Lex Luger as THE guy

[Carbomb]

Because of the "What If?" thread touching on the Lex Express.

Something that always bugged me slightly: is it just me, or did anyone else think that, just from his persona and name alone, Lex Luger was never going to be a permanent, Hogan-style face? Short or limited runs, but never the top blue-eye, simply because he had the aura essentially of a vanity bodybuilder* and had a name resembling one of the most famous villains in comics. I always figured he was better suited as a permanent, top villain; he was a bit too suave.

*By which I mean that there was always a bit of an emphasis on his overall appearance being for show, as opposed to Hogan, who, despite doing bodybuilder poses and talking about his "pythons" in the style of Billy Graham, seemed to be able to signal that it was about fighting strength and resilience - aided by his half-baldness and his comparative lack of glamorous looks. With his moustache and growling promos, he seemed like more of an ancient-era Celtic warrior (presumably part of what Vince Sr. was going for with the "Hogan" moniker). Also, Luger seemed polished and "sleek", in a way that, even as a face, just seemed a bit slippery and suited a heel persona, whilst Hogan had that "RAHHH", chaotic, sweaty gruffness that gave the opposite.

The only time I bought Luger as a good guy, appearance-wise, was his face run against the nWo - the long hair in a pony tail gave him a bit of a Conan the Barbarian vibe that made him seem less suave and slightly wilder/tougher. He also seemed more intense, furious, and earnest.

[gmoney]

He was unbelievably over in late 96 into 97 because he had lot of fun, simple matches where he won with the torture rack, a move that that was also ridiculously over (incidentally someone should have nicked this by now). Sometimes it's that simple. They fucked up in WWF trying to make him a patriotic babyface, which I could tell even as a kid he wasn't putting his heart into. And he never went on an unstoppable run. By the time they got it right in WCW, there were lots of other people waiting their turn, and he wasn't going to be the guy for a long period. Injuries later on absolutely crocked him and he can barely move in late WCW.

Edited August 11 by gmoney

[AshC]

It's an amazing coincidence really that maybe Luger's two career defining matches were both at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit. 

If either one of those matches had come around at different moments, he may well have got the big run.

If you'd somehow merged the machine push of 93 with the organic one of 97, it may have worked, too. 

Edited August 11 by AshC

[Egg Shen]

As a child in '93, I bought into what they were selling. The whole Lex Express and Body Slam Challenge on the U.S.S. Intrepid are absolutey some of my time fondest Wrestling memories.

[tiger_rick]

37 minutes ago, Egg Shen said:

As a child in '93, I bought into what they were selling. The whole Lex Express and Body Slam Challenge on the U.S.S. Intrepid are absolutey some of my time fondest Wrestling memories.

Me too, but I was never that into Hogan so Lex being some knock-off Hogan didn't really register with me. I still really like it and I think it's a pretty great effort. The problem is, it's so out of nowhere. There's no character development, history you can play-off or fan sentiment building. He's a heel post KOTR, and as the shitty narcissist character, and then there's just a massive flip. There are threads elsewhere on the board about the big angles in this period and the desperation in all of them and this is another one.

With hindsight, they should have kept the belt on Bret, had Luger be himself through 1993 and gone with Bret & Lex post Mania for a good few months. Then after SummerSlam, Luger could have turned slowly, opposing Yoko and building fan support. He'd then have been in great shape going into 1994 as a babyface. 

The problem with any rebooking is you always lose something, which in this case would be Bret's 1993 KOTR but it'd be for the greater good.

Of course, the other thing to consider is just what they wanted from Lex. Was it to be a Hogan level face? If so, massive failure. Was it to give Yokozuna a summer opponent and create a solid third tier babyface? If so, pretty successful.

[Chico Torres]

A great thing about challenging “smart” opinions of the past is many people know acknowledging that Lex Luger was a fucking great wrestler in NWA/WCW from 1987 to 1997. So many great matches, super over babyface and a fantastic arrogant heel, both in his original  run from 87-92 and then his second run when he returned in 1995.

@Carbomb he was a great natural heel from when he first joined NWA and then his run in 1989 against Steamboat and Pillman etc and then his Total Package run in 91-92 with Harley Race and Mr Hughes, and him as disingenuous mate if Sting who hated the fans and would only slap their hands when Sting was looking but would then be disgusted when Sting wasn’t looking. But he was also an amazing babyface in 1988 when Windham turned heel and as a face had some of Flairs best matches at Starrcade 1988 and Wrestle War 1990. Obviously the 1997 win over Hogan is an all-timer great moment.

The exception being his run in WWF which was largely crap, I liked The Narcissist but the USA loving babyface always felt so unnatural and forced, he just wasn’t that guy and booking him as a failure from the start killed it dead.

Lex Luger was awesome.

