by Lex Luger
After taking a few hours to think it over, I called Sting. “Can you find out if the WCW offer is still on the table?”
I heard from Eric Bischoff two days later, on September 3. If I agreed to keep everything under wraps, he would fly me to Minneapolis the next morning. Nitro was being launched live from the Mall of America that evening. We would work out the contract details later.
This was a crucial decision for me. Vince had been very good to me, and I was very uncomfortable leaving under these circumstances. Although I felt torn, I had to think about my family and what I needed to do to take care of them. I talked to Peggy about it because I valued her opinion. She was supportive and said she would trust my judgment.
At that point, I made the decision. I was in. After my last WWF match teamed up with Shawn Michaels that evening in St. John’s, New Brunswick, I was heading back to the WCW.
The whole thing was a covert operation. I left on a morning flight, was picked up from the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport by a van, and was driven to an out-of-the-way hotel—far from the other wrestlers’ hotel, where the fans usually gathered.
Ordinarily, we were expected to arrive at a venue six to eight hours ahead of time for a televised show. But to make sure the element of surprise wouldn’t be spoiled, I was going to be picked up right after the show got underway.
When I arrived at the Mall of America, I had a towel over my head and was immediately escorted to the inner bowels of the mall, well away from the locker room and central concourse area where everything was happening. It wasn’t until that moment that I knew how it was all going to go down. “At the very end of the show you’ll come out in your street clothes,” Eric told me, “and get nose-to-nose with Hulk Hogan.”
Everything was going to be live, which was different from what Vince was doing at the time with Raw. Initially, Raw had been live, but when the costs began to rise, Vince changed the format: he would do one show live, then pretape the following week’s show on Tuesday to air the next Monday. But Bischoff believed that doing every show live gave you more flexibility to add any number of surprises.
My entrance was definitely a surprise—to the crowd and to the other wrestlers gathered there.
I walked up to Hogan and said my line: “I’m back at the WCW to wrestle with the big boys.”
I was still up in Hogan’s face when they signaled for a short commercial break. Knowing we were off the air momentarily, I broke character and smiled at Hogan. It was a big mistake.
“Wipe that grin off your face, or I’ll knock it off. You’re stealing money from me and my family right now,” he said to me through gritted teeth.
I immediately stopped smiling.
After the show I tried to apologize to him, but he brushed me off. I learned a big lesson from him that night: never break character when on camera in front of the fans—even on a commercial break.
The following week, Hogan and I were scheduled to wrestle. Thankfully, we did sit down beforehand, and I sincerely apologized to him for what I had done. He reiterated how important the smallest details are and that staying in character is how we make our living. It was an old-school philosophy of wrestling, something that Matsuda certainly had taught both of us. You’d have to be living under a rock to not know what Hogan had done for our industry. He deserved the utmost respect from everyone, and I wanted to make amends. “I will never let that happen again,” I assured him. He accepted my apology, and from that time on, we had a mutual respect and maintained a great working relationship with each other.
My surprise appearance succeeded in creating the kind of buzz we were looking for with the fans. Other than the momentary snafu with Hogan, everyone felt good about my return.
I did hear from some of my friends at the WWF afterward that Vince was extremely surprised and disappointed about the way things happened, especially that I didn’t give him any notice.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the first or the last person I would disappoint.
Still, the deed was done. Now it was time for the wars to begin.
The initial ratings for Nitro were good, and in the months that followed, our audience continued to grow. We hadn’t yet surpassed Vince in the TV ratings, but we were certainly on the upswing. I was back as Lex Luger, The Total Package, feuding with Hulk Hogan and eventually partnering with Sting. Things were going really well, and I felt my career was progressing.
After my debut I signed a pretty standard two-year contract with Bischoff, with the assurance that he would take care of me as things progressed. He proved to be a man of his word. Before the end of my first year, we renegotiated my contract for significantly more money.
Meanwhile, part of reestablishing myself in the WCW was wanting to look my very best. So after talking with some people whose opinions I valued, I decided to go back on my twelve-week cycle of steroids. I felt the benefits outweighed the risks. Although there was testing going on at the WCW, it wasn’t nearly as frequent or stringent as what I had experienced in the WWF. There, you never knew when you’d be asked to take off your shirt, drop your pants to your knees, and pee into a cup in front of the tester.
I was told that in the WCW we had more privacy when providing our samples. We could carry in a hidden, false sample with someone else’s clean urine, or—worst case scenario—we could slip some Visine into the sample, which nullified the results.
In July 1996, less than a year after Nitro went live, the WCW introduced a new story line. Bischoff began bringing in guys one by one from the WWF—starting with Scott Hall, then Kevin Nash—to eventually ally with Hogan (soon to be known as Hollywood Hogan). Hogan would surprisingly turn heel. These “unsanctioned” heel wrestlers were invading and wreaking havoc in the WCW as The Outsiders, taking on Sting, myself, and the other established WCW guys. As they grew in number, they called themselves the New World Order (nWo), and that story line became a sensation. I hadn’t seen a group of heels go over this big since the Four Horsemen.
