Lex Luger Reveals His SummerSlam 93 Payoff

Going into SummerSlam 93, most fans expected Lex Luger to defeat Yokozuna for the WWE Championship. However, while Luger would be victorious, as he won via countout, he didn’t take possession of the title, and his push slowly dwindled. And now, during the latest episode of his podcast , he revealed that he was paid $50,000 for the match, which was half as much as he had expected. Still, it should be noted that that would be around $108,000 in today’s money, which certainly isn’t to be sneezed at.

“SummerSlam is like number a strong number two, so I expected a decent payoff. I wasn’t disappointed, but I thought maybe, with not getting paid all summer, it would have been a little more than that. I got, like, $50,000 or something, if I had to guess, right around there, I think. I was hoping for like $100,000. I was hoping, because I didn’t get paid all summer… I wasn’t working. You know how it was back then. I didn’t have a guaranteed contract like WCW. My contract wasn’t guaranteed. No play, no pay. At least they paid for my hotel.”

66-year-old Luger broke into the business via Championship Wrestling From Florida in 1985, and by 1987, was with Jim Crockett Promotions, becoming a member of the Four Horsemen. During this, he would have plenty of success, although he somewhat surprisingly departed the company to join Vince McMahon’s World Bodybuilding Federation in 1992. Yet, following a motorcycle accident, this didn’t work out, and when the WBF went out of business, he began wrestling for WWE as The Narcissist and later was repackaged with an all-American gimmick.

Ultimately, his WWE run didn’t live up to expectations, and he would go on to return to WCW without telling McMahon ahead of time, re-debuting during the premiere of Nitro and burning his bridge with WWE in the process. Nevertheless, he has since worked with the company, and both sides have seemingly agreed to let bygones be bygones, potentially leaving the door open for a Hall of Fame induction in the future.