On the latest episode of Something to Wrestle With, Bruce Prichard, Prichard went into detail why Luger didn’t beat Yokozuna at SummerSlam 1993 for the WWF Championship.
Luger just turned at the time and had the “All-American” gimmick and was running the “Lex Express” your as he feuded with Yokozuna. Luger ended up beating Yokozuna but by count out and fans were disappointed. The ending saw other baby faces celebrate with Luger as if he won the championship, but he didn’t.
This eventually became the only legitimate shot Lex Luger had at becoming champion in WWF.
Prichard commented on the decision to not put the championship on Luger:
“Yeah, Vince wasn’t sold. He just wasn’t 100% sold on Lex. There was, you know, when you originally start on this journey, I think we all kind of started it with the end result being, ‘Okay, Lex beats him and that’s your guy! Okay, let’s go!’ But along the way, Lex stumbled. And he wasn’t drawing, and he wasn’t really connecting with the audience the way that we thought he should connect with the audience. And Yoko was. People were believing in Yoko. So Yoko wasn’t the, coming off the heels of WrestleMania and Hulk beating him, Yoko wasn’t the undefeated monster at this point. So we also had to rebuild Yoko. But I think the biggest, probably the biggest thing was, Vince wasn’t sold on Lex 100%. He wanted to build Lex more, and see if Lex could withstand the test of time. So his idea was, ‘Well, we’ll just keep going with Lex, we’re gonna keep pushing him. And if they’re gonna get behind him, they’ll get behind him on the chase.’ And that decision was made well ahead of you know, the show taking place.”
Bruce went on to explain the booking of the match between Yokozuna and Luger:
“So we knew what we were doing, but it just — I don’t know. I just didn’t feel it, you know what I mean? You know how sometimes, you get there and it just — there was nothing there. It was kissing your sister. He won, yay. It was a f**king count-out. And I think that’s the way the audience felt. I think the audience felt deflated, and they were like, ‘Okay, they’re holding him up on their shoulders. He’s a hero, but he didn’t win the belt.’”
Credit goes to Something to Wrestle and h/t to 411mania.com for the transcript.
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