The end of the road for this warrior: legendary tag team wrestler, Joe “Animal” Laurenaitis passes away at the age of 60
Here’s a big oof moment – when looking for a picture to use for this post, I came across this particular image from Survivor Series 1990, and realized that now, every single person in this particular promo was dead. Kerry Von Erich, Road Warrior Hawk, the Ultimate Warrior, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, and now, Road Warrior Animal, all gone from mortal existence. This particular Survivor Series was also the debut of the Undertaker, whom has just officially retired from the business after 30 years in the WWE but is otherwise alive and well.
But back to Animal, 60 is not quite an age where the royal we can say he’s gone too soon, but at the same time it’s not really an age where we can say that he lived a full life, closer to general white male in America life expectancy than not. The cause of death hasn’t formally been revealed, but I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to assume that it was probably his heart, it was probably enlarged, and couldn’t have been helped by some of his life spent with his former tag team partner, who was a notorious partier, substance abuser, and was someone who was gone too soon, at the age of 46.
For the record, I was always more fond of Animal than I was Hawk, even though I fully understand that when the day was over, Hawk really was the stronger worker and more talented of the two. I guess I just preferred Animal’s power game and his general aesthetic, and the single center mohawk looked cool, and not like he was prematurely balding like Hawk’s dual mohawks. Hawk would carry matches, take the brunt of the punishment, but then make the hot tag to Animal, who came in and bulldozed opponents, before eventually putting someone up on his shoulders for the Doomsday Device, which to this day, is still one of the more legitimately devastating looking finishers in all wrestling, and there’s a reason why so few tag teams even try to replicate it today.