The Turning Point
After Yokozuna vanquished Hulk Hogan at the King of the Ring, the WWE took full advantage of the Japanese character, with Yokozuna announcing a “celebration” on Independence Day, challenging any American athlete to bodyslam him. The challenge would take place on the USS Intrepid in New York City, with a wrestling ring being set up on the aircraft carrier. A variety of WWE wrestlers and professional athletes took part in an effort to dethrone the 500-plus pound champion, with everyone from the Steiner Brothers (with Rick instead trying to do a belly-to-belly suplex instead of a bodyslam), to Crush, to “Macho Man” Randy Savage, to Tatanka… and a load of NFL players all coming up short.
Just as Yokozuna and his manager, Mr Fuji, celebrated their continued dominance over the USA, a helicopter descended onto the USS Intrepid, and out stepped Lex Luger, dressed up in the stereotypical/patriotic Star Spangled shirt. The jacket alone made Luger a babyface, with the fans watching on completely forgetting that until now, the only thing he was supposed to have been in love with was himself. Pushing his one-time manager Bobby Heenan aside, Luger strode into the ring, threw out Mr. Fuji, whacked Yokozuna with his loaded arm* and then bodyslammed the WWE champion.
(* for the uninitiated, that is not wrestling hyperbole – as a result of Luger’s 1992 motorcycle accident, he had a metal plate inserted into his forearm. This became a part of his wrestling character in WWE, where he would knock out opponents with a forearm smash, leading to an ongoing trope where he’d wear an elbow pad over his forearm, before pulling it down and hitting the forearm as he cheated to win. As the Narcissist, this was the most despicable thing ever; but as the patriotic red-white-and-blue Luger, it was suddenly the greatest thing ever. Go figure)
Where This Headed
On the night night’s episode of Raw, a quarter of the show was dedicated to the Bodyslam Challenge and the reboot of Lex Luger as the All American Replacement of Hulk Hogan. Quietly snuck into that episode of Raw was a one-liner from Vince McMahon, noting that Luger immediately challenged Yokozuna for the title, but was quickly shot down. In the build up to SummerSlam 1993, Luger was granted his title match, but on two conditions: no rematches, and his loaded forearm had to be kept covered up.
With the title match set, WWE went to work on cementing Luger’s popularity. For the weeks leading up until SummerSlam, Luger travelled across the United States on a tour bus, almost as if he were campaigning to be the next president of the United States. Decked out in the American flag, the Lex Express would take Luger across the country, stopping at a multitude of locations for photo ops, fan interactions and press appearances, with Luger invariably decked out in a choice from his wardrobe of American flag Zubaz, American flag shirt or some other item of apparel bearing the stars and stripes. The WWE’s intentions were extremely simple: they wanted to make sure that there was absolutely no chance that he would be booed when he rolled into Auburn Hills, Michigan. Were this to have happened twenty years later, things may not have been so foolproof, but back in 1993, fans were quick to forget the Narcissist, and eager to embrace the patriotic Luger. The tour ended at SummerSlam, with a jingoistic main event that would have made Donald Trump proud.
Before the competitors came out, Akio Sato (formerly one half of the WWE’s Orient Express tag team) was brought out as a flag bearer as the Japanese national anthem was sung to (predictable) boos. WWE then wheeled out “Macho Man” Randy Savage along with Aaron “Don’t confuse me with Adrian” Neville, who sang the Star Spangled Banner to the expected cheers of the Michigan masses. Of course, the end game here was Luger’s WWE title match with Yokozuna… and since WWE had sunk so much time and money into promoting Luger as a top babyface, you’d have expected the former Narcissist to have walked away with the title, right?
Wrong! During the match, WWE played up the July 4th bodyslam challenge, with Luger initially unable to hit a bodyslam on Yokozuna at the start of the match (yet was able to do so later on, despite taking a beating), before ending up using his “loaded” forearm smash on Yokozuna to gain the victory. However, that forearm knocked the champion out of the ring, and since the challenger didn’t look to a) revive him or b) get him back into the ring before the ten-count, Luger ended up with the win, but not the title, in what must surely be one of the first recorded incidents in modern times of the “dumb babyface phenomena” that seems to be plaguing characters these days.
Despite having a “no rematch” clause in his contract, Luger was happy to celebrate taking the count-out win – as were the babyface roster, seemingly unaware that Yokozuna remained WWE champion. Still, at least WWE managed to make use of all of those red, white and blue balloons, even if they weren’t going to crown a new champion!
The Months That Followed
Thanks to the “no rematch” clause, Luger would move onto a feud with WWE’s number two “evil foreigner” heel, with Ludvig Borga being slotted into the feud as the WWE built up to a “All Americans vs. Foreign Fanatics” elimination match at that year’s Survivor Series, with the Americans of Luger, the Undertaker and the Steiner Brothers overcoming the foreigners of Yokozuna, Borga, Crush and Jacques (of the Quebecers).
Luger would get another shot at the WWE title, after being declared a joint winner of the 1994 Royal Rumble with Bret “Hitman” Hart. However, Luger’s WrestleMania title shot would end in a disqualification loss against Yokozuna after Luger pushed special referee Mr. Perfect; although the repeat of that storyline from a year earlier was dropped due to injury, so Luger drifted off into a feud with Crush as Bret Hart claimed the WWE title by defeating Yokozuna. Luger’s main event run was all but over, but his All American character was not, as WWE paired up Luger with the British Bulldog to form the Allied Powers. The duo would have some success, but were unable to lift the tag team titles, as Luger and the Bulldog fell to Owen Hart and Yokozuna at the In Your House event in July 1995, with Luger succumbing to Yokozuna.
Dissension was being teased between Luger and the Bulldog, most likely leading to yet another reincarnation of the “America vs. foreign heel” storyline after the Bulldog’s heel turn on an episode of Raw. However, as Luger’s WWE contract expired, plans changed in a big way, as Luger walked out of the company and became the proverbial first shot fired in the Monday Night Wars. Appearing on the debut episode of WCW Monday Nitro, Luger slammed the book closed on a WWE run that looked promising, but in the end yielded no titles and became the shorthand for “missed opportunities”.
Summary
Those of us looking at the modern-era of wrestling are no doubt familiar of the endless twists and turns when it comes to storylines, particularly in building up title challengers. However, the mega-push that was given to Lex Luger in 1993 without a pay-off had the whiff of a plan that was thrown together in haste, and dropped without any clear reasoning why. Of course, had this taken place in 2013 instead of 1993, any cancellation to the push would have been much easier to do as WWE would have been able to a) pull Luger off the road, b) devise an alternative main event and c) get Luger into another storyline.
However, the end result was that in the light of his count-out victory at SummerSlam 1993, fans viewed Luger as a failure. All of the goodwill that was bought by the Lex Express tour was tossed aside – after all, you remember your first time, and the fact was that Luger had been given a shot at the title with the stipulation of “no rematches”. The moment had passed, and even though Luger did get a second shot, WWE’s failure to strike whilst the proverbial iron was hot killed his credibility.
Luger’s defection to WCW made him a persona non grata amongst the folks at Titan Towers for many years, and although relations have now improved to the point where Luger’s now appearing as a talking head on WWE video releases, you can’t help but wonder just what could have been had the result at SummerSlam been so different. Would he have been rejected anyway by the fans as Hulk Hogan 2.0 (in much the same way that Roman Reigns struggled when he was written to be the next John Cena), or would it have worked? Alas, we will never know.