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Lex Luger


Big Z

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Watched Wrestle War '91 on the Network last night and damn if the Luger-Spivey was not really fucking good. I remembered it being a solid match, but it was probably the best non War Games match on an excellent overall card (and I may argue it being better then War Games). From watching old WCW cards on the Network, I am reminded again just how damn good Luger was from 1988-1991. He had one of the best matches on the card each night regardless of opponent, and many times was the one carrying the match, If WCW had given him the ball in either 1988 or 1990, and had he gotten to finally beat Flair decisively in 1991, I think he could have had the same reputation Sting earned as the Franchise of WCW (and I also love Sting and believe he earned that). Luger detractors need to go to the Network or Youtube/Daily Motion and just search his big matches from that time period. Luger fans like myself will be reaffirmed at just how damn good he was. He may have been the most clueless schmuck about wrestling backstage, but whatever the case about his rep from fellow wrestlers, he always performed when the lights went on. He was never a bad hand following this strong run, but I would argue that this four year run was on par with just about all of the top performers in both big North American feds at the time.

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In WWE I liked the Tatanka KOTR '93 match, the Yoko Mania match, the Tatanka SummerSlam Match, the Allied Powers vs. Yoko/Owen tag, and a random IC title match against Diesel. In his second WCW run I enjoyed the Savage match at World War 3, the match against Johnny B. Badd where he won the TV title, the Outsiders tag at Hog Wild, the match he won the title against Hogan on Nitro, the triangle match at Starrcade '95, and a good number of other tags with both Sting and The Giant as partners. He was not quite as motivated post 1992, but still a good worker and strong character much of the time.

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In WWE I liked the Tatanka KOTR '93 match, the Yoko Mania match, the Tatanka SummerSlam Match, the Allied Powers vs. Yoko/Owen tag, and a random IC title match against Diesel. In his second WCW run I enjoyed the Savage match at World War 3, the match against Johnny B. Badd where he won the TV title, the Outsiders tag at Hog Wild, the match he won the title against Hogan on Nitro, the triangle match at Starrcade '95, and a good number of other tags with both Sting and The Giant as partners. He was not quite as motivated post 1992, but still a good worker and strong character much of the time.

 

You enjoyed this match too?! I thought I was the only one! For years, I have loved this match. Luger's preening at the beginning and the mirror coming into play when an incensed Tatanka shoves it on him was awesome. Plus, Luger actually played up the elbow and having to wear the pad by using a ton of elbow-based attacks on Tatanka. This was a really fun match, I thought. Tatanka's comebacks were nice, as were Luger's cutoffs of Tatanka (usually using the elbow). 

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After 92 he got hurt and wasn't the same.

 

Late 80s he was very good.

 

How many other guys were meh most of their career but had a really good 3-4 year run?

Well Sting and Rick Rude to name two. . . 

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After 92 he got hurt and wasn't the same.

 

Late 80s he was very good.

 

How many other guys were meh most of their career but had a really good 3-4 year run?

Well Sting and Rick Rude to name two. . . 

 

 

Those two weren't meh outside of their great runs.  Well Sting's been meh the last couple of years, but he's over 50, so he gets a pass on it.

 

 

Sting's great run was like 89-94 at least, that's 6 years, maybe a bit longer.

 

Luger was pretty terrible after he left WCW the 1st time.

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After 92 he got hurt and wasn't the same.

 

Late 80s he was very good.

 

How many other guys were meh most of their career but had a really good 3-4 year run?

Well Sting and Rick Rude to name two. . . 

 

 

Those two weren't meh outside of their great runs.  Well Sting's been meh the last couple of years, but he's over 50, so he gets a pass on it.

 

 

Sting's great run was like 89-94 at least, that's 6 years, maybe a bit longer.

 

Luger was pretty terrible after he left WCW the 1st time.

 

And when was Rude meh? Not counting when he had a career ending back injury and could no longer wrestle.

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After 92 he got hurt and wasn't the same.

 

Late 80s he was very good.

 

How many other guys were meh most of their career but had a really good 3-4 year run?

Well Sting and Rick Rude to name two. . . 

 

 

Those two weren't meh outside of their great runs.  Well Sting's been meh the last couple of years, but he's over 50, so he gets a pass on it.

 

 

Sting's great run was like 89-94 at least, that's 6 years, maybe a bit longer.

 

Luger was pretty terrible after he left WCW the 1st time.

 

And when was Rude meh? Not counting when he had a career ending back injury and could no longer wrestle.

 

Rude wasn't exactly good before 1989. . . 

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After 92 he got hurt and wasn't the same.

 

Late 80s he was very good.

 

How many other guys were meh most of their career but had a really good 3-4 year run?

Well Sting and Rick Rude to name two. . . 

 

 

Those two weren't meh outside of their great runs.  Well Sting's been meh the last couple of years, but he's over 50, so he gets a pass on it.

 

 

Sting's great run was like 89-94 at least, that's 6 years, maybe a bit longer.

 

Luger was pretty terrible after he left WCW the 1st time.

 

Yeah, I realized Sting was better for longer than I thought.  He really slipped in the year or so before Crow sting, and ever since. I take it back. 

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All-American Lex Luger from 93-94 in the WWE was his best incarnation because he finally figured out his role.  I don't think he was more over at any point in his career than he was then.

 

Luger should've been booked to beat Yokozuna and had a five or six month title reign, then dropped the belt to Yoko and gone on to a tag-title reign with Davey Boy Smith.

