Scott,
Lex Luger's "choker" label got chiseled into stone in his WWF mega-push (specifically SummerSlam 1993). As much as I think the Narcissist persona offered Luger way more mileage and appeal, I can't blame Vince for trying to recapture the Hogan lightning. Do you think The Lex Express would have been a success had Luger gone over Yokozuna strong at SummerSlam for the title? Obviously Luger title defenses against "Evil Foreigners" (Ludvig Borga, Crush, etc) would not have excited some of us, but it would have at least given him that Hogan-esque momentum (if not similar results) and a chance at a legitimate chance at being the top draw. Even if Luger's run was bombing (and it may very well have), you can always have Yoko come back and do the Hogan-KOTR treatment on him (or build to a face vs. face match with Bret to move the title). So I really don't see the DQ finish at SummerSlam helping Yoko or Lex. Do you think Luger gets over as a draw if he goes over Yoko strong and carries the title to Wrestlemania (and beyond?).
Ha! I knew I had more Luger e-mails in my pile of old stuff.
I think Luger was going to bomb as champion and they knew it. Even if he had gone over clean, fan backlash would have forced them to go with Bret by Wrestlemania anyway. That being said, I think they should have TRIED at least, because you never know, and certainly Luger had the marketing push behind him to succeed. Plus as noted, you could line up your evil foreigners and get at least 6 months out of him as champion. Maybe even have Duggan do the Slaughter turn (not that he ever would, but it would give Luger a hell of a rub as the ultimate defender of America) and feed him to Luger as well?
I don't know if it would have bombed or not. I will say with Yoko as champ from August 93 to WM10, it's amazing they didn't close the damn doors. Talk about treading water with a champ that no one cares about. People bash Diesel, and rightly so I guess, but the interest in Yoko as champ was way less. The only thing that saves him from being a punchline like Nash is a better undercard and fans that hadn't had a couple of subpar years already to drive them away. all that said, what absolutely killed Luger wasn't not getting the belt from Yoko. It was that ridiculous post match celebration with Vince yukking it up the whole time. Vince's commentary in relation to Luger on SS93 was so over the top, so annoying, that at the time you might have thought he was sabotaging Lex on purpose. Of course those of us with the displeasure to hear him on commentary for the next 3 years soon realized that he wasn't sabotaging Lex but in fact had amped up his 80s Vince personality, which was tolerable, to intolerable heights and was going to annoy the hell out of us for the forseeable future.
ReplyDeleteYokozuna drew just fine as champion. He's not one of the biggest drawing champions of all-time or anything, but he was far from a disaster on top.
ReplyDeleteI hated the Yokozuna title run, Luger would have been better.
ReplyDelete"Obviously Luger title defenses against "Evil Foreigners" (Ludvig Borga, Crush, etc)"
ReplyDeleteSince when is Hawaii a foreign country?
Don't blame the poster, the WWF is the one who put Crush in both the Foreign Fanatics and the Nation of Domination.
ReplyDeleteLuger was a strange one for me. I was a good little mark back then, but he just didn't appeal to me. I spent more time bragging about how Crush *almost* slammed Yokozuna, and that Yoko cheated to prevent it, than I did talking about how Luger actually did it. I wanted him to win at Summerslam but once he didn't I was pretty much done with him. Back then I didn't know enough to know what over-pushed/over-exposed meant, but I knew Luger didn't do it for me and I was sick of constantly hearing about him. Keep in mind I was still young and markish enough to think Undertaker vs Undertaker was amazing but Lex Luger just didn't appeal to me.
ReplyDeleteVince's commentary! That's it! I remember as a kid getting tired of hearing about Luger so much and that's what did it. Vince's over the top praising him got on my nerves...I think my favorite Vince commentary was during HBK's face turn in 1995, when Vince was pushing to get him over on commentary. It's hilariously unintentionally gay, with Vince fawning over how sexy he is.
ReplyDeleteSlight T-Jack: For all the Fantasy Football guys, Ive changed the Draft time to 7:15PM EST TOMORROW 8/27/12
ReplyDeleteBut I have put up a poll to let you guys vote on it.
Poll closes 4PM tomorrow so I can adjust it.
Let me know.
Back to your regularly scheduled program.
Along those lines, when was the U.S. at war with Finland?
ReplyDeleteI hope one day it emerges Luger was responsible for the Montreal Screwjob. Scott Keith would be able to live off the ad revenue from this site alone.
