When people list who their favorite wrestlers of all time are, Lex Luger's name is never one that comes up. Any guy whose only gimmick through the years has been to wear a blond ponytail and admire how firm his own breasts are is someone that doesn't really scream "idol" to the wrestling fans in this country. On top of that, he is just a genuinely unlikable kind of guy, even when he was supposed to be portrayed as a babyface. A 1997 Massachusetts Institute for Professional Wrestling Studies focus group survey revealed the three things fans liked most about him. The following are ranked in order of most responses received.

1. The not so subtle Lex Luthor rip-off for a name.
2. The elbow slap and chicken flap thing he did when he'd signal for the Torture Rack.
3. His stubborn appearance rut in the face of the ever-changing fashion world.

Number three is exciting because Lex Luger never dolled himself up in more than the standard wrestling speedo when involved in matches. His idea of going nuts was to change from white to black tights from one night to the next. No matter what happens, Lex Luger has never and will never change this facet of his career. Scientists could develop a pair of pants that would cool the body and allow the wrestler to manufacture Big Mac's in his mouth for mid-match consumption, but Luger would still stick to his stupid little Speedo while his opponent would be in secret sauce bliss.

#2 always bugged me when he'd slap his elbow and then start flexing his arms in this strange downward motion as he strutted around the ring. If you had never seen wrestling before or perhaps were a first-time visitor to this planet, you would be excused if you thought he was a chicken with Downs Syndrome trying his best to fly away before his opponent came back to life.

Real Name: Lawrence Pfohl (No relation to Dave Grohl or the Price Pfister Corporation)
Birthdate: 6/2/1958
Promotions: WWF & WCW
Titles Held: WWF & WCW World Titles and some other crappy belts

WWF Career: Lex Luger came to the World Wrestling Federation in the early nineties after cutting his teeth in World Championship Wrestling and more specifically, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA.) His earliest character was basically an overblown version of himself known as "The Narcissist", where Luger was apparently enamored with himself and needed to look in a mirror every chance he got.

Naturally, this gimmick completely bombed because not only were wrestling fans upset about having to stomach Luger in the first place, the fact that the mirror presented them with two Lugers was enough to set some fans off. His character was supposed to make people say "I wish somebody would kick that pretty boy's ass" not the "I'm going to fucking beat his head in with a brick after the show" response that the typical wrestling fan had.

Lex wavered back to the regular Lex Luger character after the Narcissist got so bad that he was beginning to kick his own ass on his own time. However, this character (himself) was only marginally less sucky. He then told Vince McMahon one thing and did another as he was on his way to World Championship Wrestling for another run.

WCW Career: I'm not too familiar with his NWA days, so I'm just going to go out on a limb and say he did some flexing and racked a few people. Moving on to the mid-90's era, where Luger probably was the biggest in his career, we see him invade the very first Monday Nitro broadcast which eminated from the Mall of America in Minneapolis. If this

Moments later the Macho Man snapped into a Slim Jim and blinded Luger for life
shocking debut had happened two years later, the wrestling world and the live crowd would have reacted in a way fitting of a wrestler jumping ship. But that night in Minneapolis, the crowd was still trying to figure out if the wrestlers were being demonstrated and you could buy replicas down the hall, or if they had gotten some laced manocatti at Hulk Hogan's Pastamania restaurant and were on some sort of Eric Bischoff-heavy trip.

So the bewildered crowd of ten wrestling fans and 2,000 shoppers trying to figure out how to get around the ring and to Sbarro saw a jean jacket-clad Luger show up and do a lot of hardcore looking into the ring. I'm serious, I don't think I've seen anyone look harder at a ring in my life. His looking was so strong that the turnbuckles closest to him nearly undid themselves and hid in Jushin "Thunder" Lyger's underwear. Then he got in the ring or something, but by this point most of the crowd was circulating one of those decks of cards featuring fat, naked chicks that someone bought at Spencer's and had completely lost interest in the show.

Luger's next highlight was at Uncensored 1997 where there was some elimination triangle between the Four Horsemen, WCW, and the New World Order. As the nWo was kicking everybody's asses in typical fashion, Lex Luger went on a tear. It was here that he delivered the high-point of his career. As Luger started going into hyper-insane-the-nWo-is-kablooie mode, he went on a clothesline rampage. And his clothesline's were not exactly the quality that Sargent Buddy Lee Parker taught at the WCW Power Plant, this much I can assure you. Rather, Lex went in with only about half of his arm sticking out and he kept tapping his opponents, who naturally acted as though he had driven a flaming ice pick through their chests. For a move that isn't very exciting, Lex's girly clotheslines stole the show that night. The writing team briefly considered making the clothesline move the World Champion, but the "let's put the belt on something/someone ludicrous" card was saved for David Arquette a few years later.

Lex then had Hogan in the rack, mere moments from victory. But the eternal prankster Dennis Rodman, quite possibly the greatest wrestler in the history of the legendary Rodman wrestling dynasty, had other plans. He passed some mace to Randy Savage who hit Luger's eyes with it leading to a Hogan pin and an nWo win. Inexplicably the crowd was pulling for Luger to win in this match, but it was just because the clotheslines worked them into such a frenzy that the people had no choice but to cheer for him.

About a year later "The Total Package" joined the nWo Wolfpack. Luger had a stroke of good fortune here, as Konnan's inclusion in the group made sure he wasn't the most ridiculous and flamingly weird member. His run here was pretty much unexceptional, except for the fact that he wore jeans a lot of the time during interview segments.

Finisher: For someone who did his damndest to make himself unlikable, Luger did have a good finisher. Even with the Retarded Chicken Flap preceeding it, the Torture Rack was a good submission finisher. In this move, Lex would summon the powers of Colonel Sanders and would then hoist any foe, big or small, onto his back and then squeeze and hop them into saying "uncle." This move was pretty exciting and it became feared worldwide. This was evidenced as the United Nations once brokered a cease fire in Rwanda by threatening to intervene with "Lex Luger, his Torture Rack, and mirrors."

Lex Today: If given the choice, I

Luger's mug shot after Elizabeth's death. Best picture he's taken in twelve years.
don't doubt for a second that he would go back to being loathed by the public in a heartbeat. With the death of longtime girlfriend Elizabeth Hulette (Miss Elizabeth) in his house, mere weeks after being arrested for beating her, Lex fell into some hard times. Police found enough drugs in the house, of both the muscle-building and mind-altering type, to make even Michael Irvin go "Dee-aaaaaam!" When it was rumored that Lex Luger might be coming back to do some wrestling somewhere, former WWF superstar Jake "The Snake" Roberts had this to say.

"Oh, what kind of KILLER gimmick does he have this time? Oh, sorry! Clothesline somebody or give them a shot? Thank God he's not a drug addict. Wow, gee. Wow! How many people have I killed? Oh sorry!"

Never having had a "prime" in my professional wrestling career I'm not overly qualified to comment, but for a guy whose glory days involved raw hamburger in a pantyhose, I don't think Jake is overly qualified to comment, either. Add to the fact that his burger nylon days were cut short due to his bouts with the brown bottle, perhaps he should take the Dos Equis IV out of his arm before he starts calling people a murderer and a drug addict.

Just let me handle that, deal?



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