1996 Lex Luger Was One of the Greatest Wrestlers Ever

One thing that never stops astonishing me is how great pro wrestling was. i just kind of assumed that I was a dumb kid who was easily amused. This is actually also true, but looking back on things, there were so many guys doing great things that I did not pick up on when watching it the first time around. Lex Luger is an excellent example of this as he is basically just remembered as just a muscled-up dude who was only important because he was the only muscled-up dude WCW had. He had a good look but offered nothing else. That is definitely not the case.

I think this is partly because of The Narcissist and Lex Express era in WWE when he never really was able to build momentum, although winning the 1993 Body Slam Challenge is a legendary accomplishment that still holds up today.

Still, instead of getting him a win over Yokozuna, they found some convoluted way to instead get the belt on Bret Hart while letting Lex Luger slowly fade away.

It looked like WCW was going to use him in the same way as he debuted on the first episode of Nitro and made an impact by...standing there?

Yeah, he just stood there. I guess he kind of looked around a little bit. It kind of took away from the impact when he did finally do something in protecting Hulk Hogan from the Dungeon of Doom. Then, he challenged Hogan, lost without ever having a real chance at winning.

But then something amazing happened. Lex Luger became the most inexplicable member of the Dungeon of Doom. This sounds terrible, but it actually led to the best stretch of Lex's career. He never really split from the Dungeon, but they kind of faded away from each other. Still, Lex Luger played the gutlees heel to perfection. There is no moment that better exemplifies this than this interview with him and Sting interacting with The Road Warriors. Everything Lex Luger says here is amazing.

Quickly, here are the four best things about Lex Luger this interaction.
4. "Stinger, tell 'em I'm from Chicago."
3. When the Road Warriors come out, Luger immediately gets behind Sting.
2. "If you want a Chicago Street Fight, you got it...what is a Chicago Street Fight anyway?"
1. "We'll pro wrestle you anywhere, anytime."

We'll pro wrestle you anywhere, anytime. We'll...pro...wrestle...you...anywhere...anytime. Every word is perfect. I will never stop laughing about that sentence. I would divorce my wife and marry that sentence. This may be one of the ten best promos of all time.

One time, he missed out on a title shot, because he got stuck in traffic and couldn't make it to the arena on time. He got another title shot the next week, so he camped outside the arena the night before to make sure he wouldn't miss it again.

He still lost, but at least he had plenty of potassium.

Still, that Lex Luger was putting together things like this and was still somewhat involved with the Dungeon of Doom sucked some ass, not any fault of Luger's though. I mean, just look at what he does during Road Block's Monday Nitro debut.

Luger did get him up on the third try, but I have a feeling he would have kept dangerously dropping the poor guy and shrugging his shoulders all night long if he had to.

Somehow, 1996 Lex Luger fulfilled all of the potential that one would assume when first looking at the guy. He always had the look, but he finally combined a perfectly realized character along with a hilarious worker who endangered jobbers for the entertainment of the fans. 1996 Lex Luger, you truly were The Total Package.

How Shawn Michaels Became The Heartbreak Kid

As I go through the years of pro wrestling on WWE Network, one of the most fascinating aspects is watching how wrestlers are able to change over the years. The physical changes are obvious, but the personality changes are far more interesting. Shawn Michaels is one of the most fascinating character changes over the years. The most well-known characters that Michaels portrayed was a bland babyface as one half of The Rockers, and his portrayal as the cool guy sex symbol as The Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels. But in between there was a period where he was neither, as he switched from a babyface who didn't quite yet know how to be a heel.

Although throwing your tag team partner through a plate glass window is a great way to get heat, Shawn Michaels didn't yet know who his character really was beyond, "Bad guy." Everybody could see that he had way more potential than Marty Jannetty, but I'm not sure if anybody really knew where it was going. But he kept getting time, first with his interview show, The Heartbreak Hotel, but even then he was a little stiff. The most important thing that happened to him was when Macho Man left, and he was allowed to take over commentary on Raw for several weeks.

When he first started on commentary, he knew to take the heel perspective but didn't quite know how to talk it out. Vince McMahon may have been shitty at commentating wrestling matches, but he was always willing to set up his broadcast partners. Now some, like Rob Bartlett, took the ball and ran it into his own end zone, laid down, and shit his pants. But, Shawn Michaels slowly warmed up to talking during the matches. It started as the bad is good, good is bad trope that is easy and predictable, but he went from arrogant bad guy to conceited, self-absorbed, sex symbol bad guy, and the latter led to a very long shelf life.

I think that people remember Shawn Michaels as a great talker from his career, but that was never his greatest strength. I mean, it's not like you remember any great HBK lines outside of the lyrics to his song (which was written by Jimmy Hart). Where his real strength lied was in reacting to things as he was always comfortable giving the proper reactions whether it be with words or looks. Too many people in wrestling will agree with the guys on their side and disagree with the guys against them, but Michaels actually used some nuance. Him, Diesel, and Undertaker were going to tag together against Yokouzuna, Owen Hart, and British Bulldog. They had a promo together and Shawn and Diesel are keeping things lighthearted, and Undertaker takes it to a way darker place, and HBK gets a WTF look on his face, and then Undertaker finishes, and he goes into the "Yeah, what he said," reaction. It's subtle, but it makes him relatable instead of a caricature of how a person would react.

Although I still frequently listen to Sexy Boy, I'm not the biggest mark for HBK. Still, he had one of the ten most successful wrestling careers of all time, and that never would have happened had he not been given the chance to fail. He wasn't great at first, and had he not been able to refine his act subtly during commentary, he may never have caught on like he did.

WWE usually uses one wrestler to do commentary for one segment during Raw each week. Letting different guys take over an entire show and helping them find their voice may lead to some awkward moments, but it could also help WWE uncover the next great superstar. 

The 3 Coolest Things About WWE's Crush

The WWE Network is built for nostalgia, and I every few episodes of Raw, I will come across that a guy that I liked way too much or didn't appreciate enough. Crush falls into the former category, as I thought Crush was really cool. When watching now, I am wondering what I thought was so cool, so I decided to break down the three coolest things about Crush in the eyes of a child.

1. Demolition
I thought Demolition was awesome, because I was a WWF kid, so although I was aware that the Road Warriors were awesome, I thought Demolition was just as cool. When looking back, Hawk and Animal actually were awesome, where Axe and Smash were kind of flabby S+M-looking perverts. Anyway, Crush joined the team towards the end, so he had a lot of built in credibility from being associated with Demolition.

2. "Brudder"
A few years later he came back as a Hawaiian who said "Brudder" a lot. I thought that this was both exotic and totally badass.

3. Kona Crush
The coolest thing as a kid is also the lamest thing as an adult. His finisher was the Kona Crush where he basically just squeezed a dude's head until they gave up. The reason this is so awesome for a kid is that kids are small and weak, so being strong enough to just squeeze a man into submission is an amazing fantasy to live vicariously through a wrestler.

After a year of being a cool Hawaiian dude who beat up Doink the Clown for being mean to kids, he "hurt" his back trying to bodyslam Yokozuna and became a Japanese sympathizer, because Macho Man didn't call to check up on him while he was recovering. He then bounced around various tag teams and various organizations over the next few years until retiring due to real back issues.

Like too many wrestling stories, he passed away in 2007 at age 43. Maybe Crush wasn't built for the modern-day cynical adult, but he was still cool by me, brudder.