by Lex Luger
“When you get a guy up there, hold it,” Ric said. “Hold it for five to ten seconds. Let everybody see your strength, see that six-pack you’ve got.”
Not only was Ric a great teacher outside the ring, he would lead me through the moves and talk me through an entire match in the ring. It was almost like having a night off, because I didn’t have to think about what the next move would be. With his experience, Ric knew what the payoff was: if I looked good, he looked good, and the fans would eat it up.
I also needed a new costume. The tank top was history; the promoters didn’t want me looking like some Hulk Hogan wannabe. It didn’t fit the classier style and persona of the Horsemen. I was expected to dress the part, in and out of the ring. Ric wore handmade robes that were true works of art—you could be blinded by the sparkle alone under the lights. He put me in touch with Olivia Walker, the woman who designed them. For my inaugural entrance as a Horseman, she created a long, black silk robe with “Total Package” in silver on the back. I never thought I’d wear anything with rhinestones in my life, but the end result was spectacular, with a price tag to match—$5,000 out of my pocket.
My family and I moved to Charlotte, where we leased a house.
If I thought my wrestling schedule in Florida was hectic, I hit the ground running—er, flying—now. I was wrestling one night in Charleston, West Virginia, then flying across the country with the Horsemen the day after for an evening match in Inglewood, California, heading to San Francisco, then back to Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, all within six days. Thank goodness for frequent-flier programs, because we were on planes a lot. All of this was leading up to The Great American Bash on July 18, 1987, at the American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I was defending the NWA US heavyweight championship against Nikita Koloff in a steel-cage match.
There was some crowd-inciting choreography that night. Koloff came into the ring wearing a neck brace, but I ripped it off midway through the match. J. J. Dillon “assisted” me by throwing in a steel chair, and I hit Koloff in the back. I used the torture rack to knock out the defending champion and celebrated my new title of US heavyweight champion in the ring with Tully and Arn.
With my victory added to Ric’s world championship title and Arn and Tully’s world tag-team title, all the gold and glory belonged to the Horsemen. We had everything, and everybody either loved us or loved hating us.
Whenever we arrived at a venue, there was a palpable sense of excitement in the air. As Ric liked to boast, “We were a bunch of limousine-ridin’, jet-flyin’, wheelin’-dealin’ sons of guns,” a carefully made image with roles that we played masterfully.
We genuinely liked each other. In the locker room, with no cameras running, there was a lot of verbal jousting and good-natured ribbing. Arn’s sharp tongue and quick wit kept us laughing, and he had a knack for coming up with memorable nicknames for the others—and now, for me.
The first one came out of his mouth at a steel-cage tag-team match in Los Angeles that pitted me, Ric, Tully, and Arn against the Road Warriors, Sting, and Dusty Rhodes. The cage hadn’t been set up properly; instead of it being outside the ring, it was inside the ring! There was nowhere to go—we were standing so close to the action that it looked really lame and completely unrealistic to us, let alone the fans. As Arn and I stood a few feet away from Ric and watched him take a beating, I said, “What should we do?”
“Shuddup, Eggplant!” Arn shouted at me.
Eggplant?
“You just stand there and look good, and let me do the thinking.”
Arn also liked to kid me about the size of my teeth. “Willlburrr . . . ,” he’d draw out the name in a perfect imitation of Mister Ed, the talking horse on the sixties’ TV sitcom. Eggplant or Wilbur—I laughed at and answered to both. And dished it right back.
Our camaraderie was great, which helps when you’re spending so much time together. Their motto was “work hard, play hard.” Even though my focus remained on working out and wrestling, I definitely didn’t want to let the rest of the Horsemen down. Especially on the weekends, we would knock back a few. And sometimes more than just a few.
Within a few months, I was livin’ large, just like the other Horsemen. Now it was time to get paid like one.
I had never signed any formal contract with Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP). My paycheck was two or three thousand a week, comparable with most wrestlers’ main-event earnings at that time.
Wrestlers had always worked under unilateral contracts: agreements with no specific money stipulated. It was a long-standing practice for promoters to pay guys according to where they appeared on the card. The more popular and high profile you were, the later your name appeared on the card and the more money you made. The WWF was no different. Vince McMahon used unilateral contracts too, paying his performers at his discretion based on card placement.
But things suddenly changed for me after I returned from a wrestling event in Las Vegas. There, I had randomly bumped into Vince McMahon at the gym. I had never met him before, but I certainly knew who he was. We exchanged pleasantries and talked for five minutes about our families; wrestling was never mentioned. But that’s not the message that got back to Jim Crockett. Little did I know how much gossip dominated professional wrestling at the time and what a flurry my conversation with Crockett’s rival would cause. I overheard some whispers that Jim Crockett was seriously concerned because I’d been seen with Vince. As soon as I got back to Charlotte, I was called to Jim’s office.
“Look, we got you on TV, and you’re one of the Four Horsemen. We need to get you under contract.”
I was happy to sign a contract; I had signed contracts when I was playing professional football. He handed me a standard contract, but as I skimmed through the pages, I didn’t see any mention of money. I was concerned about being locked into a contract without that important detail in writing.