ReplyDeleteFinding out that Luger left SummerSlam without the title was probably my happiest moment as a fan. Yokozuna was my favourite wrestler then; plus, being Canadian, I found Luger's gimmick obnoxious. It was racist too. After years of seeing Hogan triumph over the big fat villain and/or foreigner, I held out no hope that Yoko would retain--and yet, there it was. Great day.
ReplyDeleteno, the WWF drew fine while Yokozuna happened to be champ. No one gave a shit about him.
ReplyDeletehe might have. my point is that yoko had no decent feuds and god knows he wasn't putting on classic matches. he was a placeholder and nothing more. Probably the most uneventful and boring title reign in WWF history up to that point (aside from a Stan Stasiak or Iron Sheik style transition)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Scott, in that they knew Luger was going to bomb as champion and they acted accordingly.
ReplyDeleteI do remember people no caring about Yoko as champion (I was one of them), and it's amazing how long they kept the title on him.
ReplyDeleteI really liked Luger in WCW and I even liked his silly narcissist gimmick -- but for some reason once they slapped the flag trunks on him and made him cut his hair, it just made him seem like a huge geek to me and I just didn't buy it. He was basically aping Jim Duggan more than Hulk Hogan too with the look and with the US not involved in any major military conflicts, it seemed inappropriate and passe right out of the gate to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how worried people were in the early 1990s that Vince would destroy Flair's gimmick by WWF-izing it, when really the WWF let Flair be Flair, but messed with Luger's gimmick who coming in already basically fit their template for a big, tanned, chiseled blonde champion wrestler perfectly.
Of course they never booked like this in 1993, but having Luger win the belt and then immediately turn by declaring he just used the WWF marketing machine and faked the whole Mr. USA crap to secure a title shot might have worked. Then you run him through a departing Duggan, Crush and maybe Savage or Taker on the way to WM where Bret finally topples him. Seems like that would be more interesting than USA Luger vs. evil foreigner of the month.
ReplyDeleteDuggan did the Slaughter turn in WCW when he joined Team Canada, maybe in 93 he could've been convinced.
ReplyDeleteSuch a good point about Vince there, he really did do that to the point where you just wanted to strangle him dead and then revive him and strange him some more.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest annoying characteristic about Vince on commentary, especially for 1995 - 1996 was his constant shilling for the WWF and the "New Generation". When I say "the WWF" I literally mean the letters -- he would just say them constantly. In the 1980s it was always "World Wrestling Federation" but I think he believed he could get the whole thing over by sheer will and repetition. It drove me absolutely crazy, it was right up there with "back leg front kick" or whatever Bischoff liked to call every kick.
To really hammer the point home: I recently did a video project to integrate the audio from a Coliseum Video of Survivor Series 1995 with the DVD in efforts to fix the commentary, which mostly consisted of minor music fixes and the 'WWF' letters. Vince says "WWF" over 60 times on that show and usually multiple times within a sentence.
"Oh there's nothing like WWF action here at the 8th annual WWF Surivor Series! Big Daddy Cool defending against WWF Champion Bret The Hitman Hart for the WWF title, ya know anything can happen in the WWF Jerry Lawler, cause it's the new WWF generation!"
So what would you attribute it to? It's not like 1993 WWF had much to offer.
ReplyDeleteThis got me thinking, have Luger and Bret ever wrestled one on one? Even in WCW?
ReplyDeleteLuger really lost his momentum after Mania X. The feud with Crush went no where and than the Tatanka feud drug on and on for almost 6 months. I think Lex quit caring once he was paired with the Bulldog. He was looking to get out of the WWE by than.
ReplyDeleteracist?!
ReplyDeleteXenophobic/Ultra -Patriotic Yes.
But racist? No.
I'm pretty sure they had. I think they did some house shows in 1993 before Luger turned face, and I'm pretty sure they met in WCW during that weird Sting/Hart partnership/turn.
ReplyDeleteDungeons and Dragons?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KANvBDNDr4
ReplyDeleteCrush was a Japanese sympathizer. What he was sympathetic about towards Japan in 1993 was a completely different matter altogether.
ReplyDeleteHere's the difference between Diesel and Yokozuna: fans knew that eventually Bret or Luger (more likely Bret at that point) would beat Yokozuna for the title. I don't think fans had a clue who was going to beat Diesel for the title, which made his reign that much worse, especially after Michaels turned face and Bret already had his shot at the belt in January.
