In 1986, Hawk and his tag team partner Animal, known effectively as the Road Warriors, debuted in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) after a short stint in the AWA. Immediately after their debut, hey won the inaugural Jim Crockett, Sr. Memorial Cup Tag Team Tournament and feuded with the top stars of WCW such as The Four Horsemen and The Russian Team. During their initial run in the promotion, they helped popularize the WarGames match, the Scaffold match, and their trademark Chicago Street Fight.
In 1988, the Road Warriors engaged in a violent feud with The Powers of Pain (The Barbarian and The Warlord), the first team that could truly match the Road Warriors in power (and who were one of the most well known Road Warrior clones). The Powers of Pain even went so far as to injure Animal’s eye (kayfabe) during a weightlifting competition. When Animal returned, he initially wore a hockey goalie mask to protect his eye. The angle abruptly ended when the Powers of Pain left WCW.
Near the end of 1988, the Road Warriors captured the WCW World Tag Team Championship from The Midnight Express, whom they mauled in short order to win the titles in New Orleans. Despite being heels at the time and using brutal tactics against Stan Lane and "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton, once again they were cheered by the crowd. After being the “Uncrowned champions” for a long time, the Road Warriors’ run with the tag-team titles was short-lived. Crooked referee Teddy Long used a fast count to cheat the Road Warriors out of their titles. In their last year with WCW, the Warriors feuded mainly with The Varsity Club, The Samoan Swat Team, and The Skyscrapers before leaving WCW in the summer of 1990.
The Road Warriors immediately signed with the World Wrestling Federation and were pushed into a feud with Demolition. Due to his health, Ax was replaced by a new member of Demolition, Crush. During the early part of the feud, the Legion of Doom as they were now called, often teamed with WWF World Heavyweight Champion The Ultimate Warrior in six-man tag matches against all three members of Demolition.
Just over a year after signing with the WWF, the Legion of Doom won the WWF World Tag Team Titles from The Nasty Boys at SummerSlam 1991 and held them for about six months. When they lost the titles in February 1992, they were briefly taken off television, only to return with long-time manager Paul Ellering by their side, as well as a wooden dummy called “Rocco”. Both members of the Legion of Doom thought the gimmick was stupid, as did most of the fans and it led to Hawk quitting the WWF, leaving Animal on his own for the first time in nine years. When Animal suffered a severe back injury a short while later, everyone thought it was the end of the legendary team.
In August 1993, Hawk made sporadic appearances in World Championship Wrestling as a mystery partner of Dustin Rhodes and later as a replacement partner when Davey Boy Smith left the federation, but nothing permanent ever came of it, and Hawk left after Starrcade in December 1993. In May 1995, he reappeared in WCW. In July 1995, he helped Sting in a feud against Meng and Kurasawa, but a proposed singles feud with Kurasawa fell through due to an arm injury. Hawk returned in January 1996, but this time, he also brought Animal back with him as his back had finally recovered enough for him to return to active competition. During that time, Sting and Lex Luger had won the WCW World Tag Team Championship and the Warriors challenged them, to no success. The rise of the New World Order precluded further challenges, and they headed back to the WWF.
After leaving WCW they returned to the WWF, where the Legion of Doom took part in the feud between Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Hart Foundation, siding with Austin. The Legion of Doom also became 2 time tag-team champions on October 7, 1997 when they defeated The Godwinns. In November 1997, the Legion of Doom faced the newly formed New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) and shockingly lost the titles to the upstart team.
On an episode of Monday Night Raw, L.O.D. challenged D-Generation X in a tag match. During the match, The New Age Outlaws attacked L.O.D. and shaved off one of Hawk's mohawks, and threw Animal through the announcers table.
After several unsuccessful challenges, the L.O.D. were repackaged as Legion of Doom 2000 with manager Sunny, although she did not stay with the team for long.
During the Attitude Era, in which the WWF moved towards a more "adult" product, the Legion of Doom was placed into a storyline regarding Hawk's alcoholism. The storyline found the Legion of Doom crumbling as Hawk repeatedly showed up to matches apparently drunk or under the influence of drugs, and began demonstrating suicidal tendencies. In order to stabilize the team, a third member, Puke, was introduced. This led to the conclusion of the storyline, in which a suicidal Hawk climbed to the top of the TitanTron, the giant television monitor erected during episodes of WWF's Raw is War to show match highlights to fans in attendance. Puke, supposedly attempting to rescue Hawk, climbed after him, only to apparently throw Hawk over the side (with a special effect being used to make it appear as though fans could see Hawk's body plunging a fatal distance behind the screen); Puke then revealed that he had been enabling Hawk's drug addiction in order to kill him and take his place in the Legion of Doom. Both Hawk and Animal left the WWF thereafter.
Animal and Hawk made a surprise appearance on Raw on May 12, 2003 when they took on Kane and Rob Van Dam for the World Tag Team Championship. Although Hawk and Animal came up short in their attempt to become three-time champions, it was clear that Hawk had defeated the demons that had once kept him from competing, and the Road Warriors had hopes of returning to WWE.
Sadly, however, those hopes were never realized as Hawk passed away on October 19, 2003.
Animal returned to WWE in mid-2005 and decided to dedicate his entire run to Hawk, including his tag team title victory with Heidenreich at The Great American Bash.
On the March 28, 2011 episode of Raw, it was announced that the Road Warriors would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2011. On April 2, 2011, the night before WrestleMania XXVII they, along with Paul Ellering were inducted into the Hall of Fame by Dusty Rhodes.