Lex Luger recently sat down with The Hannibal TV to discuss his wrestling career, and the topic of Hulk Hogan popped up. Luger was asked what his relationship with Hulk was like, and what it was like going toe-to-toe against one of the most legendary superstars of all time during his time in the ring.
“Yeah I hardly knew him at all,” Luger said when asked what it was like meeting Hogan. “And the first night didn’t go well because, when we got nose-to-nose on Nitro, we went to commercial break, and to come back out of it we would still be nose-to-nose.” Luger goes on to explain that after the cameramen told him that they were off the air for a minute or two, he did something that Hogan wasn’t a big fan of.
“So I broke character a little bit, when you’re nose-to-nose and there’s a live crowd there, and Hulkster’s all business, about his business and I had never been around him. So I kind of smirked at him, and I’ll never forget, he looked at me and he goes ‘Hey brother, take that smile off your face or I’ll knock it off.’ And I tried to walk up to him afterwards and he kind of blew me off, and I said ‘I’m sorry Mr. Hogan sir, I didn’t mean it,’ and he goes ‘That’s okay man, but don’t ever break character out there, because that’s taking money out of my pocket.’”
Luger said he immediately went home and told his wife about the situation, joking that on his first night on WCW, he made Hulk Hogan angry. However, during the second week of Nitro, Luger said that he found Hogan prior to another on-camera moment between the two and apologized again, and noted the two had a nice discussion about the incident. “He was very gracious, and from that moment on we got along great, I mean obviously he put the belt on me in ’97, so we obviously got along really well outside of the ring, and I had enormous respect for him, obviously.”
