Luger was a damn good top heel champion in the late 80’s. I feel like the “cerebral assassin” thing Triple H went described heel Luger in his first WCW/NWA stint. He was convincing as highly intelligent cold psychopath.Lex Luger is probably one of the top guys who can work as a Face or a Heel. I would say a ton of hate on Lex Luger from my perspective, is that Lex is what you would truly call "A Wrestling Prototype". Luger is very generic, however, when you have his best friend Sting of someone like a Hollywood Hogan, you develop this idea that Lex Luger isn't as defined... he is just generic.
One minute he can be a champion, and the other minute he can work a Midcard.
It sounds so stupid, but its true, Lex is one of the only wrestlers that I can think aside from Benoit, that doesn't need a gimmick. In the case of Lex, all you have to do is let him win most of the time but unlike how it is now, make it a convincing win. Let him work 10 mins, and show you via psychology why he goes over.
Plus he had the balls to appear on WWF programming, and then show up on WCW on the same day; one of the only people I think Vince has a SERIOUS grudge again.
But that being said, his CAW-like appearance still has me dead.
Amazing how over Luger was during that run with really no gimmick. They basically just always had him win on TV. One of my most distinct memories of any Nitro from 1996 or 1997 was Luger beating someone lower card or even jobber with a name type (Mike Enos, Greg Valentine, Jim Powers, Ray Traylor, Barbarian, etc) and always winning with his finisher.
Pretty simple formula. Have a guy look like a winner constantly and fans seem him as such.
I thought they did.
War Games 96- August 97, Luger was practically the top face on the roster.
You have him losing War Games, Sting walks out, having to go face Arn who blames him, Giant turns on NWO and nobody trusts him until Luger says he does, they win the titles only to get fukked over, Luger once again has to face the whole NWO in Uncensored (Sting comes byke though. ), wins a four corners match against his partner giving him that 1 on 1 with Hogan, Hogan ducks him and starts to try and get in his head with Rodman, Luger makes HOGAN tap out clean in a tag match, even though Rodman was the other guy in it, and from there you get to August.
The whole point was that Luger blamed himself for Sting walking out and then took a stance against NWO above anyone else. Macho got jumped a million times until he just joined. Luger was taking those beatings and kept coming back. When Giant turned on NWO, it showed growth because Luger knew that he already fukked Sting over by judging.
Then, the rest is just classic, heel running like a bytch while Luger has to wait on his shot. When it came down to it, this was like a 11-month story line. The only unfortunate thing is that they clearly had nothing for Luger even though he was objectively the biggest face after Sting. Yeah, even bigger than Flair at the time.
He didn’t step aside he got kayfabe injured in the match.Great Synopsys.
But I'd even add it goes back to Bash at the Beach 96. Remember WCW selected their 6 top guys (Sting, Luger, Macho, Hogan, Flair and The Giant) to combat the NWO and Sting, Luger and Macho were chosen to represent the WCW side. When the NWO didn't produce their "3rd man" initially the match got changed to a regular tag match and Luger stepped aside to let Sting and Macho work the match and they wound up losing because Hogan betrayed WCW. Luger blamed himself at the very beginning because had he not stepped aside, he could have been in the match fighting for WCW and from that point he swore he always would.
His character development was actually pretty amazing when you look at the key storyline points.
Theyd throw it with such precisionI just want the magic of trash raining down on a ring again