So I spoke up.
“I don’t see any kind of compensation mentioned in here.”
“We don’t do that.”
“So let me get this straight. I sign with you, you own my rights, I can’t wrestle anywhere else—but there’s no money stipulated? No minimum guarantee? Nothing?”
He leaned forward and looked at me while I continued. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, Mr. Crockett. You’ve given me a great opportunity, but this just doesn’t seem right. I need to be sure that I can provide for my family.”
“What do you think you should be making?”
“I’d like to be able to make what Ric Flair or Dusty Rhodes makes. If I’m able to reach their popularity level and I’m producing, I’d expect you to pay me as much as you pay them.”
“Well, give me a figure that you consider to be fair,” he replied.
“I’ll have to think about that. I’d like to confer with my attorney.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “Let your attorney look over the contract and bring it back with a figure.”
The truth was I didn’t have an attorney; I was bluffing. But I kept my composure, thanked him, and agreed to meet with him again the following week.
A week later I returned with the contract, requesting a guaranteed $350,000 minimum per year, a huge amount of money at the time. Would my bluff pay off?
If we had been playing poker, it would have been a very short game. It took Jim Crockett only a matter of seconds to mull it over.
“Okay, we’ll do it. A three-year deal paying you a minimum of $350,000 annually. Give us a week to get everything drawn up.”
Because I was feeling empowered, I said one more thing.
“Can we get first-class airfare, too?” I asked.
“All of you?”
At that time, Ric was the only Horseman who flew first class; Arn, Tully, J. J., and I always sat in coach. I thought it sent the wrong message to fans and sullied the image of the Horsemen as athletes accustomed to only the finer things in life.
I tapped my inner lawyer and presented my case.
; “The Four Horsemen have to maintain the image of opulence that’s been crafted. Fans are everywhere, including the airport. When a plane lands, how would it look for us to be some of the last passengers to get off instead of the first? I think it’s bad PR.”
“I see your point. We’ll take care of that, too. Anything else?” he said sarcastically.
“No, that’ll do it.”
With everything agreed, I left the building feeling so pumped I could barely keep from shouting and jumping in the air. But I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for Peggy, who was waiting in the car. I calmly got into our white BMW.
“So what happened?”
“It’s done,” I said quietly.
“How much?”
“You’re not going to believe this. They went for it. Three years, $350,000 per year. And first-class airfare to boot.”
The smile on Peggy’s face was priceless.
“Guess what, Peg?” I said, grinning back at her. “We’re millionaires! We’re rich!” Jubilant, I began slamming my hands against the inside of the car so hard it started to rock, while Peggy bounced up and down in her seat. If anyone had walked by at that moment, they would have thought we were both crazy.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, I leaned toward her and said, “Hey, Peg, do you think I should have asked for more?”
The quest for more was just beginning.
It was back to business, but things would never be the same. The figures in my contract had somehow been released. I was learning that nothing in wrestling is a secret. I was upset for guys like Arn and Tully (among others), who had been in the business longer than me and were making far less money. They wouldn’t be jumping for joy when they learned about my salary, but no one said anything to my face. They did routinely joke about it, though.
“I can’t believe Eggplant here is making more money than all of us,” Arn would laugh. “What was Crockett thinking?”
What I quickly deduced was that being a Horseman was a 24-7, 365-day gig with no breaks. It was like being a member of a high-profile rock band. Rabid fans were everywhere—in the airports, at our hotels, in the parking lots, at the arenas. They’d even follow us to local restaurants after we were done with our matches. I don’t know how they were able to track our whereabouts, but whatever system they used worked extremely well. Included among those fans were women who were known in the industry as “ring rats”—wrestling groupies—many of whom were available for whatever you might be interested in.
In less than a year as a Horseman, I had become a household name and a proven commodity. Toward the end of 1987, the story line was set to be rewritten once again. The powers that be decided it was time for me—the reigning US heavyweight champion—to part ways with the Horsemen and wrestle as a babyface (good guy) for the world title against Ric Flair the following summer.
The scriptwriters began setting the stage for unrest between me and the other Horsemen. At Starrcade ’87 in Chicago on November 26, I was in a steel-cage match against “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. At the end of the match, J. J.’s role was to toss a metal chair into the ring for me to use on Dusty. But the “plan” backfired, and it cost me the title.
On camera after the match, I pretended to be upset with J. J. about what had happened. In subsequent interviews, the rest of the Horsemen began talking down to me because I had lost my title. It wouldn’t be long before all of this drama would come to a colorful climax.
As the words from the Neil Sedaka song go, “Breaking up is hard to do.” While that may be true in the world of romance, in my case—with the Horsemen—breaking up was fun.
At the Bunkhouse Stampede Championship on January 24, 1988, at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, I thwarted J. J.’s game plan for him to win the stampede championship. The scriptwriters were building a story line where I would challenge Ric Flair for the world heavyweight championship, something I couldn’t do as one of the Horsemen. But, of course, the final split had to be dramatic.
It happened a few weeks later, with cameras rolling. Ric, Arn, Tully, and J. J. had arrived at the predetermined location ahead of me, waiting in the shadows of the parking lot for me to arrive.
