Ivan and Nikita Koloff vs. Ole Anderson & Keith Larsen - at the time, Nikita was a monster so the early portion has Larsen and Ole working Ivan over & preventing him from tagging Nikita. The entire match consists of working over Ivan's arm and constantly tagging in and out. When Nikita finally tags in, he puts Ole in the bearhug and a nice spot sees Ivan coming off the top rope while Ole is in the bearhug to try and edn the match but Ole plays face in peril which is the wierdest thing I have ever typed. I have mixed feelings on this match. None of the offense was particluarly interesting but the story was. I'll nominate for discussion but I won't go to the wall for it.

I really dug this match. Ole doing all of his work the arm shitck as a face was great, and Larson as generic jobber who is fighting above his head for his family ruled. Kept Ivan and Ole in the match for the most part, and Ole was a great face in peril, I especially loved his awesome chinbreaker break of the bearhug. The finish was awesome with Nikita absolutely nuking Kernodle on the outside, destracting the ref so Ivan could use the chain. Don wasting the Russians with the crutch was great too. YES YES YES

I dug this too. The Ole becomes face whenever a foreigner shows up is a staple I remember from my childhood. and the crowd popping for Ole basic heel offense as though its face offense was pretty great. Ivan doesn't do a ton of bumping in this and real surprise was the Nikita v Ole sections. Ole has lots of fun bearhug escape attempts ..the whole Ole in peril section really makes the match and when Nikita is knocked down he does a pretty good timber bump. I think of Nikita only getting good 4 years later, but coming out of the Watts set, realize yeah he's green but for monster Russians Nikita feels like a guy with alot more to offer than any of the other guys doing this.

I'll give this a low-end nomination. This is presented as a big deal with both National Anthoms playing before the match. The Russian's shirts were bad ass. The face shine to start was awesome. Ole was amazing and Ivan was right there with him. It was just great stuff. Now Nikita'a heat segment was rather dull . Thank God for a hot crowd. We build to a finish Ole was an effective FIP. We get a great post match . So much great stuff in this.

Ivan & Nikita Koloff vs. Ole Anderson & Keith Larsen

 

Don Kernodle walks down the aisle with the babyfaces with the American flag in one hand and walking with a crutch with the other. The Koloffs come out to the Russian National Anthem which was a nice touch and the fans were hot for all of this already. Keith getting introduced after Ole was great. The faces were on fire to start as they took the battle to the Russians early and often with Keith being extra fired up. Ole comes in and immediately goes after Ivan's left arm in the Anderson way with Larsen following suit and Ivan being very good at selling everything. Larsen's portrayal here was really nice because he had been a job guy with standing for years but now that his brother was hurt, he got the credibility to basically dominate a guy like Ivan Koloff for about 5 minutes and the crowd ate it up. Ivan would finally get the tag to Nikita and we got Ole playing FIP which again was a nice touch to the match as Larsen you would think be the obvious choice. Nikita is still green as grass and is very clunky but he is effective in his role and Ole did a very good job of making everything look like it was painful. Larsen getting the hot tag was a blast as he took it to the Russians the best he could before missing a dropkick landing hard on the mat and gave the Koloffs the chance they needed to work him over. The match turns into a 4-way brawl and has Nikita going to the floor to hit Kernodle with the Russian Sickle which got the crowd in a frenzy. As this is going on, Ivan hit Larsen with the chain and the Russians pick up the win. Kernodle then used his crutch after the match and destroyed it on the Russians as the crowd went nuts. Will is right, in-ring wise this was fine but it was everything else involved in the match that puts this over the top as a low-end nomination.