Ask 411 Wrestling: Who’s To Blame For Lex Luger’s Failures?

Welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling, the only Wrestling Q&A column you need, if you’re not that into wrestling trivia!

If you are, then clearly you’ll need more, I’m sure you can find some.

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The Trivia Crown

Who am I? The nearest connection to the guy above is we were in a giant multi-person match together once. A former champion in TNA, my WWE run didn’t see any gold come my way. I once lost a match to a former reality TV star. I did manage to get a win over the Kings of Wrestling in ROH, though. I’ve helped to humilate Michael Cole one time in his heel run, I’ve wrestled in Japan a lot with someone that shares my last name despite us not being related, and I’ve recently worked with the likes of Joey Ryan, Christopher Daniels, and Johnny Mundo. Oh, and my appearances in WWE video games have a unique twist on them. Who am I?

No-one get this one? OK.

She was in the 2012 Royal Rumble with Sheamus. KO/KO Tag champ in TNA, no gold in WWE. Once lost a match to Jessie Godderz. Beat the KOW in a tag match at ROH “Hate: Chapter II”. Humiliated Cole in the above Royal Rumble, teamed with Aja Kong a lot, was in GLOW with those three men. Appearing in more WWE Video Games than actual WWE matches, I am Awesome Kong.

Who am I? I’ve beaten Shawn Michaels, Demolition, Sting, Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, The Great Muta, Steve Austin, Ric Flair, Chris Jericho, AND David Flair!

That’s all you get.

Getting Down To All The Business

Nelson asked about more short reigns, which I’ll cover next week, but for now, one specific one.

What was up with Luger’s 6 day reign in 97? Was this just to pop a buy rate? I recall being excited when he won and feeling a gut punch when he lost it back to Hogan, despite expecting it.

Not so much a buyrate as a rating, coupled with Luger being OVER at the time.

Hogan/Sting was the endpoint. But Sting wasn’t there in the ring every night for WCW. Luger was, and he had become the main WCW guy, Giant close behind, but Giant had gone to and from the nWo already, Luger was the loyal guy who people were getting behind. So if a couple of guys who are working with Luger a lot and have the ears of those in power…

They push for it, and you have a big show like the 100th Nitro, which is a special three hour long edition for the first time, why not have the hot guy people are behind win the title, get the big reaction in front of as many eyes as possible? Same logic behind Goldberg winning the title from Hogan on Nitro.

Unlike Goldberg, though, where it should have been the start of a long push to rebuild the company because he was the best bet, with Luger… You still had Sting. Hogan/Sting was the money match, and so Hogan would have to get the belt back at some point, and the longer he doesn’t have it, the less the Sting match means. So of course he has to win it back ASAP, so that Hogan/Sting isn’t ruined too much.

That’s the diplomatic explanation. I mean, certainly if you want to take a more cynical view, this is Hall and Nash getting a guy they work with a lot a big moment so that when they work them later it means more, and also short-circuiting the big Hogan/Sting match a little, which will make them look better in the end…

I don’t think that’s the reality, I do think this was born from a place of Luger being the hot ticket, so why wouldn’t you put the belt on him for the big moment… I see the argument. I probably wouldn’t have done it, I’d have stuck to the Hogan/Sting money train, but then I’d have had Sting win in 90 seconds at Starrcade regardless of how he looked or was feeling or if I now had Bret, so I’m obviously a little biased.

Who do you most blame for Luger never reaching his potential? Luger himself? Booking? Trump?

No, I think in this case Trump is mostly innocent.

Luger as a wrestler, as a draw, was somewhat failed on almost every side, nothing ever really went totally right with him. Some of that is on him, but most of it isn’t, at least as far as we know.

There are points where Luger was lazy, mostly in NWA/WCW, where he would coast and assume that because he looked like he did, and because he wasn’t a total idiot, that he’d be world champion soon enough and make all the money.

However, the main faults with Luger were down to booking. He got a bit of a reputation of being a choker in NWA/WCW for not getting the big win over Flair, which was part of the Flair/Herd issues, as well as Sting’s knee injury and stuff… And then when he did win the title, they turned him heel because clearly he had to be Ric Flair now, as opposed to being Lex Luger. That run saw him get very lazy too before leaving, but that’s understandable.

