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Ok, after Liz’s “reveal,” we became friends. It was never something where my wife and I would have her over for dinner or get to know her in any real deep way, but we went from “hey, neighbor” to happily hanging out, talking for an hour, etc.
Like we never made plans with her or anything, but if we were both outside at the same time, we’d chill for a while. We hung out at her apartment a few times, had a glass of wine or something. I asked her if she was still involved at all with wrestling and she said no, that she didn’t like what it had become. She told me something about being pissed off that she was in a video game and never got paid for it. Don’t remember exactly (it was a long time ago, cut me some slack).
I remember one night, she was sitting outside of her apartment, drunk. My wife and I sat with her for probably an hour and just shot the shit. Liz didn’t seem like she was in a great place - I mean, she was drunk by herself - but we didn’t pry.
Basically, she was just a really nice, down to earth person. You would never know that she used to be a massive celebrity. I honestly think the reason she took to my wife and I is because we treated her like a normal person. Yeah, we asked her stuff about wrestling, but more in a “hey, I find you interesting” kind of way and not “zomg marry me” kind of way. Plus, my wife is amazingly sweet.
More in the next post.
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Though our friendship never escalated to being extremely close friends, Liz did have plans. I went back to school for an MBA in 2002 and wanted to make a career change into something dealing with sports (my dream was to be an MLB GM). She knew I was into sports and she was friends with a local sports radio celebrity and his wife. She told us we should all have dinner, that I’d enjoy meeting him. That never happened.
She and Lex were also buying a big townhouse in a new development nearby. One day, she showed my wife and I the floorplan and how on one floor, they were going to take out a bunch of walls and convert it into an in-home sports bar. She was all like, “When it’s done, you guys can come over, we’ll grill some burgers, the girls will do girl stuff and Lex and dlk9s can hang out in the sports bar.”
That also never happened, partly because she died the following year. That would have been quite the sight to see - me and Lex Luger chilling, having a drink, in a sports bar in his house.
My wife and I also moved in 2002 - late spring or summer, don’t recall exactly - because I was starting school and needed a place to study. Our one bedroom wouldn’t cut it (plus the rent was getting jacked). One day, while sitting around in Liz’s apartment, she told us we could take anything we wanted from her place. She and Lex were getting new stuff for their house and he didn’t want anything that had to do with Macho Man. There was one table that was off-limits.
We took three things, which we still have: a ten-foot-long wooden cabinet (in our living room), a wooden pie safe (in my office), and an exercise bike that used to be in Lex’s gym that he owned.
Moving day was the only time I met Lex. When we got to Liz’s place, he was leaning against a wall, flipping through a Victoria’s Secret catalog. I said hi, introduced myself, and that was basically the extent of it. He seemed annoyed that she was giving these nice things away. He even commented that it was a $2,000 bike.
The movers were floored when they saw who was there. When we left, one of them started dancing, singing, “I met Lex Luger, I met Lex Luger…”
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I think moving day was the last time we saw Liz. It was weird after that.
My wife tried to keep in touch with her over the next several months, but didn’t get any e-mails or calls returned (this was before texts were really a thing). We had no idea what was going on, but my wife kept trying without being pushy.
One day, Liz called us and my wife answered. Oddly, even though she called, Liz asked, “Who is this?”
My wife told her who she was calling and Liz was embarassed. Apparently what happened is that Lex saw my name and number multiple times on her caller ID and questioned why some dude kept calling her. She only knew me by my nickname and my full name on caller ID just didn’t register in her head, so she told Lex that she had no idea who that was. He made her call the number while he was standing there.
After that, we didn’t hear from her anymore.
My wife and I got married in May 2003 and invited her to the wedding (or tried to invite her - I don’t think we had her address), but never heard back. She died a couple weeks before the wedding. I remember hearing about it on the radio as I was driving to class.
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What an incredible story. Thanks for sharing!
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By the way, small detail I forgot to share: the ten-foot-cabinet was a custom-made wedding gift for Liz and Randy Savage. So yeah.
Probably some other things I forgot. But in general, it was just a nice, casual neighborly friendship that seemed like it would blossom, but something (or someone) got in the way on her end and then she passed away.
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That was a fantastic story, thanks.
I have to say, I never thought much of Luger, and this story certainly doesn’t do anything to change that.
Yeah, you shouldnt. It’s pretty well documented that they werent great for each other. It’s a shame she was never able to shake him. Poor woman. Macho was never the kindest to her either after they got married. Wrestling people just cant seem to get away from each other. Being in the industry fucks you up massively (or at least it did.) Hopefully things are at least marginally better today, but it seems like you have to have pretty intense mental issues to want to be involved with this shit.
Very interesting stories dlk. Did you get the sense that her and Lex were having problems?
Yeah, it did seem like that night she was drunk that she had probably been drowning guy frustrations. We weren’t in a place to sit there and probe and there wasn’t anything that indicated some serious problem, though.
Man, reading about her right now, I’m older than she was when she died.
So in one of the craziest circles. I always said Matt Jones was the one possible candidate that could possibly beat Moscow Mitch. He decided not to run. Moscow beat Amy by 20 points. Matt said maybe if it was within 10 points he might have had regret, but 20 points he was always losing.
Afterwards he sold his website KSR (KentuckySportsRadio). Still has kept his radio show which I listen to every day. He used his profits from selling KSR to buy OVW. Ohio Valley Wrestling has in its history been a good amateur league.
Here is Batista v Lesnar
I don’t know what my end point is here. But he is trying to use his KSR connections to make OVW bigger.
https://twitter.com/KySportsRadio/status/1360388489183965189
pretty sure that was cornette’s OVW back when they basically were NXT for WWE–btw, those four were there at the same time. Stupid class. Shelton benjamin in that class too, who is back in WWE, normally that alone would be the headliner looking back and here he’s a footnote.
Don’t know how they could do it but Cena as a heel douchebag again he could totally pull off
also you get the weird fact that cena was tag team champ with rico in ovw once
The OVW deep dive on Cornette’s podcast is really worth a listen. It’s insane how much talent they had at the time and how well they were able to develop it.
I’ll never figure out why WWE didn’t bring Cena in as something close to his Prototype gimmick instead of as a plucky underdog.
https://twitter.com/MeltzerSaidWhat/status/1361146873130672128
https://twitter.com/MeltzerSaidWhat/status/1361146886246178816
https://twitter.com/MeltzerSaidWhat/status/1361146902369230848
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But Jericho’s totally not a political person, guys.
Cena could do just about whatever you ask him to from a character/mic standpoint, but he seems successful enough outside of wrestling now that I can’t see him ever wanting to do this now even if it was what Vince wanted.
I’d like to think he would want to do it because he never got to be a heel in wwe and that’s a void in a wrestling career. Whether he wants to wrestle again is another issue though since he obviously doesn’t need to do that again.
Remember when this guy’s main selling point was calling women bitches and telling everyone he met to suck his dick?
Model american male right there
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His most regarded match is the match where he just happened to have to slide into the heel role. But yeah shame he didn’t have a real heel run. I didn’t know if they were ever turn Roman heel, but this has been Roman’s best run.
Exploding. Barbed wire. Death match.