Since the beginning of my wrestling career, I had never been asked to “get color,” i.e., intentionally be cut to bleed, during any of my matches. This occasion called for it, and I was game. But I didn’t want to mess things up on my first attempt.
We decided J. J. would have a razor blade taped on his finger to “get color” on me. Before I got out of my limo, I was instructed to wash down four aspirin with a couple shots of Jack Daniels. That combo would thin my blood so I would bleed better. In the ring a wrestler is sweating and his heart rate is up, so bleeding is no problem at all. But in this scenario, I needed some help. We wanted to be sure there would be lots of red on my white tuxedo.
As I got out of my limo, the others “jumped” me and started roughing me up. When one of them banged my skull against the trunk of the car, I busted my head wide open. That wasn’t the plan, but it certainly worked well. J. J. swiped the razor blade across my forehead for good measure. The moment the cameras cut away, I wrapped my head in a towel. By the time we got to the luxury hotel in Coconut Grove, my tuxedo and the makeshift turban were soaked in blood. I could feel the blood squishing in my shoes as we walked through the lobby. The looks on the faces of both the staff and the hotel guests in the lobby were priceless. Hours later, up in my room, I was still bleeding from the gash. I phoned J. J. and asked him to come to my room and look at my wound.
“Should we go to the hospital?” I asked J. J.
“Nah, you’ll be fine. It’s in your hairline. It’ll be okay.”
Relieved, I joked with J. J. “By the way, your razor cut was pretty crooked.”
He just smiled and said, “Yeah, I guess we didn’t need it after all.”
I went from heel to babyface instantly and was now on the hunt for the Horsemen, especially Ric Flair. However, so was someone else: Steve “Sting” Borden was regularly matched up with Ric. He had become an immediate fan favorite when he had debuted at WCW’s Starrcade ’87. I kept my eye on him from a distance, checking out his matches and reading what others were saying about him. In many respects, we were in direct competition with each other—in the ring and behind the scenes. The two of us were featured on the summer 1988 cover of Wrestling magazine. We were constantly being evaluated by a combination of our TV ratings, buy rates and pay-per-views, merchandise sales, and fan reactions. As much as I wanted to find fault with him, I couldn’t. Well, except for one thing.
One night I was backstage with Ric. He and I were watching Sting’s pre-match interview on the TV monitor in the locker room. The fans were eating it up. When Sting was done, I commented, “That interview made no sense at all. It was dumb.”
“I know, Lex,” Ric said. “He’s just got it.”
What Sting had was the “it” factor—an inexplicable combination of energy, natural talent, and charisma that elicits excitement every time that wrestler is in front of the crowd. The promoters recognize it, and the fans embrace it.
In the spring of 1988, Sting and I were in the locker room after we had both wrestled when Sting approached me. I had just finished the last match of the night and was bent over in my chair, untying my boots.
“Hey, man, I’ve been checking out your matches and notice you always stay in great shape,” Sting said. “How do you eat and train to maintain that on the road?”
“Stolis [Russian vodka] and peanut M&M’s,” I responded sarcastically, not even bothering to look at him.
I did glance up when I heard him turn and walk away. He was shaking his head in disbelief.
Over the next few months, we started running into each other everywhere—at house shows, in the same hotels, at breakfast in the morning, at the gym working out. Finally, we started having breakfast and going to the gym together. As we got to know each other and became traveling partners, we found out how much we had
in common. It was the beginning of a profoundly deep friendship.
The feud between Ric and me generated big money for Crockett Promotions, and they were hoping it would be enough to keep the company solvent. But by the end of 1988, Crockett was still struggling financially and was behind on paying me my guarantee. I felt like I needed to look at my options.
After talking with my attorney, I contacted Vince McMahon and told him that we felt Jim Crockett was in breach of contract. Vince invited me to his house for a secret meeting. I flew to Greenwich, Connecticut, and we spent the entire morning together. It was a great meeting. Vince made us tuna fish sandwiches for lunch, one of my favorites. His parting words were, “I’d love to have you. Let’s allow this to play out a little more, not only for my company’s sake, but for your benefit too.” I think we both knew that sometime in the future we would enjoy doing business with each other.
Shortly after my secret meeting with Vince, Ted Turner bought out the wrestling assets of Jim Crockett Promotions and created World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The terms of my contract remained intact even with the change in ownership, and that suited me just fine. I didn’t anticipate any financial problems from a savvy, world-renowned businessman like Ted Turner. For the moment, life was good, and I moved my family to Atlanta.
In 1989, Sting and I became business partners and opened our first gym together in Atlanta: Main Event Fitness. It made perfect sense, since both of us knew our way around gyms. Our eventual goal was to franchise Main Event Fitness. It was one part of my master plan to create a fitness and nutrition empire someday.
Even more exciting than a new business or a championship title was the news that Peggy was expecting again. The baby was due in late October 1990. I was extremely busy traveling, but I resolved to move heaven and earth to be there when our second child was born. We didn’t know if the baby was a boy or a girl. However, Peggy and I had agreed that if the baby were a girl, she would be our last child. That meant it would be especially important for me not to miss this event.