Summerslam 93 is the main focal point of Luger’s failure though, and that’s totally on Vince. Look, don’t get me wrong, Luger as Hogan 2.0 wasn’t the greatest success in the history of ripping yourself off, there was a certain amount of round peg, square hole about it, but at the end of the day, people were somewhat on board with Luger winning the title at Summerslam, and had he done so, it might have worked. Not to Hogan levels, but enough that Luger wouldn’t be labelled as a failure and a choker, quite possibly. Bret wasn’t the pick that everyone wanted, Bret was the guy people turned too when Luger dragged out.

Like a lot of cases in wrestling, you can argue that Luger didn’t do as good a job as he could have to get himself over, that if he’d worked harder, smarter, better, he’d have had a greater career. And like in a lot of cases in wrestling, there is an aspect of truth to that, in that very rarely in wrestling is any angle or feud or match totally unsalvageable. It’s just that it takes a best of the best of the best to do that with some stuff.

With Luger, a lot of his ups and downs are in part because of his own attitude, sure. But the really big valleys? That’s on the bookers. But then again, sometimes what’s best for one specific talent, wouldn’t be the best for the company, so sometimes you gotta sacrifice a guy…

But yeah, Summerslam 93 is still totally on Vince.

Joseph asks why there isn’t more scholarly work on wrestling.

Hi my question this time is little involved. I understand that wrestling is this sort of strange hybrid of performance art and athletic competition. Sports entertainers and all that. Here is my question. Wrestling has been around in various incarnations for a long time now. Why is there no wrestling criticism. As far as I can tell there is very little scholarly work about pro wrestling. Other art forms or mediums like , jazz, Rock music, hip hop, film, even video games to a certain extent, and that’s a new medium as well, these have people that are dedicated to publishing works that analyze and try to really get into some of the deeper concepts about these things and what makes them great or poor. I’m not familiar with every single thing that I just mentioned, but I feel like professional wrestling is lacking a little bit. With the exception of the stuff that Len Archibald publishes here and some references in Roland Barthes stuff I don’t see a lot of it out there. First of all, am I missing something? Are they out there and I can’t find it? Second, why do you think this is? Wrestling can’t be that indecipherable, that unworthy of critical analysis and serious thought . . . .right?

Professional Wrestling is a totally unique artform, with elements taken from everything from arcade video games through to Greek tragedy, and at the same time, Professional Wrestling is a totally unique business. It’s been around for many years, gone through evolutions, revolutions, rises, falls, everything in-between, and at the end of the day, it’s still just about two people, a ring, and a crowd.

So surely it can be analysed, and deconstructed, and examined, right? Yes and no. Anything can be looked at through the prism of critical analysis, and you can absolutely find elements and aspects that stand up to intense, deep consideration. Small moments can be part of long storylines, intended or not.

However, you’ll find that most of the critical thinking done about wrestling tends to be less about the in-ring stuff itself as it is about the impact of the industry as a whole, or a certain aspect of a career or a style in wrestling itself, rather than examining specific matches or feuds. Not to discount that style, that’s totally valid and important, but wrestling has too many moving parts, at times.

If you go to the cinema to watch a film to analyse it, but halfway through the projector breaks and you have to wait twenty minutes to see the end, or the whole thing is slightly out of focus, or there’s a crying baby behind you, that’s not really a fault of the film, and probably should be included in any deep examination. But in wrestling, the most intricate, deep, nuanced match could have a crowd of drunken bikers who just boo one guy because he’s black. Do you include that, or ignore that? What about a botch, do you include that? It wasn’t intended, wasn’t planned, not part of the story, but it happened, so it is part of the story, but they try to ignore it, so do you ignore it too?

I’m not a deep critical thinker, at least in terms of this style of analysis. Part of the reason I don’t do recaps/reviews, I’m not great at that type of examination. But there have been several people write in over the… geez, nine years, give or take, that I’ve been doing this column, on and off. They’ve been working a university paper on wrestling, or an essay on it, or what have you, it does exist. But in terms of mainstream stuff, the best you get is youtube videos and articles in Rolling Stone and the like. Again, valid, especially in the modern age, but not on the same level as other artforms, sure.