[Chili]

It's absolutely stunning how shit Luger got around the time he joined the Wolfpac and started wearing jeans. 

I will say he's very funny in the early Russo WCW days with The Total Package. He's rather goofy and it's quite amusing seeing him dick about, less in the ring. It's shocking how much he ages from 98 to 2000 though, cutting his hair and whatever he was on made him look soooooo old and knackered.

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, Chico Torres said:

A great thing about challenging “smart” opinions of the past is many people know acknowledging that Lex Luger was a fucking great wrestler in NWA/WCW from 1987 to 1997. So many great matches, super over babyface and a fantastic arrogant heel, both in his original  run from 87-92 and then his second run when he returned in 1995.

@Carbomb he was a great natural heel from when he first joined NWA and then his run in 1989 against Steamboat and Pillman etc and then his Total Package run in 91-92 with Harley Race and Mr Hughes, and him as disingenuous mate if Sting who hated the fans and would only slap their hands when Sting was looking but would then be disgusted when Sting wasn’t looking. But he was also an amazing babyface in 1988 when Windham turned heel and as a face had some of Flairs best matches at Starrcade 1988 and Wrestle War 1990. Obviously the 1997 win over Hogan is an all-timer great moment.

The exception being his run in WWF which was largely crap, I liked The Narcissist but the USA loving babyface always felt so unnatural and forced, he just wasn’t that guy and booking him as a failure from the start killed it dead.

Lex Luger was awesome.

I want to be clear: I never thought he was a crap wrestler, ever. My contention is that he seemed a much more natural heel rather than a face-of-the-company, perennially-top-position blue-eye. But I am also appreciating the discussion regarding that. I'm mainly going off what happened in the WWF, and it seemed, from a distance, that the WCW felt not too dissimilar, as they never seemed to want to keep him face for very long, even as over as he got.

I guess I'm particularly interested in the views of those who watched a lot more wCw than I did, so it's very interesting to read these different perspectives on him.

[westlondonmist]

In WCW I thought Luger was a cool baby face rather than your somewhat cartoony ones at the time. Sting was also cool but a little cartoony too and Hogan was completely cartoony. Despite his successful career, I feel like he was a 5 or so years early to be WWFs top face. He was a handsome bastard and he kind of had that look at me I'm amazing smarmy bastard about him. When he was face in WCW prior it was almost more like it was because the heels needed a strong face to go against rather than having to turn becasue the fans wanted to cheer him. I do wonder if the very German sounding name didn't help him as this all american. 

He was actually still over in 2000 strangely, if you watch Superbrawl 2000 despite him being barely able to move his match with Hogan is probably the one the fans cared about. 

[AshC]

There's a lovely little Luger vs Dave Taylor match on the latest WCW Saturday Night comp WWE have put out. Proper basic, well done pro wrestling. It used to be better. 

[CTXRussomark]

9 hours ago, Chili said:

It's absolutely stunning how shit Luger got around the time he joined the Wolfpac and started wearing jeans.

The same goes for 90% of the main event crew in 1998 to be honest.  The drop off in effort and quality from those guys between 97 and 98 is astounding.  A real sense of "we're number 1, why try harder?" across them all either through sheer laziness/complacency (Nash, Luger, Giant) or personal troubles catching up with them (Hall, Sting).  They're so lucky Goldberg caught fire when he did. 

[tiger_rick]

15 hours ago, AshC said:

It used to be better. 

This is such a "Uncle on Facebook" post. The best stuff used to be better. The rest wasn't though. These fuckers can go out on as many interviews as they want talking about their super psychology and fundamentals and how they called it in the ring and it doesn't change the fact that most TV matches were as boring as shit then as they are now. 

I absolutely love the nostalgia as much as the next man but it's just bullshit at this point.

[DavidB6937]

3 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

This is such a "Uncle on Facebook" post. The best stuff used to be better. The rest wasn't though. These fuckers can go out on as many interviews as they want talking about their super psychology and fundamentals and how they called it in the ring and it doesn't change the fact that most TV matches were as boring as shit then as they are now. 

I absolutely love the nostalgia as much as the next man but it's just bullshit at this point.

Absolutely this. The number of times I'll go back and watch stuff that I thought was amazing at the time and wonder what the fuck I was doing. It's all about context.

[Carbomb]

39 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

This is such a "Uncle on Facebook" post.

It's giving chopped unc energy

[Chico Torres]

1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

This is such a "Uncle on Facebook" post. The best stuff used to be better. The rest wasn't though. These fuckers can go out on as many interviews as they want talking about their super psychology and fundamentals and how they called it in the ring and it doesn't change the fact that most TV matches were as boring as shit then as they are now. 

I absolutely love the nostalgia as much as the next man but it's just bullshit at this point.

I will proudly take the Facebook uncle designation, your post is utter rubbish my friend, it was absolutely better back then.