The SmarK 24/7 Rant for WWF Tuesday Night Titans – April 9 1986
– Oh man, just reading the description of this one almost made me regret picking it, but it’s like the proverbial trainwreck that you just can’t look away from. I’m HOPING for “so bad it’s good” out of it this week.
TNT Presents: Nikolai Volkoff, This Is Your Life!
– Hosted by Vince McMahon, of course.
– First guest is Classy Freddie Blassie, who complains about a lack of title shots for Nikolai. Next up, his “sister” Olga, which had to be a rib on him because they kept playing the voice and Volkoff had no clue who he was listening to. God help me, they’re letting Nikolai Volkoff do improv. The payoff is his baby picture, which is his face pasted onto a baby’s body. And then she turns on him and banishes him from the family while the poor guy has no clue how to react to this.
– Let us take you back to clips of Volkoff wrestling Swede Hanson in MSG.
– Randy Savage pays tribute in a quick soundbite.
– So back to your regularly scheduled trainwreck, as the next guest is his former coach (doing what sounds like a Jewish accent, although he’s wearing a “CCCP” shirt) and this time they’ve clued Volkoff into the right name to say at least. But once again, his former friend turns on him, as he was not only Volkoff’s gym teacher, but also his math teacher, and he apparently could never get Nikolai to learn that 2 + 2 = 4, or that you needed to count to three to win wrestling matches.
– Hey, another 20 seconds of the epic Swede Hanson match. It’s like that Hogan v. Giant match on Nitro, where they’re gonna stretch a 5:00 match out over an hour to make it seem like it’s longer than it is. Volkoff thankfully finishes it with a botched backbreaker.
– Our next guest is a guy who thought he was on the dating game, and Vince fixes him up with Olga. With that winning gag out of the way (whew, good thing the level of sophistication is much higher these days! Oh, wait…) we bring out our next visitor, Nikolai’s former girlfriend, who is all over him, but then remembers how bad he was in bed (“His idea of lovemaking was a headbutt and a bodyslam!”) and goes off a pretty funny rant about what a lousy lover that he was.
– Next clips feature Sheik and Volkoff squashing Jose Luis Rivera and Paul Roma.
– King Kong Bundy admires Volkoff’s forthright attitude.
– And now, Vince blows the LID off the Cold War by revealing Agent 36, a trenchcoat-clad spy from the KGB who exposes Nikolai as a sleeper agent for the Kremlin. And as usual, the praise quickly shifts to bashing Volkoff, who is so dumb that he doesn’t even know the address of the President. See, because he lives in the White House, so only a very dumb spy wouldn’t know that. Sorry, didn’t mean to ruin the many layers of subtlety behind that joke.
– Iron Sheik is next, hopefully with a crazy rant in him to save this abomination. Vince asks him about being partnered with Nikolai, but Sheik turns it back into another extended discussion of how he used to be WWF champion before stopping for the posedown. Vince throws it to a match.
– The Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff v. SD Jones & Jim Powers. Hey, Nikolai got to squash both halves of the Young Stallions in this show. Corporal Kirschner marches down with “Old Glory waving in the wind” according to Vince, because apparently there’s wind in an indoor arena. Sheik is flustered and Powers is on the attack, but he puts his head down and Sheik crushes him with a backdrop suplex before Volkoff puts him down with the press backbreaker. Belly to belly by Sheik sets up the Camel Clutch to finish.
– Back to the Slammies, as Volkoff wins the award for Most Ignominious…because there was only one nominee. He’s not happy about the win.
– One last match, as Volkoff faces George Steele in a mat classic.
– Jimmy Hart and Dory Funk Jr add their praises.
– And we finish with Magna changing her mind again and leaping back into his arms to give us the happy ending. Well, it’s an ending, and that’s also important.
