Lex Luger's WWF Run

[phoenixsosa]

Does anyone remember the entire run? I missed the 1994 year from April until early 1995. Only thing I remember is his encounters with Yokozuna, Mr. Perfect and Bret Hart. Did he do anything else significant? Did he wrestle other big names at the time?

[JerryvonKramer]

Well he came in as the Narcissist and feuded with Perfect (as you know)
Then slammed Yokozuna (as you know) and spent much of 93 feuding with Yoko after being pushed to the moon with the Lex Express gimmick.

Then at Royal Rumble 94 he had the double-win/ draw thing with Bret which set up the weird 3-way at Wrestlemania X, where he was (kayfabe) screwed out of the belt by Mr. Perfect.

I don't think the second feud with Perfect happened because Hennig was injured so instead he feuded with Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Corporation (I think mainly vs. Tatanka and Sid) until he jumped to WCW in sensational circumstances in 1995 (to appear as a shock surprise on the first ever Nitro).

[quantum]

Oct 7, 2009 14:54:41 GMT -5 JerryvonKramer said:

Well he came in as the Narcissist and feuded with Perfect (as you know)
Then slammed Yokozuna (as you know) and spent much of 93 feuding with Yoko after being pushed to the moon with the Lex Express gimmick.

Then at Royal Rumble 94 he had the double-win/ draw thing with Bret which set up the weird 3-way at Wrestlemania X, where he was (kayfabe) screwed out of the belt by Mr. Perfect.

I don't think the second feud with Perfect happened because Hennig was injured so instead he feuded with Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Corporation (I think mainly vs. Tatanka and Sid) until he jumped to WCW in sensational circumstances in 1995 (to appear as a shock surprise on the first ever Nitro).

He feuded mostly with Tatanka he had a decent match with him at Summerslam 1994 where Tatanka 'sold out to The Million Dollar Man' and turned into and evil Native American. He teamed with The British Bulldog for most of 1995 till Bulldog also turned heel just before In Your House 4 (Sep I think 95). Luger ran in during Diesel VS Mabel match at Summerslam to 'save Diesel from Mabel and Mo' and Luger was gone shortly after that to WCW. Also one year after facing Yokozunna for the WWF Championship at Mania and being a big attraction for Mania 9 and getting his push to the moon. He was a curtain jerker at Mania 11 against Jacob And Eli Blu 9Harris Brothers) with The British Bulldog (The Allied Powers). Talk about dropping the ball second half of 94/95 with Luger no wonder Vince lost him back to WCW.

I actually enjoyed most of 93-95 in general

[Youngie]

By the way this also is Randy Savage's last WWF appearance.

[Mac]

Luger should have stayed heel.. he was a natural heel and the narcissist gimmick with the "loaded forearm" was early 90's wrestling gold.

[wasimperviz]

Lex Luger started out as a decent heel that could have gone onto more but for some reason Vince thought he could be the next Hogan which failed in a huge way but I do feel he would have made a great heel success.

[JerryvonKramer]

Ironic really:

Just as Luger was taking off as a face in WCW (1991), they turned him heel.

Just as he was taking off as a heel in WWF (1993), they turned him face.

Luger: the ultimate example of a worker badly handled?

[wasimperviz]

Oct 7, 2009 18:30:31 GMT -5 JerryvonKramer said:

Ironic really:

Just as Luger was taking off as a face in WCW (1991), they turned him heel.

Just as he was taking off as a heel in WWF (1993), they turned him face.

Luger: the ultimate example of a worker badly handled?

I agree just as his WWE career was going to talk off he was turned into a heel. I feel he would have been one of the biggest heels today. I mean they should have kept Bobby as his Manager.

[Albino Heat]

Rumor has it that after he saved Diesel from Mabel, he was going to be put into a program for the title with Diesel.

[hajimenoippo]

Luger in '94-95 confused me, I thought for sure he'd be main eventing and finally win the belt maybe even from Bret Hart, but he was placed in a tag team that should have beat Yoko/Owen, then he went to WCW.

I really think Vince should have went with Luger winning the belt from Yoko at Summerslam '93.

[JMA]

Would've been interesting if someone else had slammed Yoko instead of Luger.

[CMWaters]

Interestingly enough, I will always remember this:

One time on WWE TV, before the first Nitro, they advertised for the ep of Superstars that would air the weekend after the first Nitro an interview with Lex Luger about the Bulldog's heel turn.

I always wondered what exactly Luger said on that, since I'm assuming it was taped and ready to go before Lex appeared on Nitro.

[johnnyk9]

I thought Luger and Bulldog were going to have a tag team title run, if you watch the horrid year that is 1995 they really push them espeically when they start feuding with Owen and Yoko

[Professor Chaos]

I still to this day say Luger should have and could have been the next Hogan during his WWF run. I think they dropped the ball with him.

