[1991-02-24-WCW-Wrestle War '91] Lex Luger and Nikita Koloff

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Nikita is about to present the new U.S. belt to Luger, but decides to hit him in the face instead. The Horsemen, War Games, heel Nikita ... you can tell Dusty's back. Nikita is still bitter about Bash '87.

[jdw]

Which again makes it strange that they went Doom --> Birds --> Steiners this week. Arn & Barry would so much be a Dusty type of tag team champions.

[shoe]

Which again makes it strange that they went Doom --> Birds --> Steiners this week. Arn & Barry would so much be a Dusty type of tag team champions.

 

Arn was injured and missed the War Games. Maybe the original plan was for Barry and Arn, but the injury changed the plan.

[shoe]

I thought it was a solid re introduction of Nikita. Plus it puts the US title in a more featured spot instead of Luger just defending it randomly.

[PeteF3]

Grizzly Smith should not be used on TV in any capacity. Road agents should not be dwarfing the wrestlers and they really shouldn't be dwarfing guys like Luger and Nikita. Koloff is out to present the new U.S. championship belt to Luger, which he does right upside his head. I can't fathom the WWF drawing upon a 4-year old title change to set up a new feud at this point in time, but Nikita makes sure to exposit further motivation--like Terry Funk, he's upset about not being a contender for the World title. Good angle, and the Nikita of old is back, for better or for worse.

[Kevin Ridge]

Nikita refers to Luger as the Lexster. He is proud to hit Luger in the face with the U.S. Title. He must have stolen Teddy Long’s do rag. Koloff feels the need to strip down during his promo. Grizzly Smith did dwarf the other guys when he was standing there beside them.

[soup23]

I knew Nikita came back but totally blanked on how he was introduced so I was shocked to see Nikita belt him. Good segment.

[Smack2k]

From here through the Summer of 1991, Nikita was fuckin awesome...shades of the Nikita that could have been without Maggie's accident in Oct 86 and into 87...

[garretta]

This was pretty much a redo of the Flair/Funk angle from WrestleWar 89 with a belt shot taking the place of a piledriver on the table. Just as with Funk, Nikita really doesn't have much of a claim to any title shots because of his layoff, so he decides to make one of his own. The promo after the attack may have been his best ever; he's really mastered speaking fluent English with a Russian accent. The only thing I could have done without was him calling Luger "Lexster". For some reason, WCW/JCP really wanted a "-ster" of their own to counteract the Hulkster, and they never could find him. Still, Luger's a better candidate for it than Tully "The Tullster" Blanchard, who ironically was given that nickname by fellow Horseman Luger back in '87.

 

Grizzly Smith being bigger than the wrestlers was no big deal to me, probably because he also looks about a hundred and five years old. It's a one-minute segment, for heaven's sake. I don't think anybody watching said to themselves, "Gee whiz, the Griz can really kick that pretty boy Luger's butt". I'm not sure that anybody watching even knew who the hell he was.

 

Oh, the time constraints of pay-per-view: Tony barely had any reaction to the whole thing afterward other than to send it back to the booth, and I highly doubt that JR and the Dream spent more than ten seconds talking about it either. This probably should have been done the following Saturday on WCWSN for maximum dramatic impact.

[dawho5]

How is it they do a better job of setting up Luger's next opponent than Flair's?