10 WWE Stars Who Failed As The Number One Guy

10. Lex Luger

When Hulk Hogan left the WWF in 1993, the company didn't really know what to do. Hogan was all they had ever really known. Going way back to the days when Vince McMahon abandoned the old territory system and got WWF programming syndicated nationally, McMahon was only able to do that when he signed Hulk Hogan. Individual territories and independent promotions had booked a Top Guy for decades, but this was different. A company's lead babyface not only needed to get cheered by the whole town, but by the whole country, and Hulk Hogan was the first to do it. So, in 1993 when Hogan left the company, they saw Lex Luger as his natural replacement. They turned him face, gave him an "All-American" gimmick (sound familiar?) and pushed them as far as they could. But it just didn't quite take with the fans. It never really felt right. Perhaps his gimmick was to similar to Hogan's at a time when the wrestling world was pining for something different. Or perhaps Luger simply wasn't good enough. Either way, when the Royal Rumble came around, both Luger and Bret Hart were declared "co-winners", both getting a shot at Yokozuna's title at Wrestlemania 10. The WWF had given themselves an option of two big stars to be the one to take the title from the monster Yokozuna, and lead the company from then on. They chose Bret Hart. Lex Luger's WWF career was pretty much done by this point. The company let his contract run out so he was free to go wherever he liked. Eric Bischoff, who was hiring for WCW at the time, was not a fan. But Sting was. Bischoff, trying to please Sting, offered Luger 20% of what he was making at WWF thinking that Luger would decline the offer. Luger accepted. This meant that Luger spent the end of his career at WCW not really wanted by management, so he was used mainly as a nostalgia act and as a body in the nWo angle. So, in the end, he did emulate Hulk Hogan. Just not the way he hoped.