Michael Hegstrand (January 26, 1957 – October 19, 2003) was an American professional wrestler. He was 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 inaugural 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. An imposing figure due to his size and love of power lifting, he was a very effective bouncer. It was while working as a bouncer at Gramma B's in the Twin Cities that 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 started his career as part of the Traveling All-Stars. He was billed as "Crusher Von Haig" and wrestled in Vancouver. Soon growing weary of the road and becoming homesick. Hegstrand traveled back home with Rood. Later in 1983, fate struck again when Laurinaitis's partner for the night found himself in legal trouble. Needing a quick replacement, Ole Anderson gave Hegstrand a call, and he accepted the booking to team with Laurinaitis. Neither man knew at the time that they would make wrestling history that day. When Paul Ellering was looking to put together a stable of heels in Georgia Championship Wrestling called The Legion of Doom it was decided to pair Laurinaitis with Hegstrand and change their names to "Animal" and "Hawk" respectively; thus, The Road Warriors were born. To look more intimidating the two shaved their heads into Mohawks and started wearing studded dog collars, leather chaps, and face paint. The look and name was taken from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, helping to paint the two as no-mercy monsters. Their interview style was vicious, yet charismatic and a bit humorous. Hawk was known for often beginning his promos with his trademark yell of "Wellllllllllllll!..." and ending with his catch phrase of "Oooooooooh, what a ruuuuuuuuuuuush!" The team was an instant hit, revolutionizing the tag-team scene with their power moves, no mercy attitudes, and innovative face paint that would spawn many future imitators in wrestling. In Georgia they won the NWA National Tag Team Championship four times before moving on to bigger promotions such as the American Wrestling Association in the US and All Japan Pro Wrestling in Japan, winning tag-team titles wherever they went.

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