You had to be there, d. You're old enough to remember that most tv matches where a star against a scrub style squash matches and that's all Luger did on tv. The same recipe they used for Nikita Koloff (horrible wrestler for a while, turned out pretty good) and the Road Warriors (horrible and stiff as shit). Short squash matches on tv with them working longer matches with great, or at least better, workers on house shows. Plus back then you really had the Apter mags like Pro Wrestling Illustrated and The Wrestler pushing him and talking about how great he was.
Luger would never survived in the wrestling on tv every week in "meaningful" matches era we live in now but for then, he was perfect.
I remember vividly when he came to Crockett and debuted on World Championship Wrestling, I was shook, thinking "Oh my God! It's Lex Luger! Ric's in trouble!" and jumping for joy, JOY!, when he declared he wanted to be a Horseman. If Lex had really taken it seriously, he could have been as great as advertised but he didn't and Sting leapfrogged him.