[Youngie]

Well Luger appeared on WCW Nitro in September 1995. Imagine if he had been the WWF champ at the time? Maybe it's just as well he didn't get the gold.

[bigsplash]

So many things baffle me about 93-95.

The whole era was just Vince trying to figure how to get his company going again. And even that wasn't his whole attention cause of the steroid trial.

The only really good main event situation they had was Bret vs Owen. Other than that their big stars were floundered with terrible feuds and not being used enough.

At various times in that time period they had:
Luger
Savage
Hart
Taker
Perfect
Razor
Sid
Diesel
HBK

All of these guys I could have seen being apart of the main event scene. Instead these guys rarely touched (outside of Sid and Diesel).

The perfect example of this is Summerlsam 95:

WWE Championship
Diesel vs. Mabel

Intercontinental Title - Ladder Match
Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon

Bret ‘Hit Man’ Hart vs. Isaac Yankem DDS

Casket Match
Undertaker vs. Kama

Women’s Championship
Alundra Blayze vs. Bertha Faye

Barry Horowitz vs. Skip

Smoking Gunns vs. Jacob & Eli Blu

Bob Holly vs. Hunter Hearst-Helmsley

1-2-3 Kid vs. Hakushi


Outside of the ladder match, what an atrocious card. Taker, Diesel, and Hart..three of their biggest stars at the time are against three ridiculous gimmick opponents. Luger didn't even wrestle except for the run-in during the main event.

[wasimperviz]

Oct 8, 2009 2:21:12 GMT -5 hajimenoippo said:

Luger in '94-95 confused me, I thought for sure he'd be main eventing and finally win the belt maybe even from Bret Hart, but he was placed in a tag team that should have beat Yoko/Owen, then he went to WCW.

I really think Vince should have went with Luger winning the belt from Yoko at Summerslam '93.

I feel if Lex did win the world title it would have been a huge mistake. I was very happy he was put out of the world title picture. Look at his WM downfall

WM9 - Mr Perfect loses
WM10 - Screwed out of the world title by Mr Perfect
WM11 - In the opening tag team match.

[Main Event Mark]

I was pretty young at the time, but even though he was supposed to be an ultimate babyface at the time...I still did not like Luger.
His WWF run was my first exposure to him and I did watch him in WCW after that. i can honestly say he is one of the few wrestlers I watched over an extended period that really never won me over either as face or heel.

[wasimperviz]

Oct 8, 2009 11:14:31 GMT -5 Main Event Mark said:

I was pretty young at the time, but even though he was supposed to be an ultimate babyface at the time...I still did not like Luger.
His WWF run was my first exposure to him and I did watch him in WCW after that. i can honestly say he is one of the few wrestlers I watched over an extended period that really never won me over either as face or heel.

Many fans just did not like Lex at the time. I was also young at this time and did not like him. I liked Bret a lot more at this time. In the end Bret got the belt but the office tried so hard to push for Luger.

[quantum]

Oct 8, 2009 8:42:35 GMT -5 bigsplash said:

The perfect example of this is Summerlsam 95:

WWE Championship
Diesel vs. Mabel

Intercontinental Title - Ladder Match
Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon

Bret ‘Hit Man’ Hart vs. Isaac Yankem DDS

Casket Match
Undertaker vs. Kama

Women’s Championship
Alundra Blayze vs. Bertha Faye

Barry Horowitz vs. Skip

Smoking Gunns vs. Jacob & Eli Blu

Bob Holly vs. Hunter Hearst-Helmsley

1-2-3 Kid vs. Hakushi


Outside of the ladder match, what an atrocious card. Taker, Diesel, and Hart..three of their biggest stars at the time are against three ridiculous gimmick opponents. Luger didn't even wrestle except for the run-in during the main event.

I agree with most of what you said about the main event scence and the wrestlers not really touching each other. The booking was pretty bad in 1995. However I still think 1993-95 even as bad as the booking was. Was a very fin time in the WWF history. It has aged a lot better than most of the attitude era (compare a PPV from that era to a PPV of the Attitude era outside Wrestlemania 17 and you will see what I mean. Attitude Era was based more on 'shock value and shock T.V' once the shock is taken away a lot of the fun is taken out of the event).
It did not make scense why Luger and Bulldog were kept of the card at Summerslam 1995 as they cou;ld have easily had there first match of the feud at the PPV 9even if it would have been short notice). There were a lot of wrestlers (including Owen Hart) kept off the card for seemingly no reason 9and Bret was back feuding with Jerry Lalwer and Issac Yankem although that match was decent). The opening match was great and first of a kind for WWF which WCW seemed to take a page out of (opening there PPVs with a 'cruiserwieght match). Hackishi VS 123 Kid was a great opening match. Also Perfect was injured at this time. Luger was left of the card after headline the PPV only two years earlier and so was Yokozunna.