ReplyDeleteI was 11 years old at the time--presumably the target age for Luger's face turn--and even I groaned at tiredness of it. I didn't watch WCW until after Luger jumped, but I dug his Narcissist gimmick, and looked forward to what I assumed was his eventual match with Bret. I always thought, within and without kayfabe, that Bret should've gotten his WMX win against Yoko at SummerSlam. Narcissist Luger could've won the Rumble, and challenged Bret at WMX...and cemented his choker rep by jobbing there. Yoko might've drawn okay, but presumably Bret would've drawn better.
ReplyDeleteOr he trained Brock Lesnar.
ReplyDeleteI would play if it was a Blood Bowl league.
ReplyDeleteFinland sided with the Nazis...
ReplyDeleteYes, it was. Things were said. And Mr. Fuji skulking around ringside to interfere in that match is straight out of a WWII propaganda film.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same company that, a few months before, let Hulk Hogan call Yokozuna a "Jap" on pay-per-view.
honestly? left over fans from the years before that hadn't deserted yet. I mean the cupboard wasn't completely bare. Razor Ramon was catching on the 2nd half of 93. Bret was still popular. But Yoko was just so blah. I mean no one really gave a shit.
ReplyDeleteTrollsayswut?
ReplyDeleteYokozuna was your FAVOURITE wrestler?
ReplyDeleteGotta side with tzunset here. Along with the insulting rendition of the Japanese anthem at SummerSlam, on Superstars afterward they ran a segment allegedly from a Japanese news broadcast that came off as a propaganda piece, describing Luger's bodyslam as a "hippu tossa" and making it seem like Yokozuna won.
ReplyDeleteHaving an evil foreign heel from an exotic country is one thing, but trying to make an entire COUNTRY a heel? Especially one that had been an ally for 48-odd years? I think tzunset's description absolutely has merit.
Agreed. Its odd how that rarely gets brought up.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite booking scenario with Luger is give him the belt at SummerSlam, let him ride through to WrestleMania and let Bret get some momentum. Luger gets jealous after dropping the belt and this would've nicely segwayed into his feud with Tatanka, where he SHOULD have turned heel at SummerSlam '94. Then, you have a slow build of Luger as a main event heel and you have the perfect foil for Bret late in 1994 or for Diesel in 1995 after he finishes with HBK and Sid.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, I liked the Allied Powers tag team, though. They had cool theme music. They were the only team I thought that could beat Yoko & Owen for the tag belts in 1995.
ReplyDeleteI actually like Vince's commentary for that SummerSlam 1993 match and think it's one of his best commentary jobs of all-time. Maybe it's just because Heenan was such a great foil to him by running down Luger, but it worked out from my perspective.
ReplyDeleteI also think the WWF got good mileage out of Yoko as champ. He had a small program with Hogan and killed Hulkamania, had a decent program with Luger, had an interesting feud with the Undertaker that the crowds enjoyed (even if it got really strange at the Rumble in '94), and jobbed the belt back to Bret at WM X (weak ending aside). Yoko was the one guy as a kid that I thought would be impossible to beat, so when a guy went over him it was a big deal in my eyes.
I actually figured that Bret would eventually beat Diesel for the belt and came to that conclusion after being a fan for only two months (started watching in late February/early March of 1995--helluva time to start!). I knew once Diesel was pegged into that Survivor Series match that he wasn't leaving Washington D.C. with the title.
ReplyDeleteyou make an interesting point about being a kid and thinking he was impossible to beat. I was 20 by that point, so I was far beyond the point that sheer size made me think someone was unstoppable like I did when I was younger with Andre, Bundy, Studd, etc. But WWF was so kid-centric in 93 that what you say does make sense on why they would keep the belt on Yoko despite their being a collective yawn from the crowds. The kids did buy him as a champ because "who could possibly beat someone this large?" I guess for that fact he was as good a placeholder as anyone.
ReplyDeletegotta remember your history though. There was a lot of press around that time period about Japan not engaging in fair trade. Limiting our exports to them, while flooding our markets. There was a fair amount of anti-Japanese stuff floating around. Funny to think of that period compared to now where we make nothing and barely think about all the foreign made crap we buy at Wal-Mart, where they don't pay living wages.