Then there’s the long list of reasons why wrestling isn’t respected, because of the notion it’s just for redneck idiots, or that people don’t know it’s fake, or that it’s all got drugs and sex, or that it’s just violent crap, etcetc. The usual complaints, which aren’t that common, but which do exist. Some people do think like that.

But to bring this back to home, there are some articles and people out there, of varying quality, but you’re not missing some obvious big name, outside of maybe Meltzer, when he’s got something solid to write about, and of course many of the fine fellow writers here on 411mania, cheap plug. Perhaps a reader below may share a name that I’m forgetting.

And I do feel that wrestling does have room and a need for deep critical analysis, absolutely. It’s just that it’s a niche market, and it requires drawing up the lines for the analysis, and that can be tricky. There’s no standard way of looking at wrestling, and in fact, that’s not going to happen, so critical thinking is already behind the 8 ball.

But hopefully we get some more of it sooner rather than later.

Paul asks about who’s doing the work.

Question about moves where the opponent needs to do a lot of the work. This begins with a question about the flip sell of a clothes line. Who does most of the work there? Is the person doing a back flip, or is the person jumping and getting spun? From there, with moves like the Canadian Destroyer or the Code Red, who is doing the work? I would imagine a person practices his finisher a lot, but if the opponent is doing the work, how does that go? Does everyone just practice a Destroyer just in case they face Williams or Indy Cena?

To be honest, pretty much every move in wrestling requires the person taking it to do a good chunk of it. Be it the reaction to a punch, through to knowing how to fall off a ladder head first, it’s not like you’re just going limp and letting the other person do things. So I’d say almost every move has the person taking it do a lot of work.

However, let’s take the moves in turn.

Flip bumps are mostly the person taking it flipping, yes. That sort of situation, you can’t be sure that you’re going to get enough momentum from the person throwing the line to flip you over, and thus to avoid landing on your head, you put enough bounce in your flip to get over, and any extra you get from the other guy is just a bonus.

So I understand.

The Destroyer and Code Red and those sorts of move, you don’t tend to practice taking the move specifically, you instead practice taking a backflip bump, or with Code Red, it’s pretty much just a standard back bump, you just need to hold onto the other guy. So everyone knows how to do a back bump, and you learn how to base people for stuff, usually things like headscissors and the like, with Code Red, it’s not that complex a thing. Now sure, if you know you’re gonna take one and you’ve not done it before, you’ll get some practice in, either at training or on the day, unless you’re rushed or working injured, most people will go through a run-through or anything too complex or that they’re not sure of, if they need it.

So no, you don’t learn how to take every single move. What you do is you learn how to protect yourself in as many situations as possible, and then you adapt that training to the move at hand. Some moves, that’s just throwing your head back to indicate you’ve been punched, other times… You know how to land on your goddamn head off a ladder.

Viva Nate asks if there was a bear that was burnt. Maybe they’re going through Daryl withdrawls.

Love your column, and always look forward to reading it! My question: Am I crazy, or back when the Undertaker/Kane angle first started, wasn’t there something to do with part of a doll that was burnt in the fire at the funeral parlor that Paul Bearer used in a promo? Maybe Undertaker had the other half, or recognized the half Bearer and Kane had? It was a blip in the big angle, but nobody I talk to seems to remember it. Thanks!

Hmm. I remember the bear from the Undertaker/Vince angle, that was supposed to be Steph’s childhood teddy bear as part of Vince’s master plan to get the world title off of Steve Austin… Which he didn’t have at the time.

And I know Paul Bear…

…

Oh, you mean this?

21st of June, 1997. Paul Bearer had Kane’s burnt half of their Grim Reaper doll/necklace, that Kane and Taker shared and had a bond over. Taker didn’t respond to this in any way, hence why it wasn’t a big deal, but yeah, it happened.

Pedro asks about a belt.

Hi MATT, as often, an old school question: 1982, ROCKY III. Was the belt used by Thunderlips (Hogan) in Rocky III made exclusively for that film, or it is from a recognized firm…???

