[1991-09-05-WCW-Clash of the Champions XVI] Contract Signing: Lex Luger vs Ron Simmons

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Holy overkill. They are presenting this as Luger stalling the contract signing, but lucky enough, they had some standby footage because they thought this might happen. We get footage of Simmons giving a speech to a bunch of children at the Atlanta Boys Club, then we get footage of Simmons recently taking bus loads of kids to a WCW show at The Omni. Finally, we get to the contract signing. Luger insincerely puts Simmons over, before saying that because he's such a great man, after this is all over and Luger is still the champion, he's happy to hire Simmons as his chauffeur. Race and Hughes grab Luger and bails when Simmons lunges across the table at him. This was well done, but the insult wasn't really worth all of that rage.

[PeteF3]

Okay, maybe we could have spread all this stuff out some. We've reached the point where we could use some Clash XIII-style speed-runs. Surely there has to be a happy medium between these two show paces. This was a little too much for too predictable of a payoff.

[Kevin Ridge]

They are really pushing Simmons hard. Someone with positive attitude being there for the kids. Luger makes a late arrival to contract signing. Lex talks about Simmons becoming the first black world heavyweight champion. But he’s not being genuine as he offers a position to Simmons of being his driver instead. Simmons flies into a fury and goes after Luger. At least they are trying to establish Simmons as a challenger.

[soup23]

The boys and club speech and taking the kids to the Omni was a little much. The chauffeur line was also annoying and didn't really fit the tone of this entire feud. I think they could have made a great personal feud between the two and their athletic background but they didn't have the creativity to put it all together.

[garretta]

Does Dusty really know how to book a purely athletic feud? After seeing this, I doubt it very much. Not only was the stuff with the Boys' Club and driving the bus to the Omni ham-handed, but now we have the sickeningly familiar "World champion as racist" bit. Flair couldn't pull it off against JYD, and Luger does even worse here. He actually sounded more sincere to me cataloguing Simmons' accomplishments than insulting him, which is the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen.

 

I'm really not buying Luger at all since the Bash, as I've said quite a few times. Larry Pfohl may have been the biggest prick ever to put on a pair of tights according to some, but Lex Luger works best as a face, at least in my opinion. And even if he can do good heel work (which I'm not convinced of), he can't do it in this particular persona. I don't buy him as a Flair clone, which is what they seem to be going for with the phony arrogance and the fancy suits, and his entourage adds nothing. Race is superfluous, and Hughes is totally useless. Since when does a musclehead like Luger who can supposedly snap people in half need a bodyguard?

 

Dusty really screwed up here because he was chained to the old territorial way of doing things, where the visiting heel champ existed to make the local heroes look good. In this new age, it's the babyface turning back the evil challengers that makes the money. If Luger didn't fit the role, they should have given the belt back to Sting, and regardless it should be heel Windham getting one last shot at Havoc. Simmons may be deserving of a World title push later on, but not here and now, and not against this champion playing this role.

[dawho5]

I think Dusty has been watching his Lawler stuff from Memphis for these 2 videos. They get over the idea that Simmons is a great role model, but save them for WCWSN or something. The Bowden interview was more than enough. And then we get the race-baiting, yay! Why do you feel the need to shot yourself in the foot when you are building steam WCW? Oh, and the white limo Luger ran away in was just great symbolism too. Really.