10 Times WWE Bastardised Wrestling Royalty
5. Lex Luger
Lex Luger played the face and heel role with equal success throughout his successful JCP/WCW career. It is a testament to his palpable charisma that he established himself as an enduring main event player in a company renowned for its premier workrate and discerning fanbase - Luger was notoriously limited between the ropes.
His characteristics positioned him perfectly as a WWF star-in-waiting.
Luger surely would have experienced success up north, had Vince McMahon elected to transplant him as is into the WWF landscape. Instead, Luger debuted - after a detour in the doomed World Bodybuilding Federation - as the "Narcissist" at Royal Rumble 1993. Luger, who had forged a bond with WCW audiences on the back of his energetic and interactive performances, was cast as a preening untouchable.
The persona was quickly shelved - but McMahon, still drunk on the lucrative Hulk Hogan elixir, repackaged Luger as his latest American hero. This, despite the commercial disaster that was 1991's WrestleMania VII, which proved that the jingoistic heart beating within WWE was, demonstrably, old hat.
After pushing Luger to considerable expense, McMahon had a second change of heart - cashing out on the Luger push at SummerSlam 1993, at the close of which he failed to capture the WWF Title, because fears persisted over his physique in the face of the impending steroid trial of 1994.