Here’s the title belt.

It was made exclusively for the film by famed belt maker Reggie Parks. It supposedly was also the basis for the Hogan 84 WWF title belt, although that’s somewhat debated. But then, since both of those were made by the same guy…

Hogan still has the Rocky 3 belt, he got it touched up by Reggie a while back, apparently. But yeah, it was a totally new belt made for the film, but might have been a precursor.

G wonders why Scott Steiner wasn’t liked.

Why do you believe the WWE fans crapped on Scott Steiner in 2003? He was booed out of the building at Royal Rumble 2003 and at No Way Out. WWE quickly demoted him to the mid card, and they even kept him off the WrestleMania 19 card, and he was eventually released. Did he just not have it anymore?

The issue was that Steiner was nowhere near physically able to perform to that level, at that time.

See, like most WCW big names, Steiner waited out the AOL-Time Warner contract, and then he did the WWA stuff and a few spot shows here and there, but unlike most of the WCW big name, Scott was nowhere near 100%. He’d suffered nerve damage in his foot in the last few days of WCW, and six months prior to signing to WWE, he’d be diagnosed with Drop Foot Syndrome. Basically one of his feet was totally paralysed, and the feeling would supposedly eventually return to it, with physical therapy, but after he left WWE he got surgery to repair it. He probably would have done that at the time, but WWE was kinda desperate in 2002/3, as they really wanted to get the WCW audience back before it was far too late. So they offer Scott Steiner a contract too big to turn down, and brought him in.

Steiner, for better or worse, got over as a risky, arrogant, heel show off. WWE made him a scripted, tightly controlled face.

Coupled with that, Steiner was physically limited, as was HHH, as he was dealing with a partial torn right quad muscle from the Armageddon PPV. Thus you had the weeks of push up challenges and various non physical activities.

Then in the match, it goes on for far too long, with Steiner in a role not suited to him, where he’s physically limited, and Hunter seems to be holding back as well for fear of reinjuring his quad. That leads to Steiner relying on the overhead suplex.

And that sealed it, as it became clear that he just didn’t have anything in the tank. So the fans turned on him, and thus the match. He never really recovered from that first disastrous outing, even turning back heel didn’t really work in the end. The fans saw through the issues he was having and weren’t impressed, and WWE eventually moved him down the card by necessity, while they slotted Booker in as the makeshift HHH opponent until Goldberg turned up.

Like I said, they really wanted the WCW audience back.

Steven asks is CM Punk should have thanked Rocky.

My question is simply this, CM Punk title reign. If Rock didn’t announce on Raw 1000 he was challenging for the title would CM Punk have kept it that long. It’s seems like they just had to get through month to month til the rumble so could put it on Rock. People complain that Rock ended a great Reign but I think it was because of him CM Punk held it for so long. Your opinion? Thanks

Well yeah. I mean, Punk himself said that if he hadn’t agreed to turn heel that Bryan would have won the title off him and Bryan would have lost the belt to Rock at the Rumble and I actually want to see that match. But yeah, obviously on a basic brass tacks level Punk only held the title that long because they wanted Rock to get it at that specific show, and Punk holding the belt seemed to be working OK, and having Rock end a long run like that was cooler, sure. So that’s a valid point to make.

But it’s not the whole picture. The argument Punk made at the time was that Rock was a part time deal, he’d vanish after Wrestlemania. So instead of putting the focus and the spotlight and the main event on a guy who won’t be there next week, why not focus on the guys who WILL be there the night after? Plus, to be fair, the Punk/Cena Raw match would have been a better WM match than Rock/Cena 2 was.

But the flip side of that, is that Cena/Rock got more attention, more eyeballs, more views, and thus more money. Plus, better to get more eyeballs and hook some of them on the product than risk just satisfying the fans you have. But on the flip flip side, you can’t build new stars without using the older ones to help them, and did Cena really need the rub there?

It’s a complex question, because it comes down to the age old issue of risking missing money now for maybe more money later, or do you get more money now since later on you’ll have the same amount anyway? Wrestling throughout history has tried to find the right balance between money today and money tomorrow. Punk was firmly on the tomorrow camp at the time, while WWE was on the today side. Neither was wrong, neither was right. Just different.

