[1993-01-24-WWF-Royal Rumble] Bobby Heenan and The Narcissist

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Pretty memorable. Heenan does the most over-the-top sell job for anyone at anything ever.

 

Lex Luger debuts in the WWF, posing in front of mirrors as Narcissus, while Heenan just fawns over him. Pretty funny.

 

Luger then does a promo, a good one at that, directed toward Mr. Perfect.

 

This must have been rehearsed quite a few times, because Heenan is mouthing Luger's words the whole time.

[El-P]

Great debut, just amazing production to launch a guy in the promotion. The Narcissist, as goofy as he sounded, was the perfect gimmick for Luger because that's what he basically was. I was so disapointed when they turned him patriotic face later in the year, I thought Luger was destined to be a heel WWF champ. Ironically, WCW did a much better job with the Narcissist gimmick in late 99 and 2000, which made Luger fun again after years.

[benj]

Bobby Heenan having multiple verbal orgasms and Lex Luger attempting to say "mesamorphically" make this awesome.

[shoe]

Heenan was great here. He sounded like he was having an orgasm. Luger cut a pretty good promo. I still prefer the Total Package moniker though.

[El-P]

I thought The Narcissist was the perfect gimmick for Luger, because that's basically what he naturally projected.

And really, Luger did do the Narcissist gimmick in WCW in late 99-2000 with Liz, and he was more fun than it had been since early 96 when he was heel Luger teaming with face Sting. Really worked well for him, and having a valet added to his act. The WrestleMania IX entrance was ridiculously great.

 

(damn, I already said the same thing 3 months ago. senile me)

[KB8]

Yeah, Heenan was pretty hilarious here totally fawning over Luger.

 

I watched the PPV live as a kid (well, whenever it was shown on Sky Sports, so probably the next day) and have some pretty vivid memories of it, but I didn't remember Heenan being so over the top.

 

And yeah, the Wrestlemania IX entrance was boss.

[BackToBionic]

I have a feeling the fawning over the muscles was verbatim from McMahon's mouth. Who else would be gushing about another man's thighs?

 

Also, between Doink and Narcissist, the WWF had some good heels debuting around the same time. Although both were basically shit on by fans at the time, we all seem to appreciate them more in hindsight.

[Kevin Ridge]

Luger versus Hogan in early 93 would have been great. Heenan is great in putting over Luger in this segment. Big debut on a major PPV for Luger. He comes off as a big deal guy. Luger needed a longer term run as heel in WWF.

[PeteF3]

This is a good setting for Lex and he's a quality addition to the roster at this point. Heenan excitedly disrobes Luger and practically creams his pants rattling off all of Luger's body parts. Bobby begs Lex for a soundbite so we can hear the beautiful, melodious tones from his mouth. Luger and Heenan call out Mr. Perfect, which basically gives away the loser-leaves match scheduled (but already taped, IIRC) for Raw the next night. Bobby continues to bloviate as the curtain falls over him. Fun segment.

[WingedEagle]

Heenean introduces Luger posing in front of three mirrors while Heenan gushes over him. No wonder this didn't work. The crowd seems beyond dead for it. Luger delivers a promo directed at Perfect, and you can see Heenan literally mouthing the words for him.

[soup23]

I loved Hennan here just completely over the top. Luger looks proud of himself looking in the mirror and delivers a good debut promo. My favorite moment is when the curtain begins to lower and Hennan freaks out begging for more.

[ajtroma]

I first saw this on USWA TV when Lex made his appearance there. With my cable company at the time, sometimes we got the pay per views. Sometimes not. The Royal Rumble 1993 was one of those nots. Anyway, this whole deal gave me a "Dr. Frankenfurter unveils Rocky in 'Rocky Horror'" vibe. If Lex broke out into "Sword of Damacles", I'd have shit.

[garretta]

Heenan's last protégé, for all intents and purposes, and it should have gone way farther than it did. Luger was great here, and much like Kerry Von Erich, the scripting of promos did wonders for his verbal abilities. I noticed that they didn't have him trying the word "accolades", though.

 

Luger sure seemed ticketed for Bret at this time, with Curt just the first stepping stone. I'm sure we'll get further into this as we go along, but why did they need a patriotic superface after Hogan's return basically tanked? You'd think they'd have gone back to Bret, or if he was bad for business at the time, maybe give Duggan a run, although it would have to be short. Hell, I've have made do with GI Joe Sarge getting the belt back before I'd have messed with a gimmick like this. And to make it worse, Vince never pulled the trigger on him anyway. What a waste.

 

There seems to be a bit of a disparity here. Heenan keeps calling Luger "Narcissus", although Luger calls himself "The Narcissist" already, as does his Titantron.

 

I don't usually question why things did or didn't make the set, but since we saw almost the whole buildup, why didn't we at least get the ending of Bret-Hall, which came right before this?