The Lex Express or should I say the Lex Milk Run

Leading into the summer of 1993, the WWF was looking for a new leader.  Hulk Hogan had just retired/parted ways with the WWF.  Somebody thought it would be a good idea to take Lex Luger with his blond hair and big muscles and turn him into the next Hulk Hogan.

The only problem was, Lex is no Hulk Hogan.  For me personally, Lex was still “The Narcissist”.  He had only made his wrestling debut that spring at Wrestlemania IX.  The baby face turn just never worked for me.  He was not ready to win the WWF Title.

I recently read Lex Luger’s book and he himself eluded to the fact that the WWF was really trying to push him and fans were not just buying into it.  I know Lex made the best of it, but the WWF never found the right angle with Lex to make him a big star.

I think Summerslam 1993 really started to prove that “new generation” could actually carry the way.  Overall the event was great.  Razor Ramon was up-and-coming and had a good match with Ted DiBiase.  Shawn Michaels and Mr. Perfect had another great match.  Unfortunately this one had to end via a countout to carry on the feud.

For me personally, the match that stole the show was the leftover feud from King of the Ring between Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Jerry “The King” Lawler.  Jerry was another great heel.

They say that it was the attitude era where heels became cool, but I remember Ludvig Borga.  I thought he was awesome.  The way he came in and threw big menacing punches.  King Kong Buddy was the first bad guy who I thought was cool and I think Ludvig is a close second.

Now we arrive at the main event.  Lex Luger, “The American Hero” who is going to stop the monster Yokozuna.  The match was pretty unmemorable.  Then the finish.  The WWF was making a big deal about Lex having a bionic elbow that was knocking everyone out.  He was forced to wear a “protective” elbow pad so he wouldn’t have an unfair advantage.  Of course during the match the elbow pad gets ripped and Lex’s elbow is now exposed.

Lex hits Yoko with the bionic elbow knocking Yokozuna out cold and outside of the ring.  The ref begins his count and Yoko has still not moved when he reaches 10.

Lex wins.  Streamers come down – red, white, and blue.  The wrestlers come out from the back and celebrate with Lex.  And this is where I start to laugh.  I was literally laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.  Everyone is celebrating and they even put Lex on the wrestlers shoulders.  He won by countout; Yokozuna is still the champion!  Am I the only person who realizes this?

Unfortunately this is how Summerslam 1993 ended, thankfully there were many other great matches on that card.

An observant reader may notice that I skipped over The Undertaker’s Rest In Peace match with the Giant Gonzalez.  Is it just me or was the match not very memorable?

I think Lex went on to have a great career back in WCW.  Of all the wrestlers that the WWF made into superstars who came from WCW, Lex was never able to be one of them.  Not sure why.

If you are a fan of reading wrestling biographies, as I mentioned above, I have read Lex Luger’s book.  It was pretty good and honest.  However, I’m not religious and it did get quite preachy near the end after Lex became a born again Christian.