After the Powers of Pain (The Warlord and The Barbarian) debuted in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) alongside manager Paul Jones in late 1987, they were joined by Ivan Koloff.
The Powers then began feuding with The Road Warriors. During their feud, they attacked the Road Warriors during a bench press contest between the two teams, ramming Road Warrior Animal's head into a stack of weights. Later during their feud, the Powers won the World Six-Man Tag Team Championship with Ivan Koloff from the Warriors and Dusty Rhodes.
They feuded for several more months until the Powers left WCW while still the champions with Koloff. As a result, the Powers and Koloff were stripped of the titles.
The Powers of Pain made their first appearance in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) on June 18, 1988, on a house show in South Bend, Indiana, and defeated WWF World Tag Team Champions Demolition (Ax and Smash) via countout. Upon their arrival, the Powers of Pain were faces managed by Tito Santana. They feuded with Demolition, who had defeated Strike Force (Santana and Rick Martel) for the titles and then injured Martel. The Powers of Pain were introduced as mercenaries to help Martel and Santana gain revenge on Demolition for both the title loss and the injury to Martel. At the 1988 SummerSlam, The Baron debuted as their manager, leading them to victory over The Bolsheviks (Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zhukov). The Baron left the WWF in early November.
They became heels while Demolition became faces when Mr. Fuji attacked Demolition at the 1988 Survivor Series and aligned himself with the Powers of Pain. The Powers of Pain went on to win the match when they eliminated the foreign heel team The Conquistadors. The feud with Demolition ended at WrestleMania V when the Powers of Pain teamed with Fuji and lost to Demolition when Ax pinned Fuji.
Following their failure to win the titles, the Powers of Pain feuded with teams such as The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart), The Bushwhackers (Luke and Butch) and The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty). At the 1989 Survivor Series, they along with Zeus were a part of Ted DiBiase's "Million Dollar Team", losing to the "Hulkamaniacs" team of WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan, Jake "The Snake" Roberts and WWF Tag Team Champions Demolition. The Barbarian and The Warlord each eliminated members of Demolition, only to both be disqualified from the match for double teaming Hogan.
In March 1990, the team split, with Mr. Fuji selling Barbarian's contract to Bobby "The Brain" Heenan while selling Warlord's contract to Slick. Their final match as The Powers of Pain came on March 25 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, when they were defeated by Hulk Hogan and the Big Boss Man.
Although not officially reunited as a tandem, The Warlord and The Barbarian would team again on January 18, 1992 at a house show in Boston, Massachusetts, losing to The New Foundation ("The Rocket" Owen Hart and Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart).
The Powers of Pain returned to World Championship Wrestling in November 1995. The team was put under masks as the Super Assassins and were managed by Col. Rob Parker. They only had five matches together (two wins over The American Males and The State Patrol and losses to The Nasty Boys and Sting and Lex Luger) before The Warlord left WCW in early 1996, while Barbarian stayed and formed The Faces of Fear with former Heenan Family stablemate Haku, who by then went by the name, Meng.