweight championships on pay-per-view from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. He headlined the 1993 edition of ECW's premier annual event, November to Remember.
While living in Minneapolis, Hegstrand attended Patrick Henry High School where he graduated in 1976. After high school, he had various odd jobs to make ends meet such as a butcher. Due to his size and love of power lifting, he was an imposing figure and thus a very effective bouncer. He would work as a bouncer at Gramma B's in the Twin Cities where he caught the eye of Eddie Sharkey, a well known wrestling trainer. Sharkey thought that Hegstrand, along with Joe Laurinaitis, Rick Rood and Barry Darsow could make it big in professional wrestling.
Hegstrand had started his career as part of the Traveling All-Stars. He was billed as "Crusher Von Haig" and wrestled in Vancouver. He was considered small at the time and people felt he lacked the skill to make it in the business. Hawk soon grew weary of the road and would get homesick. He traveled back home with another Sharkey trainee, Rick Rude. In 1983 fate struck these two again. Animal's partner for the night would find himself in legal trouble. Needing a quick replacement, Ole Anderson gave Hawk a call. They would be paired together again, this time as tag team partners. Anderson gave them the name the Road Warriors. Neither man knew at the time that they would make wrestling history that day.
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