Aedonix asks if there was a slip on the second WM.

I was re-watching WM2 for the first time in years when the obligatory womens match came on. It was The Fabulous Moolah vs. Velvet McIntyre. I couldn’t help but notice that the ending was VERY rushed with Moolah going for a very (the only word i can use to describe it) “smothering” pin and then what looked like Velvet ‘rearranging’ herself in the background post-match.

Did we witness Velvet’s “Wrestlemania moment”? and the match had to be ended prematurely? or was this always the intended outcome for the bout that it should be short, quick and Moolah go over after a couple of snap mares and a missed splash? or maybe it was supposed to be much more than it was. Keep up the awesome column

It was originally meant to be longer, yes. Although a missed splash was, at the time, a finish, especially in the women’s division, the match was called short very quickly. The rumor/wish was that Velvet’s outfit broke, or she just fell out, and hence the cover/finish, to stop her from showing off too much about 15 years prior to that being a thing.

But the actual answer is much less interesting. They were running long, the whole ‘three venues at once’ gimmick was a hell of a thing to be pulling off, and they were running long at that point, so they cut the women’s match down a lot, as they also did to Kirchner/Volkoff right afterwards.

And finally, Nightwolf asks about a specific promo.

Can you give the story about the” Promo Heard Round the World” by Doug Gilbert?

I’ve never heard of it being referred to as such, but I assume you mean this one, the one where he accused Jerry Lawler of various things.

Ok, so the year was 1999. The territories weren’t quite dead, but Memphis was pretty much the last one standing of the old guard. Power Pro Wrestling was the company that was continuing the tradition of the CWA before it, similar time slot and venue, even had Dave Brown on commentary. Jerry Lawler had endorsed the company, although it’s not clear if he owned a stake or not.

But business was slow, and this ECW thing over on the coast was doing well by working with ‘shoot’ promos and the like. So, the thought was to incorporate that.

Brian Christopher, the son of Jerry Lawler, in-between WWF gigs, was teamed up with Spellbinder, who you may know as the short lived WWF wrestler Phantasio. They were the bad guys, and the two heroes fight them were Doug Gilbert, and Tommy Rich, the slightly pudgy defenders of old school wrestling manhood.

Doug was over in Japan for a couple weeks, and during that time, Christopher and Spellbinder had taken to mocking Gilbert and Rich, cutting very close to the bone with Christopher playing Gilbert and ranting about Jerry Lawler blackballing him out of WWF, and the next week playing his mother while claiming he was fathered by the ice-cream man.

Pretty stiff worked-shoot stuff. But the parents and the brother references really crossed the line for Gilbert, when he saw it when he got back to the States. So, dude’s flown halfway round the world, still jetlagged, seen some worked shoot stuff that’s crossed a line, then still tired and sore and pissed off, he goes to TV, and is told to do a worked-shoot promo in response to the previous weeks’ stuff.

The result is taking about Spellbinder taking steroids, Brian Christopher being Lawler’s son (both fair for worked shoots), the promoter of the company, Randy Hales, not cutting him off because he was busy smoking crack (crossing a slight line, but defendable) and then… saying Lawler raped a 13 year old girl.

That obviously got them cut off.

Now, to cover that bit, a 13 year old girl did once accuse Lawler of raping her, that was why he vanished from WWE for a while in 93, to deal with that issue. Now, she did recant her accusations, but especially in Memphis, while the steroids thing was fair for a worked shoot, and Lawler being Brian’s dad was not something the fans wanted to think about but were willing to, the accusation was something that, despite the recanting, with Lawler’s history of dating younger women… It was very uncomfortable.

Doug now regrets that line, he feels he should have left Lawler out of it.

Suffice to say, Gilbert was fired, and PPW went out of business soon after, when the law cracked down on their insurance and shoddy studio safety levels. But that’s the short of it, it wasn’t a case of Gilbert just losing his mind one week, there was clearly a push to a worked shoot scenario, but he got worked-shooted into being shoot angry, and so worked his work-shoot into a shoot that got him shot.

And on that note, goodnight for now. See you next week. Unless I’m now shot too.