Monday after Monday, at the end of Nitro, the nWo would ambush the WCW wrestlers in some way and lay us out in the ring, which riled up the fans. They got angrier and angrier because The Outsiders had incredible heat—that ability to make fans instantly despise you.
And then, being lowered from the rafters, Sting would come to save the day, wielding a baseball bat and scattering The Outsiders from the ring.
Over time, the fans grew so incensed at the nWo guys that they started throwing things into the ring, trying to pelt them with beverages. Soon they began throwing food like nachos and hot dogs and—even nastier—their cups of chewing tobacco spit. The trouble was, most of the garbage wasn’t hitting the nWo guys—it was hitting us, the ones lying on the mat!
Immediately after the end of the show’s taping, I was often tapped for the non-televised singles “dark match.” In this attempt to leave the sellout crowd on a high note instead of a downer, I’d be fighting against one of the nWo wrestlers when the cameras were turned off. I had to move quickly.
One minute I’d be lying in the ring, covered with nacho cheese and other nasty, slimy stuff, and the next minute I’d be coming back down the aisle to my music, ready for the dark match. At first I would try to scramble to change my costume, but it took too long. Eventually, I figured out a quicker solution: I would run to the locker room, jump into the shower in my full wrestling gear, boots and all, and quickly rinse off, before going back out for the dark match.
I’d often tease Sting and say, “Can we switch parts sometimes, so you are in the ring covered in nachos, and I come down from the rafters?” He’d just smile and say, “Somebody has to do that.”
I relished my role as the WCW go-to guy. I was doing house shows Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, then working the live shows on Monday nights. That’s when I got my nickname Cyborg. It was a golden era for the WCW and its wrestlers as the ratings skyrocketed. Beginning mid-1996, Monday Nitro owned the TV ratings with a winning streak that would last for eighty-fou
r continuous weeks.
After the shows, we celebrated our success. That tradition became more than just knocking back a few beers. For the first time in my life, I started mixing pills with alcohol. When I was on the road, I started doing it on a regular basis. It gave me a bigger, faster buzz. I began to like how it felt and would hold off eating anything in order to prolong the effect. But I still wanted to take care of myself, so eventually I would say, “Let’s go get something to eat, guys.” I didn’t think it was a big deal. It was the “work hard, play hard” philosophy that prevailed in our industry.
I was extremely focused on reestablishing my wrestling career with the WCW. Although womanizing had become a natural habit for me, I decided to put it on the back burner. However, I was still surrounded by lots of beautiful women, and it was a struggle for me to do the right thing.
As time went on, the WCW added more and more women to the payroll: Nitro girls, valets, members of the production crew. On Monday nights after the show, we all got together as a group. At that time, as I watched some of the guys go off with the women we saw every day, I thought, Who would be stupid enough to get involved with someone you work with? It was an observation that would later come back to haunt me.
The WCW kept building up their feud with the nWo, leading to a world heavyweight title championship between Hogan and Sting. We strived to keep the story lines fresh and unpredictable, so the scriptwriters decided to throw our fans a bone—one that surprised even me.
Hogan and I would wrestle for the championship title on August 4, 1997. And I would win.
Talk about rocking my world! In his entire career, Hogan had never been defeated on national television. And I was the guy chosen to do it. The truth was that Hogan had to approve such a stunning turn of events. He didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to do, since he was one of the few guys in the industry who had creative control, allowing him to dictate his own story lines. Hogan had earned that right because of the huge numbers he drew and what he had done for the industry. Such power was pretty much unprecedented in our business; in the history of wrestling, only Andre the Giant had been given such freedom before.
When Eric Bischoff told me that the whole story line was Hogan’s idea, I was greatly honored.
Once again, I was privy to a secret that only Bischoff, Hogan, and I shared. The referee didn’t learn about it until a few minutes before the match, on his way out to the ring.
At the end of the match, when I got Hogan in the Torture Rack and won the title, the crowd went berserk. It was one of the most exhilarating moments of my career inside the ring.
I lost the title to Hogan in a pay-per-view match the following week at Road Wild in Sturgis, South Dakota, but we definitely accomplished what we set out to do.
And it certainly didn’t hurt the Nitro ratings either. Fans continued to tune in every week because they were afraid they’d miss something and were anxious to see what was going to happen next.
In late 1997, once again Eric Bischoff renegotiated my contract early for even more money. Things were really rolling now. Over the many years I had been on the road and away from home, my family and I had given up a lot. I truly felt that all our hard work and sacrifices were finally paying off. It was time to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
The master plan was going extremely well, and I wanted our lifestyle to reflect that. I used to love watching the television show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Now that we had this extra money, I didn’t want to hold back.
My family and I moved into a new home on the ninth hole of the Sugarloaf Country Club in the north Atlanta suburbs. It was like something out of Southern Living magazine, with all the amenities at our disposal. Our lavish backyard with a full-size swimming pool was absolutely picturesque, with a gorgeous panoramic view of five nearby holes on the Sugarloaf golf course.