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How many other guys were meh most of their career but had a really good 3-4 year run?

 

 

Scott Hall?

 

Other than his 3 and a half years as Razor, and being a founding member of the NWO, i don't ever recall anything else memorable from him. Not that he was an all time great during his Razor run, but he still put on good performances and had a few memorable matches with Bret, Kid, HBK, etc.

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Rick Rude was good for longer than three or four years. Rude/Fernandez was awesome, WWF Rude was awesome, and he peaked in WCW between '91-'93. That must be at least eight years of consistently awesome work. 

 

J.T.'s supposition about All-American Luger being his best incarnation is really interesting to me. I disagree, but I have never heard anyone say something like that about Luger's career. Personally, I think Luger was awkward in the role and never really fit into that patriotic face type of role. He also had some poor heel opponents to match up against. Yokozuna was excellent, but then he was stuck with guys like Crush, IRS, and Ludvig Borga. Tatanka was a good matchup for Luger after his heel turn, but they did not have good or memorable matches against one another in that role, whereas Tatanka as a face and Luger as a heel produced at least one really good matchup.

 

Luger seems much better as a heel or tweener. I thought that his '95-'96 run as a tweener where only Sting trusted him was the best character stuff he did at all in his career, and even as a face in '88-'89, he has a veneer of cockiness that makes it work for him. I'm just sad we got less of Narcissist Luger in 1993, as he was an interesting character and had some good work overall in that period. 

 

On a side note, I just mentioned this in another context within another discussion, but Vince in 1993 must have been preoccupied with his steroid trial because he makes a series of poor choices that are apparent when watching this era of TV and PPV back. Hogan winning the title at WM IX is obvious, but also his sidelining of Savage, heel turn of Crush, face turn of Doink, dropping Luger to wrestling Ludvig Borga only a couple months after Luger's ill-advised face-turn...about the only things he gets right is elevating and turning Owen (which officially happens in '94, but starts in '93), turning Razor face (obvious move considering how the crowd reacts to him at this point), and elevating the tandem of Michaels and Nash. 

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I love old school lex, and remained a fan well into his later wcw years. The later years weren't as good, but I always liked watching him. I think part of his problem in the WWF was that we was a face, fighting guys like yoko, when he didn't have the technical skill to carry them. Put Luger in with Bret,  and he would have done much better, not flair-luger territory, but closer than he ever did after he left wcw the first time. I guess they were matched up in WCW later, but 1998 bret is much different than 1993. . 

 

As for the 3-4 year limit how about Nash? My memory of WCW'S later years is spotty at best, but did Nash do anything good ever besides Bret and HBK, and maybe the first year of NWO?

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Watched Wrestle War '91 on the Network last night and damn if the Luger-Spivey was not really fucking good. I remembered it being a solid match, but it was probably the best non War Games match on an excellent overall card (and I may argue it being better then War Games).

You should also watch Sting v Spivey from 89. That Spivey has a really great match shouldn't come as surprise to anyone, he was pretty fucking amazing from 89-94ish. He's a guy that deserves a good comp.

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After 92 he got hurt and wasn't the same.

 

Late 80s he was very good.

 

How many other guys were meh most of their career but had a really good 3-4 year run?

Well Sting and Rick Rude to name two. . . 

 

 

Those two weren't meh outside of their great runs.  Well Sting's been meh the last couple of years, but he's over 50, so he gets a pass on it.

 

 

Sting's great run was like 89-94 at least, that's 6 years, maybe a bit longer.

 

Luger was pretty terrible after he left WCW the 1st time.

 

And when was Rude meh? Not counting when he had a career ending back injury and could no longer wrestle.

 

Rude wasn't exactly good before 1989. . . 

 

There were green as grass Rude matches on the DVDVR Mephis set and I want to say on the Texas one as well. He still comes off as super green when teamed with Fernandez but I'd say even super green he looked better than peak era Brutus Beefcake (when teamed with Valentine).

Rude is a guy where he is able to do a ton of surprisingly high end stuff before he became a complete wrestler.

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I thought The Narcissist was Luger's best incarnation, it was the perfect gimmic for the guy and was stupidly short lived

 

I thought the same thing.  Granted I was around 12 at the time and am not remembering everything accurately, but I was completely bewildered at how Luger went from one of the bigger heels in the company to super-face overnight.  The over the top patriot gimmick seemed really forced compared to his previous act and he didn't seem as natural in the role as someone like Duggan.  Is there any word about whether the Narcissist gimmick was supposed to go longer or of the US Express thing was a sudden change?

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Luger gets unjustly shit on by the majority of people. He was great from late 88 til around 91/92 and I thought was always at least decent. Loved his character in 95/96 as Sting's partner. Yes he was unmotivated at times which WCW will do that to people but when he wanted to he could be pretty entertaining.

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Luger gets unjustly shit on by the majority of people. He was great from late 88 til around 91/92

"Great" seems like a bit much.

I don't think he was as good as Barry Windham or Dan Spivey during that period.

I've seen Butch Reed vs Ric Flair and Butch Reed v Dick Murdoch, Luger really comes off as a dime store Butch Reed opposite same opponents during this "great" time period.

I think it's pretty widely accepted that Luger is a better Flair opponent than Sting, but did Luger bring as much to plate opposite  Hansen as Sting brought opposite Vader, what are people's thoughts on Luger v Nikita vis a vis Sting v Nikita?

Luger was pretty consistently entertaining in that 88-92 period but "great" feels like a bit much.

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