Road Warrior Animal On The Usos: ‘You’re Samoan, Be A Samoan.’

Road Warrior Animal was a recent guest on the The Hannibal TV. The WWE Hall of Famer talked Larry Hennig’s recent passing and gave his thoughts on today’s indie scene, as well as whether any teams could ever follow in the The Road Warrior‘s footsteps. Highlights appear below.

On Larry Hennig & His Recent Passing:

I remember when Curt [Hennig] died and Larry and I were sitting there and Larry was crying saying, ‘A son should never leave before a father.’ All of the guys from the Robbinsdale High School area in Minnesota and even if you weren’t from that high school, we all worked out together at the same gym, so he was like all of our dads. Every one of us loved Larry ‘The Axe’ Hennig and then I got to get in the ring with him and wrestle him a few times and man, let me tell you something, he was probably the original Road Warrior. He gave me that double ax handle one time and I felt my neck was like this [scrunches neck] and look like a neckless man after awhile and shove my traps into my waist, but Larry Hennig – what a great guy. You never hear anybody say anything bad about Larry Hennig, a top notch professional and one of the great pioneers of pro wrestling. My heart goes out to his family. I texted his grandson Joe Hennig yesterday (Curtis Axel) and I gave him my condolences.  I’ve known Joe Hennig since Joe was 10 years old. A very good family.”

On Indie Wrestling:

There’s a lot of great companies, whether you’re in the U.S. or Canada or wherever you’re at – there’s really no such thing as an indie company anymore. They’re just small companies. What you see with Ring of Honor growing and the NWA coming back and I was just on an AWL on Fite TV and this show here PCW is on Fite TV. Everybody is on Fite TV now, so they’re getting another outlet for shows to be known and there’s a lot of great talent around here. You don’t have to go through WWE or their training center down there to be a great talent in this wrestling business. Look, Hawk and I never went through it and we did just fine. A lot of the people never went through it and they were just fine too. There’s a lot of great talent out there and now it’s all about getting the talent out there to get the fans in this country to see this talent. That’s the important thing. Without TV nobody knows who you are.

On Whether There Are Any Tag Teams That Can Possibly Follow In The Road Warriors’ Footsteps:

I don’t know. Listen, it’s so hard. Just like you can’t re-do The Funks and you can’t re-do someone like The Bushwackers and The Road Warriors were veered as the best team of all time, so I don’t know if there’s anybody that’s going to be able to follow in the footsteps of The Road Warriors. There’s a lot of great tag teams out there, but there’s always – there’s not two bigger guys – there’s always one little guy, one guy out of shape, or one short guy, or one tall guy – and even the tag teams today, they’re trying. I see the WWE is trying to make the tag team division better, but it’s still, if you ask the fan, it still kinda stinks. I love The Usos, but The Uso Penitentiary – what’s that? You’re Samoan. Be a Samoan! Now they’re acting like guys from the hood and I love The Usos and I love the Samoans. I’m here tonight on the card with Jacob Fatu, the Tonga Kid’s son. I see Kishi all the time and his sons are doing great and they stay within their Samoan heritage, which I love because there’s a great lineage there 3,4,5 generations deep all the way from Peter Maivia. I just like it when the Samoan boys stay Samoan.

(Transcription Credit: Michael McClead, WrestleZone)

Readers may watch Road Warrior Animal’s interview in its entirety below:

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