I wanted the house to be exquisitely furnished and decorated by the top professional interior decorators. Nothing but the best, including cutting-edge electronics, sound systems, home theaters—the works. Money was no object.
Now I also was able to cultivate my love affair with fine automobiles. After all, the driveway had to look as good as the house.
I decided to build my collection from what I had dubbed the “Big Three.” Everything had to be top-of-the-line: a big luxury Mercedes S-Class sedan that would comfortably carry the entire family to our various outings, a tricked-out SUV with all the trappings for any overnight or weekend excursions, and of course, a really cool sports car—my personal favorite, a super-sleek silver Porsche twin turbo. It was amped up to 650 horsepower, with the Gemballa package and custom chrome wheels, including an upgraded, mind-blowing sound system. All my friends nicknamed it the Silver Bullet. Man, did that car turn some heads.
It was a far cry from the 1980 cream-colored Honda Accord that we bought after my rookie year with the Alouettes. Peggy had driven that thing until it was falling apart.
But new cars were only the beginning. I wanted us to dine at the fanciest restaurants and vacation at the ritziest resorts, including exotic locales such as Hawaii’s Big Island and Atlantis in the Bahamas. I wanted to create memorable times for our family, making everything as special as possible when we were together.
The payoff for me was the expression of joy on my children’s faces the first time they frolicked in the ocean with dolphins, stingrays, and other sea creatures.
Life was definitely good.
Through the end of 1997, the feud of the nWo faction versus the rest of the WCW was still going strong. The creative minds behind the story line made it edgy and cool, always mixing it up for the fans. Like many things in life, wrestling is cyclical, and keeping fan enthusiasm high is a challenge. I doubt that the WCW front office believed that the nWo story line would go on forever, and yet they were pleasantly surprised when it continued to generate ratings.
Still, you always have to be thinking about the next big thing. And what emerged from the nWo was unexpectedly big.
In May 1998, the nWo splintered into two rival factions: the nWo Wolfpac, led by Kevin Nash, against nWo Hollywood, led by Hogan. Everything about the babyface Wolfpac group just seemed to fall into place. A line from the theme song warned all opponents, “Don’t turn your back on the Wolfpac,” and fans certainly weren’t—they were wholeheartedly embracing the new story line. T-shirts and memorabilia began flying off the shelves, and a few weeks after they came on the scene, I was fortunate to be wearing the new colors along with Sting.
Something else changed too. Earlier in the year, I began to incorporate the latest breakthrough in what were now called performance-enhancing drugs or PEDs. Composed of a weekly injection of testosterone along with a daily injection of human growth hormone (HGH) therapy, it would alter the world of professional sports forever.
This type of drug enhancement therapy wasn’t only reserved for athletes. It was also being extensively utilized by the rich and famous as an antiaging therapy for both men and women, legally prescribed by endocrinologists. Testosterone and HGH naturally occur in our bodies, but after the age of thirty, the levels begin to steadily decline. So this type of replacement therapy is designed to bring the levels up to what they once were, reportedly giving a person more energy, a faster metabolism, and better muscle mass. It was touted by users as a veritable fountain of youth.
I was hoping it would make my steroid cycling obsolete; I liked the fact that I could stay on it year-round. Since it was legally prescribed, there would be no more worries about failing drug tests. And in addition to all the advertised benefits, I thought maybe it would help me with a nagging physical ailment that was becoming more pronounced.
From my high school days, I had always had a sciatica problem in my lower back. It had been diagnosed as spondylolisthesis of the L5, a condition in which one vertebra slides forward over the bone below it. I had lived with it, and obviously it didn’t hinder my athletic performance.
Back in the mid-90s, I started experienci
ng a dull pain down my right hip when I was sitting on a plane, working out on the treadmill, or doing my back workouts.
It hurt, but I blew it off as my sciatica flaring up.
Finally, I consulted my orthopedic doctor about my recurring pain. When he looked at my back X-rays, he commented that it looked like there was an excessive amount of wear on my hips, which might be part of the problem. “You’re probably going to need some work done on your hips.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Surgery.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You’re putting a lot of wear and tear on your hips from all your years of football, wrestling, and heavy leg presses and squats in the gym.”
I thought he was crazy; I just had sciatica.
One morning when I was on the road having breakfast with another wrestler, I was feeling especially beat-up and road-weary, dreading my heavy leg workout. I pulled out a couple of Advil.
“Man, have you ever tried a painkiller with some coffee instead of the Advil?” he asked me.
“Why would I do that?”
“You’ll feel like you could run through a brick wall at the gym.”
“Really?”
I tried it, and it worked. I had the best heavy leg workout I’d had in a long time. From that point on, I added the combination of pills with coffee to my regular regimen before my workouts and matches, and I continued the ritual with my friends after matches, downing painkillers and muscle relaxers with alcohol.
We had wrapped another Nitro show, and I was ready to knock back a few with everyone. We kept beer on ice, ready to be cracked open after the show, with the pills divvied up among us. When I laid down the combination for Sting, he said, “No, thanks.”
I looked at him. “What do you mean, no, thanks?”