Happy
4th of July to all those in the US celebrating. Hope you’re having a great day of cookouts,
swimming and fireworks with the people who matter most in your life.
On
this Independence Day I wanted to look back on one of the most memorable
wrestling storylines of the Golden Age, which kicked off exactly 19 years ago
today.
The Slam Heard ‘Round the World
In
the summer of 1993, Yokozuna was on top of his game. He was the WWF Champion, and he was fresh off
of beating Hulk Hogan and sending him packing from the company at the first
King of the Ring pay per view. Feeling
supremely confident in himself, the 550+ lb champion and his manager Mr. Fuji
scheduled an open challenge onboard the historic USS Intrepid aircraft carrier
in New York for any athlete, wrestler or otherwise, to try to slam
Yokozuna. If they could do it, they won
a new Chevy pick-up truck. A number of
football players, hockey players, basketball players and wrestlers tried to slam
the mammoth champion, but nobody could. Yokozuna
taunted the contestants and the crowd by taking time out to eat rice. Then, one final contestant stepped up to the
challenge: Macho Man Randy Savage. The
crowd thought he might be the guy to do it—but it wasn’t meant to be. The champ was just too big, and he and Fuji
had succeeded in proving Japan’s superiority on July 4th.
But
just then, as the dejected crowd began to accept that it was over, a helicopter
appeared and landed onboard the Intrepid.
The crowd buzzed with excitement wondering who would step out of the
chopper to potentially save the day. It
was---Lex Luger…?!? Up to that point,
Lex had been a self-absorbed bad guy.
But on this day he was dressed in red white and blue, walking toward the
ring with a purpose, throwing long-time supporter Bobby Heenan out of the way
as he went.
When
he got to the ring, Lex had a few choice words for Yoko and Fuji, telling them
that bloodsuckers like them were the only thing wrong with America. Despite their assertions that the contest was
over, the crowd wouldn’t let the day end without Lex getting his shot. They squared off and Yoko charged, which Lex
dodged like a matador sending Yoko into the turnbuckle. As he turned around, a bit staggered, Lex
picked him up and bodyslammed him. The
crowd went wild and Luger celebrated like a mad man. Other wrestlers picked him up on their
shoulders as he waved American flags. It
was quickly dubbed “The Slam Heard ‘Round the World”.
And
with that, the Summer of Lex Luger was officially kicked off.
The Call to Action Campaign
Lex
immediately challenged Yokozuna for the title at Summerslam, but Yoko and Fuji
declined the match. So, Lex did what any
warm-blooded American would do—he took his campaign to the people. Dubbed the “Call to Action Campaign”, Lex
spent several weeks in the Summer of ’93 traversing the country on a bus called
“The Lex Express”. He was shaking hands,
kissing babies, signing autographs and making his case to the American
people. Now, why exactly he needed to
make his case to the American people when the challenger for the title was not
decided by popular vote is not completely clear. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Call to Action
Campaign produced the single most epic montage video in the history of
professional wrestling. I present to
you, “I’ll Be Your Hero”:
There
are so many great things about this video that it’s difficult to list them all.
But a few of my favorites include:
- the 80s-esque soundtrack
- the “dramatic” camera shot of the Lex Express in the distance, gradually getting closer
- Overlaid images of great Americans like a soldier, the Iwo Jima Memorial, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
- Lex wearing lightweight “stars and bars” sweats seemingly everywhere, including while sleeping on the Lex Express, hugging an American Flag pillow
- Lex flexing in front of Niagra falls
- Lex standing on top of the Lex Express and posing in front of Mount Rushmore
- Lex’s expression at 3:15
- Lex posing with a number of disabled kids
- Lex wearing a fanny pack seemingly everywhere
Eventually
the campaign accomplished its goal, and Lex was awarded his title shot against
Yokozuna at Summerslam 1993.
The Match
The
stipulations indicated that it would be Lex’s one and only shot at the WWF
tile. As the crowd at the Palace of
Auburn Hills waved flags and chanted “U-S-A, U-S-A”, Lex battled it out with
the monstrous champion. Lex eventually
slammed Yoko once more, slightly less cleanly than the Slam Heard ‘Round the
World. With his patented running forearm,
Lex was able to knock the behemoth out of the ring and win the match via
count-out. Unfortunately, the title cannot
change hands via count-out. As balloons
fell from the ceiling and “The Stars & Stripes Forever” blared, Lex
celebrated the win with other wrestlers, but it was a bittersweet victory as he
was not able to win the title.
