[1998-01-24-WCW-Souled Out] Randy Savage vs Lex Luger

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[soup23]

We cut to Luger getting slapped by Elizabeth. That is kind of uncomfortable to watch in retrospect. Also odd that this is the main event as it was probably the #4 hyped match on the show. We get some crowd brawling and Luger comes back into the ring and we have the pop up clothesline spot which now annoys me given that thread. Hall and Hogan come stalking out to the ring as Luger hits his powerslam. Hogan stops Hall and tells him not to intervene. Hall gets up on the apron and Macho is sent into him. Luger racks Macho and wins the match. Now the NWO attacks Luger and Sting makes the save. Luger racks Nash and Sting has the death lock on Hogan as the PPV wraps up.

[Migs]

Agreed that the Luger/Liz interaction is really weird to watch.

 

Finish looked horribly contrived, and the work before it was really slow.

[Loss]

I didn't like Luger during this time using the forearm to set up the torture rack when he used to do back work. Scott Hall comes out with a chair and Hogan stops him, leading to a Luger win. Lousy finish to the last match on the card, and the Hogan-Hall dissension went nowhere. Sting has lost so much in record time. He still gets a nice reaction but it's not as huge as it was a few months before this. Luger and Sting lay out Nash and Hogan to close the show.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Randy Savage vs Lex Luger - Souled Out 1998

 

I always thought these two had great chemistry with one another. I know a lot of people will write this off because of the participants and the year, but this was really energetic. It shows how much the knee injury fucked up Savage because he looked great here. He was flying around taking cheapshots. Savage and Liz were such a great heel tandem at this point with just non-stop heeling. Luger always seems motivated against Savage and was cutting a good pace here trying to get out from Savage's nefarious tactics. I liked the short quick crowd brawling and Luger really urgent on countering Savage. Luger's cliche finish sequence was pretty lame, but hell Torture Rack finish to win the match. I know Savage/Luger was hardly the biggest match on the card with Nash/Giant and Flair/Hart. However, neither of those matches would have finished the show with the image of Hogan in the Scorpion Deathlock and Nash in the Torture Rack. WCW sending the crowd home happy is definitively a novelty. I thought it was a fun sprint, not PPV main event worthy, but a fun match. ***

[PeteF3]

Underwhelming action during and after the finish, and for fuck's sake, if Hogan and Nash want Savage gone, why not just fucking punk him out already? I don't get why all of a sudden the NWO is acting passive-aggressive for the first and only time, other than to draw things out cuz ratings. Seems to me Savage as a crazed lone wolf fighting everybody instead of being the most emasculated part of the NWO would be quite the ratings draw, but what do I know.

[TravJ1979]

Hard to watch. Past prime Savage and Luger slowly, plodding around having struggling to have some semblance of a match. Luger's forearm near the end looks terrible. NWO comes down, yada yada.

 

RATING: Not sure if I yada yada'ed over the best part or not.