1993 marked an unusual time in WWE history. Hulk Hogan had seemingly left the company, only to come back and not quite connect with fans the way he once had. Bret Hart, despite his obvious talent, hadn’t exactly thrived as a box office draw in his first world title reign. The company turned to Lex Luger, situated in an American hero gimmick opposite Yokozuna. The results weren’t exactly stellar. Between Luger’s performance and the fans’ reactions to him, it all turned out to be a flop.
The Narcissist Lex Luger Gets A Reboot
After a stint as a bodybuilder in WWE’s World Bodybuilding Federation, Lex Luger got up and running as a proper Superstar, wrestling under the moniker The Narcissist. The arrogant heel was positioned as an upper mid-card talent, and after beating Mr. Perfect at WrestleMania 9, looked as though he could transition into the main event.
However, WWE took a sharp turn with his booking over Independence Day. Yokozuna staged a body slam challenge on the deck of the USS Intrepid and after a cavalcade of babyfaces came up short in slamming the behemoth, Luger arrived via helicopter and got the job done. Over night, he transformed into a new version of himself--a patriotic babyface and the number one contender challenging for Yokozuna’s WWE Championship.
The Lex Express Bus Tour
The effort to get Lex Luger over as the top babyface memorably included him climbing into the Lex Express tour bus to make appearances and do autograph signings across the country. While a bit over the top, the concept wasn’t without some merit to give Luger the opportunity to connect individually with fans, and the production crew the chance to film him and assemble patriotic montages, selling him as an American hero.
As Bruce Prichard discussed on his podcast, however, Luger didn’t live up to all of management’s hopes. There were inherent difficulties of positioning someone as the top babyface without any build, not to mention asking fans to cheer someone, rather than organically following whom the crowd cheered for. That issue became insurmountable when, rather than rise to the challenge, Prichard described Luger as not being great at connecting with fans or embracing the opportunity he had been given—all in all, showing the first cracks in his main event push.
The SummerSlam 1993 Main Event Between Lex Luger And Yokozuna Ended Inconclusively
For the NWA Championship and quite a few other major titles throughout wrestling history, the traditional wisdom has been that “the money is in the chase.” The idea is that, rather than having a babyface reign as a champion, its better to focus on heel champs with heroes in hot pursuit, always coming close, but rarely prevailing. WWE has presented an exception to this philosophy, with cornerstone champions like Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund, and Hulk Hogan prior to 1993, and dominant babyface champs like Steve Austin and John Cena serving as the faces of the company later on.
WWE diverged from its typical practices at SummerSlam 1993, though. While Lex Luger did, technically, defeat Yokozuna, it was via count out so he didn’t take home the title. Luger continued to chase, feuding with the WWE Champion straight to WrestleMania 10. By some accounts the idea was to extend the story for Luger to have his coronation at the biggest show of the year—paying off the long chase in Madison Square Garden. By contrast, others have argued that Luger not taking the title at SummerSlam was a choice rooted in management not being sure about him yet, and taking a wait and see approach to how well he could get over before giving him the title.
The Lex Express Experiment Ends At WrestleMania 10
Lex Luger and Bret Hart emerged as co-winners of the 1994 Royal Rumble. The most straightforward story would have been Luger winning and paying off his long feud with Yokozuna by beating him for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania. Hart meditated on this shift in direction in his book, including suggesting that WWE was waiting to see how fans responded to Luger and Hart respectively as each man laid claim to winning the Rumble.
So, the experiment of American hero Luger as the face of the company came to an end at WrestleMania 10. Rather than working the main event, Luger lost to Yokozuna (albeit via heel referee shenanigans on the part of Mr. Perfect) in the middle of the card. Rather than staging his own celebration to end the show, Luger was the first babyface to run to the ring and congratulate Hart when he, instead, picked up the big pin over Yokozuna.
Lex Luger hung around WWE through WrestleMania 11. He was just getting going with his Allied Powers tag team with Davey Boy Smith that looked poised to challenge Yokozuna and Owen Hart for the tag titles, when Luger abruptly jumped ship to WCW. Freed of the forced patriot gimmick, Luger seemed much more at home in a tweener role, or as an outright heel. While his strength and awesome physique remained focal points of his wrestling career, it was as The Total Package rather than as an American hero riding the Lex Express that he achieved his greatest successes in the business.