Nick Bondage & Way­lon Prophet; Wrestling Cruis­er­weight Lucha
In the mid­dle of 1986, The Road War­riors moved to NWA ex­clu­sive­ly, win­ning the in­au­gu­ral Jim Crock­et Sr. Memo­ri­al Cup Tag-​Team Tour­na­ment by beat­ing Ron Garvin and Mag­num TA in the fi­nals[4]. Build­ing up­on their rapid push, Hawk and An­i­mal were fea­tured at­trac­tions of the Great Amer­i­can Bash tour where they were matched against Ivan and Niki­ta Koloff[5] and the Mid­night Ex­press [6]. At Star­Cade '86, the Road War­riors were fea­tured in the very first Scaf­fold Match, de­feat­ing the Mid­night Ex­press[7].

The Road War­riors joined forces with Dusty Rhodes and Niki­ta Koloff in a bloody feud with the Four Horse­men. Dur­ing the 1987 Great Amer­i­can Bash, the ri­val sides faced off in the first ev­er War Games Match [8]. The Road War­riors were on the win­ning side of War Games both match­es that sum­mer[9] tak­ing their feud with the Horse­men to Star­cade 87, where they lost by dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion to Tul­ly Blan­chard and Arn An­der­son [10]. The Road War­riors al­so picked up the NWA Six-​Man tag-​team ti­tles twice along­side Dusty Rhodes[3]. The War­riors en­gaged in a vi­o­lent feud with The Pow­ers of Pain (The Bar­bar­ian and The War­lord) where the Road War­riors fi­nal­ly met their equal phys­i­cal­ly, but the an­gle end­ed when the Pow­ers of Pain left the NWA af­ter find­ing out they were booked against the Road War­riors in a se­ries of Scaf­fold Match­es that they were sup­posed to lose[1].

In 1988, Hawk and An­i­mal turned heel, maul­ing the Mid­night Ex­press for the NWA World Tag Team Cham­pi­onship on Oc­to­ber 29, 1988 [3]. In De­cem­ber of that year the Road War­riors played a hand in Dusty Rhodes demise as head book­er for the pro­mo­tion. Un­der strict in­struc­tions by TBS ex­ec­u­tives pro­hibit­ing blad­ing, the Road War­riors at­tacked Rhodes, re­mov­ing a spike from the shoul­der pads, and at­tempt­ing to gouge his eye out[1]. Rhodes was fired short­ly af­ter that episode on World Cham­pi­onship Wrestling. When Rhodes was fired the Road War­riors were al­lowed to pick a new part­ner to hold the NWA Six-​Man ti­tles, they picked Genichi­ro Ten­ryu but the ti­tles were quick­ly aban­doned[3].

The Road War­riors quick­ly turn­ing face yet again due to over­whelm­ing fan sup­port no mat­ter how bru­tal or vi­o­lent they were. Their World Tag-​Team ti­tle reign came to an end when they faced The Var­si­ty Club (Mike Ro­tun­da and Steve Williams) on April 2, 1989 [11]. The ti­tle change was a con­tro­ver­sial one as ref­er­ee Ted­dy Long per­formed an an ex­ceed­ing­ly fast count. Long would be fired from his job due to the count but the ti­tles were not re­turned to the Road War­riors[3]. Hawk and An­i­mal would spend the rest of their tenure in the NWA feud­ing with teams like The Samoan Swat Team [12][13] and The Skyscrap­ers [14][15]. Their last big win in the NWA came when they de­feat­ed three oth­er teams (in­clud­ing the red hot Stein­er Broth­ers) to win the Iron­man Tag-​Team Tour­na­ment at Star­rcade 1989 “Fu­ture Shock” [16][17] and The Skyscrap­ers[18].