The actual date on this is 10/22/84. Sarge rules the world again. This was a total Slaughter carry job. The pre-match festivities are tremendous with Volkoff singing the Russian National Anthem and the MSG crowd eating him alive for it. Sarge gets a massive pop and I'm already enjoying this. The beginning of this is awesome with both guys taunting each other and Sarge doing some great taunts to get the crowd riled up. Not much happens for a minute. Then Sarge takes the fall and works underneath. All of the sudden this is in contention for nomination. Volkoff works on Sarge's back and lays in some nasty moves. He locks in a bear hug but the crowd is amped during this so everything feels big. Sarge takes three turnbuckle bumps that are all different. The first is his usual slam and slow fall to the mat. The second his goes into it harder then takes a wild bump face first off of it. Lastly, he goes full speed into the corner, ring post and to the floor. He had a nice comeback going before he did the third big bump. Next, Sarge was FIP on the floor where Volkoff slammed him back first into the ring post then gave him a nasty back breaker. Sarge does an excellent selling job here having to use the ropes to pull himself up. Volkoff goes for another attempt to knock him to the floor but Sarge locks in the Cobra Clutch as he's standing on the apron. The ref counts Sarge out because he was on the apron so Volkoff wins but Sarge won the war as he kept the hold in until Volkoff was out. I didn't like the finish all that much but I really enjoyed Sarge's performance here and Volkoff seemed inspired in this match and fed off of the crowd some.

I'll give this a low end nomination. The crowd is really digging the dynamic between the 2. They do some fun strong man spots which gets a fun payoff with Slaughter leapfrogging Volkoff and giving him the Cannon. The work here is smartly done but not dynamic. We have Volkoff work the back with kicks and stomps, bear hugs etc. To make this interesting Slaughter mixed it up with some of his bumps in his catalog. I'll give Sarge a lot of credit laying this match out. The finish sets up rematches while keeping Sarge strong. Though in the end I could see this getting bumped off.

SGT. SLAUGHTER vs NIKOLAI VOLKOFF (10/22/1984; WWF MSG; New York, NY; 00:23:43)
-    Sarge is so over. We were robbed of many years of awesomeness because of a GI Joe dispute. The atmosphere here was electric. I was really happy they kept things moving in the first half. Volkoff will never not be awkward but I could not complain about his effort. The bear hug where he held it even when Sarge was hanging up side down was one of the coolest things I have seen so far. Sarge takes a simple turnbuckle slam and turns it into a huge corner ring post bust your face open moment. Nikolai was relentless kicking Sarge’s head in. Damn, nerve hold… this was too good to be true. OK, I don’t know if this is Nikolai’s best match… didn’t we have some Hogan matches? However, he tried even if the nerve hold was too much… but that bear hug. I hated the finish so I could not elevate this past MIDDLE NOMINATION.