Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
In 1991, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was in a state of flux. Their reigning world champion ‘Nature Boy’ Ric Flair had just been fired/quit/resigned/let go from the company. WCW management had requested that Flair take a pay cut and in turn, would make less than some of the other talent on the roster. In response, Ric Flair went to the rival WWF and took the world title belt with him.
So with that, WCW was left without a world champion and more importantly…without a championship belt. The championship was officially declared vacant and a steel cage match was set up for The Great American Bash pay per view between two of Flair’s former top contenders. They were both babyfaces in Lex Luger and Barry Windham. According to Windham, he was booked to unseat Flair as the next world heavyweight champion.
Barry didn’t get that opportunity, because Flair was gone before that match could take place. Lex Luger was also inserted into the championship match at the Bash. Barry Windham insists that he was left completely in the dark on the finish of the match until the last minute. Rumors had it that there was a lot of backstage politics involved in the finish of the match. Mostly by Lex Luger himself.
WCW had a huge void to fill with Ric Flair (WCW’s top heel) no longer with the promotion. The decision was made to not put the belt on Windham as was originally planned and swerve the fans by having Lex turn heel and win the title. The reason Lex was chosen was because Windham had just recently turned face after a lengthy run as a heel. Windham, being a company man…went along with management’s decision without a fight.
Barry Windham felt the problem with Luger as the choice to be the company’s new top heel champion was that Lex was still a bit green as a wrestler and not very good on promos. WCW management’s answer to those issues was to give Lex a few “Bells and Whistles” as a heel. Former eight time world champion Harley Race was chosen to be Luger’s manager and mouthpiece, while Mr. Hughes was added to be Lex’s bodyguard.
The actual match wasn’t bad, but the fans loudly chanting “We want Flair” certainly hurt it. The finish was a bit anti-climatic as Harley and Hughes walked slowly to the ring and Race simply instructed Luger to use the piledriver to end the match. No interference, no handing Luger a foreign object…just telling him to use a wrestling move…and that was the heel turn.
Now as for the actual title that Lex Luger won…since Flair still had possession of the Big Gold Belt…WCW didn’t have time to create a new one. So, Dusty Rhodes took his old PWF title out of storage and used that as a temporary replacement. The PWF was a wrestling organization based in Florida which Dusty founded in 1988 and lasted until 1991. After the PWF folded, Dusty returned to WCW and was made into a senior producer.
Getting back to Lex Luger, he remained WCW champion until February of 1992 at which time he lost the title to Sting. Most of the time Luger was champion, he had his own contractual problems with WCW and sat out for several weeks while still champion. After losing the belt to Sting…Lex was soon gone from the company.