Talk about it here.

Nikita sits down with Jim Ross and Bill Fralic to discuss why he's back in WCW. They show history of his programs with Luger and Sting in '91 and use it as a good opportunity to take a few cheapshots at the recently-departed Luger. Also, Nikita does a decent job making sense of why he and Sting had the falling out they did.

 

He talks about how his life changed when Magnum TA was hurt. They show a clip of Nikita's babyface turn to feud with Flair and WOW, watching that and then watching '92 shows just how far wrestling fell during those years, especially for this group.

 

Then, this gets laid on thick as Nikita brings out a young fan dressed in face paint who says her favorite wrestler is Sting, I guess because Warrior did that the week before on WWF TV.

When did Nikita start losing his accent? This was ok to build up his babyface run but I don't think anyone bought it till later.

This is a good segment. Awesome in the subtle burial of Luger. I too liked how he explained himself.

I enjoyed that it made sense out of his past heel turn and didn't came back as a face from nowhere, also burying Luger was funny, but Nikita is a total tool is the ring, I have no interest in watching him, he did nothing but suck since he came back the previous year.

Felt like we were in a court room with Ross peppering Nikita with questions about past issues with Sting. They sure are making the attempt to make Nikita the good. Doesn't completely feel genuine. But atleast the are trying to explain the past issues and not just ignoring them.

This was a nice segment. Logically explaining Koloff's heel turn the year before to turn him babyface now, and making sure to bury the recently departed Luger.

Lengthy interview with Nikita that I thought spent too much time on Luger. The clip of his babyface turn from years eaerlier was definitely the highlight.

Somehow they turn Nikita's U.S. belt shot into a quasi-babyface act because Luger didn't care about the fans or autographs. Hilarious. More excuses follow for Nikita's actions at SuperBrawl--so if he HAD clobbered Luger and cost he and Sting the tag titles, that would have been okay? Nikita kisses up to Sting to make up for that. At least they're not whitewashing these episodes. Nikita explains that he left WCW due to the political situation in Lithuania and trauma over the Sting/Ben angle in another rather clever rewrite of history. Nikita brings up the Magnum car accident and babyface turn in 1986...and you can tell that Dusty had a big hand in writing this.

I'm not sure what to make of this. The setup was there for Nikita to join the feud against the DA on Sting's side, but now Vader's injured Sting, so now they're teasing Nikita/Vader. Not only that, they've turned all of Nikita's heel actions from '91 into babyface ones simply to bury Luger. Nikita does his best to sell this, but with Sting on the shelf and out of the public eye, it all seems a bit hollow. Or maybe it seems like deja vu, I'm not sure which. It seems to me that Nikita took up the fight for another injured babyface about five and a half years back or so........

 

Yes, Dusty has found a way to at least partially replicate the Magnum angle, and maybe that's why this seems flat. Not only was the rivalry between Magnum and Nikita a whole lot hotter than the one between Sting and Nikita (mostly because the Cold War was still going on in '86), but everyone at least suspected that Magnum wouldn't be back from his injuries no matter how much he insisted he would be. Magnum needed someone to take his part; Sting doesn't. He'll be back in a few weeks, and while I'm sure he'll be as grateful for Nikita's help as he would be for Dustin's or Steamboat's, there's no sense of do or die here. Wrestling life will go on whether Nikita helps Sting or not, while there was a definite sense back in '86 that the faces would be sunk if someone didn't take Magnum's place.

 

I liked seeing the old footage of Nikita's original face turn, which was probably the most unexpected turn in the history of wrestling up until that time.

 

I'm glad to hear that Ben from Knoxville has recovered enough from his trauma to become Nikita's new best friend. After all, nothing says friendship like almost being leveled by the Russian Sickle.

 

The segment with the little girl in face paint was a direct ripoff of the angle from the previous week with Warrior, but it was still cute.

 

Nikita sounds much more fearsome with his accent than without it. It makes sense that he would lose it after almost seven years in the U.S., but aura-wise, it was a bad decision.

 

I wonder if Uncle Ivan was one of the relatives Nikita went to see back in Lithuania. .

Luger burying aside, I really liked this. They brought up specific heel actions heel had done in the past and asked him to explain himself, which he was able to do convincingly. It seems like that doesn't happen too often. Adds an element of realism to the show, I dig it.

That was some burial of Luger.  I didn't realize there was a war going on for freedom in Canada in the 90s.  Another uncomfortable looking child in an interview.