He is also known under the ring name Hanson, which he used from 2013 to 2019. Smith and Raymond Rowe (now known as Erik), have been a regular
tag team since 2014, initially under the name War Machine, then later War Raiders, The Viking Experience, and currently The Viking Raiders. Smith and Rowe have held tag team championships on two continents, being two-time
IWGP Tag Team Champions in Japan and having won the
ROH World Tag Team Championship, the
NXT Tag Team Championship, and the
WWE Raw Tag Team Championship in the United States.
Smith appeared on Velocity on December 17, 2005, losing to
Doug Basham. The following year, on September 15, 2006, he appeared on SmackDown as Todd Hansen in a losing effort to
Sylvester Terkay.[1][3]
On February 16, 2008, Smith defeated Brandon Locke for the
NECW Television Championship in
Quincy, Massachusetts. The title was vacated on April 22, 2008, due to an injury Smith suffered in a title defense. On June 1, 2008, Smith became the champion again after defeating Chase Del Monte in a tournament final held at Suffolk Downs. In late 2008 a series of vignettes featuring Smith began to air during Chaotic Wrestling live events and on the web, showed Handsome Johnny discovering himself on a trip abroad and lead to the introduction of "The Duke of Elegance" Don Chesterfield into Chaotic storylines. Smith also used this character for the Eastern Wrestling Alliance as well as Front Row Wrestling. In NECW, he changed his ring name in 2010 to "Handsome" Johnny Hayes.
In November 2016, War Machine made their debut for
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) by entering the
2016 World Tag League.[20] They finished the tournament on December 7 with a record of four wins and three losses, failing to advance to the finals.[21]
On January 16, 2018,
WWE announced that Hanson had signed a contract with the company and would be reporting to the
WWE Performance Center.[4] On March 17, 2018, Hanson and tag team partner, Rowe made their NXT debut at a house show, defeating the team of Adrian Jaoude &
Cezar Bononi in their first match.[26] On the edition of April 11, 2018 of NXT, he and Rowe, dubbed War Machine, made their TV debuts, attacking Heavy Machinery (
Otis Dozovic and
Tucker Knight) and the team of
Riddick Moss and
Tino Sabbatelli. Two days later on the April 13, 2018 edition of NXT, they went on to defeat the team of
Danny Burch and
Oney Lorcan.[27][unreliable source?]
Throughout the beginning of the year, the team of Hanson & Rowe, now dubbed the War Raiders would continue their winning streak, by defeating several tag teams in the NXT division, including
The Mighty and Heavy Machinery.[28] At
NXT TakeOver: WarGames, War Raiders would team up with
Ricochet and
Pete Dunne in the main event to defeat
The Undisputed Era in the eponymous
WarGames match.[29] At
NXT TakeOver: Phoenix, War Raiders defeated the team of
Kyle O'Reilly and
Roderick Strong to win the
NXT Tag Team Championship. On April 15, 2019, they debuted on
Raw as The Viking Experience under the new ring names of Erik (Rowe) and Ivar (Hanson). The following week, their name was changed to The Viking Raiders.[30] On September 7, 2020 episode of Raw, The Viking Raiders teamed up with
Apollo Crews and
Ricochet in an eight-man tag team match against
The Hurt Business in a losing effort, where
Cedric Alexander scored the pinfall over Ricochet. The match was forced to an abrupt ending due to Ivar suffering a legitimate cervical injury during the match.[31][32] On September 14, Ivar underwent successful surgery to repair a neck injury.[33][34] Ivar would return to in ring action on April 12 edition of Raw, teaming up with his tag team partner Erik going up against Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander in a winning effort.[35] As part of the
2021 Draft, both Ivar and Erik were drafted to the
SmackDown brand.[36][37]
As part of the
2023 WWE Draft, both Ivar and Erik were drafted to the
Rawbrand.[38] On the April 9, 2024, Ivar returned to NXT to challenge
NXT North American ChampionOba Femi for the title but failed to defeat Femi at Week 2 of Spring Breakin'.[39][40] At Night 1 of the
2024 WWE Draft, Ivar was drafted to the Raw brand in the supplementary draft.[41] On the May 14 episode of NXT,
Wes Lee, Ivar, and
Josh Briggs argued over who should get a title match. Femi decided to let the three fight amongst themselves, and a triple threat match between Lee, Ivar, and Briggs was scheduled for the following week, where the winner would face Femi for his title at
NXT Battleground. Later that same night,
Gallus (
Joe Coffey,
Mark Coffey, and
Wolfgang) made their return attacking the three competitors.[42] Ivar ended up injured and out of action for an indefinite period of time.[43]
Personal life
Todd Smith, along with his teammate Raymond Rowe, are
straight edge.[44]
Other media
Ivar made his
video game debut as part of the Titans Pack of downloadable characters available for WWE 2K19.[45]
Championships and accomplishments
Brew City Wrestling
BCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with
Raymond Rowe