ReplyDeleteAll-American Lex would've worked great in 1994/95 WWF....as a heel. He could've actually turned heel in the summer of 1994, claiming that it was absurd that a true American like himself would be second fiddle to a Canadian champion like Bret Hart. It'd be a bit xenophobic but the fans wouldn't buy it since they like Hart, plus you'd have Bret mention that his mom is American anyway. The other American faces would also sour on Lex as well, making him stand out as just an arrogant jerk wrapping himself in the flag.
ReplyDeleteThis same character could've feuded with Diesel, as Lex is initially happy to see the WWE title "back in the USA!" but then he'd get upset when Diesel stuck to his rebellious ways and wasn't an all-American hero like himself. This angle is more than a bit like Kurt Angle in 2000, I admit, but Luger could definitely have pulled it off with fewer comedic aspects.
I did. Yokozuna was awesome.
ReplyDeleteThree Luger topics in one day? JUSHIN THUNDER LUGER
ReplyDeleteJBL was the most true to life heel they ever had.
ReplyDeleteso in 1993, you thought he was awesome and bought ppvs and watched WWF TV just to see Yoko? I mean you may be the exception, but much like with Sid, there is a lot of smarks that now like the guy when they could not care less at the time. It's impossible to name a worse champion to that point then Yoko who held the belt for longer than a month or so. Can't do it. Bruno, Graham, Backlund, Hogan, Savage, Flair, Bret, even Warrior and Pedro Morales were infinitely more interesting and had better angles than Yoko.
ReplyDeleteI was a huge Luger mark growing up. Part of my love for him was that my uncle went to school with him which, in my young mind, equated to him being my uncle's best friend. Anyway, I got into the NWA around age 8 or 9 and grabbed onto Luger when he was feuding with Flair in 89. I remember being stoked for the Bash match, and confused when he beat Windham instead of Flair for the belt. I also dug the heel character he played with Race as his manager, although he played 2nd fiddle to Rick Rude and the Dangerous Alliance in my heel love at the time.
ReplyDeleteFast forward to more confusion when I saw his WBF videos and wondered why my favorite wrestler was a body builder, but that eventually was rectified with the Narcissist, which I really dug. But then he became the all American face, and it changed everything for me. I was ok with it until the Lex Express came to Buffalo and he was on a local talk show. I was about 13 or 14 by now (maybe younger) and I thought his shtick was utter crap. Why did he all of a sudden love his country? I hated hit, and once he choked against yoko I was done with him. I had a glimmer of hope a couple of times after that, like when I thought he was going to turn on Tatanka or when he showed up on Nitro, but I loathed him, for the most part, from then on.
Yes, I'm an admitted NWA & WCW fanatic, so I'm obviously biased here, but Lex Luger is a perfect example of Vince not getting the wrestlers he brought over from WCW. Everything about Luger that got him way over in the past was shelved in favor of a tired "USA hero" gimmick. Lex is a natural heel, and tweener at best if you don't want him to be a straight heel. He just wasn't going to connect with the audience as the clean cut, flag waving babyface.
ReplyDeleteI heard Jim Ross say on the Road Warriors DVD that they were more entertaining in the WWF than they were in the AWA or NWA because they would make wisecracks here and there. Um, no, Jim. I loved that team, but their WWF run killed all interest I had in them. If you sign stone cold killers, then let them be stone cold killers. See Goldberg, Bill.
Evil Foreigner Crush?
ReplyDeleteFrom the far off land of Hawaii!
Yeah I was just a little kid in 92/93 and I really thought yoko was invincible and really believed the whole gimmick. When luger couldn't beat him it just made him seem tougher and when bret finally beat him it felt like a huge deal to me. Just because of the time he was on top I will always remember yokozuna fondly.
ReplyDeleteI agree Yoko was awesome in 93 as champ. He may not have the technical skills of Bret, but he still could go when needed. If the Hogan crap from Mania-KOTR has not happened he could've had a nice 1 year reign. I think Yoko was a more entertaining champ then Warrior was.
ReplyDeleteI always liked Sid and never liked Yoko. I never could get into big fat silent japanese guy but I could get into huge jacked intense southerner powerbombing peoples asses.
ReplyDeleteWell Vince kinda got him right when he made him the Narcisist even if it was somewhat cartoonish. Yeah the face turn ruined everything but the mere fact that Vince wanted to make him the face of the company is a damn nice compliment.
ReplyDelete