Over the years, I’ve become a HUGE fan of Lex Luger, which is ironic as I wasn’t a big fan of his when he was actually in the ring. Over the years, though, seeing how he has used his fame to try to help others in life, yeah, I’m a big fan of his. Going back and looking at his career as I have, though, there’s a lot of fun stuff. Not just the things everyone remembers, but other eras, like his wacky overacting in late era WCW. Just thinking about how he’d get bug-eyed and oversell EVERYTHING he was told makes me laugh.
Also great: his early days when he’d demolish every geek in his path. That’s what we’ll be reviewing here today as he takes on The Marauder. Two notes here: one, yes, early in his career he was LugAr, with an A, not LugEr, with an E. That was common, and you’d see in magazines all the time. Not as usual was losing his first name, as here the chyron just reads LUGAR.
Rest assured this is the man we’ve all come to know and love though. He rips off his shirt to reveal his musculature, and while he’s not QUITE as jacked as he would eventually be, you can see why fans saw this and immediately thought MONEY.
So the match starts and we get lots of rookie level clobberin’. A shoulder block in the corner comes next, and then an Irish whip setting up a clothesline.
We get more punchy kicky action, then a big ol’ bearhug. Lex then gives us a three point stance (!!!) and another shoulder tackle. He then body slams Marauder. You can almost see the gears spinning in the big guy’s brain as he figures out how this wrestling thing actually works.
He then tries out a Boston crab (!!!!!!!!). To be fair, Luger is actually from Buffalo, so maybe he would have renamed it. Kinda a moot point though, as it looks pretty daggum horrible, which likely explains why we almost never saw that from him again.
Wash rinse and repeat at this point, with the only thing you’ve not seen yet in this match being an elbow to a guy on his knees. That’s bizarre…
…but we’ve all seen much worse.
It winds up with Lex picking Marauder up for what looks to be a power bomb, but ends up being a back breaker and that’s the finish. Of course Lex would switch to the torture rack, and go on to have a stellar career. But it’s always fascinating to see where it all began!