With an impressive bodybuilder’s physique and solid in-ring skills, Lex Luger was one of those wrestlers who seemed destined for the main event scene. For the most part, that proved true, as he captured several top titles in World Championship Wrestling and was a top contender for the WWE Championship during his two-year run with that company.
After an initial run lasting from 1987 to 1992 in WCW, Lex Luger returned to the company in 1995 and stuck around until the promotion closed down in 2001. During those two lengthy stints, Luger enjoyed a number of rivalries with some of the promotion’s top stars. Let’s take a look at the major ones, starting with the worst.
10 Goldberg
Lex Luger and Goldberg first clashed in singles competition in the fall of 1999, but over a year later the two would get into a full-on feud. After Goldberg defeated Luger at both Mayhem and Starrcade 2000, the rivals had a tag team match at January 2001’s Sin pay-per-view.
There, Luger and Buff Bagwell (as Totally Buffed) managed to score a win over Goldberg and WCW Power Plant coach DeWayne Bruce. One of Luger’s weaker feuds, this final match was booked to allow Goldberg time for surgery, but WCW went under before he could return.
9 Buff Bagwell
Before they formed Totally Buffed, however, Buff Bagwell and Lex Luger actually feuded with one another. In 2000, Bagwell and Shane Douglas beat Ric Flair and Lex Luger for the Tag Team Title, with Luger moving on to a feud with Bagwell, beating him in a singles bout at Slamboree.
However, that wasn’t enough for Luger — during the goofy First blood DNA Match at Halloween Havoc months later where David Flair and Buff Bagwell competed to find out who was the father of Miss Hancock’s unborn child, Luger attacked Bagwell after the bout, allowing David Flair to take a sample of Bagwell’s blood to some scientists to do testing.
8 Randy Savage
At Halloween Havoc ‘95, Lex Luger and Randy Savage had a five-minute match, with the night ending with Luger becoming a member of the villainous Dungeon of Doom faction. This led to a rematch under more contentious terms the following months at World War 3. With both bouts lasting a little more than five minutes each, these encounters ultimately failed to excite.
The two would renew their rivalry in early 1998, with Lex Luger representing WCW and Randy Savage as part of the nWo. Unfortunately, not only did the matches fare even worse the first time around, but fans had also begun to turn on Luger despite him being on a hot streak months earlier.
7 The nWo
Lex Luger was aligned with WCW against the invading nWo as early as the summer of 1996, standing alongside Randy Savage and Sting at the landmark Bash at the Beach ‘96 main event. He also joined the good guys for two other major outings: a tag match with Sting against The Outsiders at Hog Wild, followed by the War Games match against the nWo at Fall Brawl.
However, Luger always seemed like a minor character during this first phase of the angle, with his main role adding to the distrust that caused Sting to revamp himself.
6 Stan Hansen
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In May 1989, Lex Luger defeated Michael Hayes to capture his third run with the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship, kicking off a reign that lasted about 17 months. In the fall of 1990, he got into a feud with brawling cowboy Stan Hansen, who managed to dethrone the champ at Halloween Havoc ‘90 to become the new US Champion.
This wasn’t the end of their feud, however — Luger managed to win back his belt by the end of the year at Starrcade ‘90 in a Bullrope Match.
5 Barry Windham
After quitting the Four Horsemen in late 1987, Lex Luger formed a tag team with Barry Windham and defeated his former stablemates Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard to capture the NWA World Tag Team Title at the first Clash of the Champions in March 1988. However, it was only a matter of weeks before Windham turned on Luger during a rematch against Anderson and Blanchard, helping them regain the titles and joining the Horsemen in the process.
Eventually, Luger got the best of his now-rival, defeating Windham at February 1989’s Chi-Town Rumble to capture his second reign with the NWA United States Championship.
4 Nikita Koloff
Upon arriving in WCW in 1987, Lex Luger was presented as a heel aligned with the Four Horsemen but not an official member until Ole Anderson left the group. Feuding with Russian babyface Nikita Koloff, “The Total Package” was able to capture his first NWA United States Championship in a steel cage thanks to some interference from Horsemen manager JJ Dillon.
In 1991, Luger and Koloff rekindled their rivalry, albeit with the heel/face dynamics flipped, as Koloff staged an attack on Luger during a championship ceremony. The two clashed in numerous house show matches before Koloff moved on to a feud with Sting.
3 Sting
One of Lex Luger’s greatest rivals was arguably Sting, WCW’s top babyface who was often also Luger’s closest ally in the promotion. In early 1992, Luger was World Champion, but turned heel and helped out the Dangerous Alliance stage an attack on Sting out of fear that his friend would try to come after his world title.
In the following years Sting and Luger tagged frequently, but in 1999 had a full-on feud, with encounters at Starrcade ‘99 and Uncensored 2000.
2 Hulk Hogan
In 1993, Lex Luger became a patriotic babyface to fill in the Hulk Hogan-shaped gap in WWE, but in 1997 WCW the now-heel Hollywood Hogan became one of Luger’s greatest foes.
At Spring Stampede ‘97, Luger earned a #1 Contender spot for Hulk Hogan’s World Title. The feud with Hogan and the nWo made Luger one of the most popular wrestlers in the company, with Luger even dethroning Hogan to capture the title on an early August 1997 episode of Nitro, although Hogan won the belt back days later.
1 Ric Flair
Soon after turning babyface in late 1987, Lex Luger made his way to the main event scene, where he began chasing the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, which was held by Ric Flair at the time. For the most part, Luger found himself chasing the title, failing to dethrone his former Four Horsemen stablemate at the 1988 pay-per-views The Great American Bash and Starrcade.
It was his feud with Flair that legitimized Luger as a credible babyface, even though he only won the World Title after Flair left WCW in 1991.