Lex
went on to captain a team of “All-Americans” to a victory over The Foreign
Fanatics at Summerslam 1993. At the 1994
Royal Rumble, he was named co-winner along with Bret Hart, which set up a
rematch with Yokozuna for the championship at Wrestlemania X. While Luger clearly outwrestled Yokozuna and
had him pinned, special guest referee (and former Luger nemesis) Mr. Perfect
disqualified Lex for putting his hands on an official. Lex would never reach his goal of winning the
WWF title. After feuding with Tatanka
and the Million Dollar Corporation through the rest of 1994 and briefly teaming
with the British Bulldog in early 1995, Lex left the WWF to return to WCW.
Miscellaneous Thoughts
This
is one of my favorite wrestling angles of all time, because I feel that it
really captured the essence of wrestling in the Golden Age. All of the patriotism, the oversized and
seemingly unbeatable heel, the muscle-bound face, the flag-waving, the cheesy
montage… others may sneer at that paradigm for wrestling, writing it off as “wrestlecrap”. But in its time it was awesome, and I love
going back to watch it. It was an era
when wrestlers were larger than life, giants among men. And wrestling matches weren’t just contests
to see who got to wear a piece of gold around their waist, they were clashes of
the titans to determine who was the best in the world.
Conventional
wisdom among the internet wrestling fan community is that the All-American
storyline was a major failure for the WWF.
I wouldn’t deny that maybe it wasn’t exactly what they thought it would
be. From the moment the chopper began
its descent onto the Intrepid, fans clearly thought it was going to be Hulk
Hogan coming out to slam Yoko and save the day for the USA. That was perfectly logical since after all,
Hulk had wrestled at WWF King of the Ring just 3 weeks earlier, and back then
nobody had the internet to clue us in when wrestlers were changing
companies. When it was Lex who showed
up, people were clearly a bit disappointed; and since he had up to that point
been a heel, fans were not as quick to latch on to him.
WWE
put the full strength of their hype machine behind Lex, and I personally
enjoyed it. But in truth, they were
clearly trying to make Lex their new Hulk overnight which was simply impossible. Lex may have been good, but nobody can walk
in Hogan’s footsteps. You can’t just
recreate Hulkamania in the span of a month or two, no matter how good your
marketing people are. I think the summer
of 1993 probably made that clear for Vince McMahon, who prior to that liked to
think that his creativity and marketing were what really made Hulkamania
explode.
Plus,
by 1993, it wasn’t really what fans wanted anymore. It was still a few years before the formal
beginning of the Attitude Era, but by '93 fans had had enough of
super-faces. The crowd may not have been
ready for the full-out anti-hero like Stone Cold Steve Austin yet, but they’d
had enough of muscle-bound, flag-waiving, baby kissing good guys and they
wanted something different. Lex, in his stars
and bars sweatpants and fanny pack, represented more of the same. To that extent, I think WWF/Vince McMahon inadvertently
set Lex up to fail by failing to realize that consumer preferences had evolved
from the late 1980s.
But
overall, I still think that angle went fairly well. If you listen to the crowd at Summerslam
1993, they’re still very solidly in Lex’s corner. A good portion of the fans were rooting for
him to be crowned the winner of the Royal Rumble the next year and fans were
solidly behind him again at Wrestlemania X.
Whatever his reasons were, Vince decided not to go through with the
title change at Summerslam 1993, giving the fans a very unsatisfying count-out
finish instead. The common refrain about
the storyline has thus become “Well, Lex just wasn’t getting over enough. It just wasn’t working. So they couldn’t give him the title.” I disagree.
I don’t think giving the title to Lex at Summerslam 1993 would have been
a disaster at all. I think it would have
been met with a favorable reaction from the crowd, just like Bret’s title wins
in 1992 and 1994 were. The decision to
not give Lex the belt has changed most people’s perspectives on how the
storyline actually went, in my opinion.
People assume that Lex must not have been too well-received if Vince
didn’t give him the title, but in truth, the casual fan was very much behind
Lex in ‘93. I certainly have my issues
with Lex Luger, particularly around his treatment of Miss Elizabeth in the
weeks and months leading up to her death, and he doesn’t seem to have the
greatest of reputations among other wrestlers of the era. But I think his performance in the All
American role was as much as you could have asked for, and I certainly have
fond memories of what I consider to be a great summer for wrestling.
Until
next time, enjoy the musical stylings of "Rappin'" Randy Savage and M.O.M.:
Happy 4th!
