[6.0] "USA chants as the faces enter. Keith Larson has the official hair of the era, long blonde hair. He's apparently Don Kernodle's kayfabe brother. Gordon briefly starts explaining the last name difference is because Keith didn't want to "capitalize on his brother's name". Kernodle is with them, with a neck brace and crutch, and carrying a US flag. Can I just comment that I love the entrance robes common in this era? Larson is wearing a red one. Ole is wearing like a more regular jacket. Ivan and Nikita enter. Nikita has such a good look, he's Ivan's kayfabe nephew. Ivan's forehead is very blade-scared up. Oddly, the Russians dont actually get that good of heat on entrance. They do on announcement though, which I guess is how it worked then. Ole gets a good pop, really everyone was over then, and Larson does too with him being a home state boy. I really miss the "everyone's over" days. Faces shake hands with each other and then after Ole grasps the back of Keith's neck in a mentorish way, they charge the Koloffs. Keith rips off Ivan's shirt, then Ole takes off Nikita's. The Russians both wear neat looking singlets. Gordon calls the faces the "Scandinavian Connection". Honestly the opening brawling here looks good and gets a good reaction, I like Larson's punches. Not huge on his dropkick though that shows up a little bit after. I do like that the match is actually moving though, considering how I felt about the last one. Ole and Keith continue to work Ivan over in their corner. Apparently Ole had his pick of the litter with who to bring with him for this grudge match and Keith was considered a surprising choice, but Gordon puts over his athleticism. Bob calls Ole's armlock bodyslam one of his favorite moves, and it looks good. Gordon proves he'll put anything over when he says the trumpet performance of the National Anthem was one of the most beautiful he'd ever heard. The match remains a double team workover of Ivan for quiet awhile, but all the action looks good and remains engaging. Everyone has good energy. Ivan has a brief comeback thats quickly ended by Keith grabbing him off the to rope and tossing him down to the matt, nearfall. Gordon puts over the Scandinavian Connection's tag psychology, saying they're targeting the left arm, ("the weaker arm unless you happen to be left handed"). Bob and Gordon both put over that Keith is learning from how the Anderson Brothers used to isolate one man. Ivan finally breaks out by gouging an eye and Nikita finally comes in. Nikita with shoulder rams in the corner, Ole with "good old American hard punches" (-Gordon). Nikita with a bearhug and Ole sells it well. Commentary admires Nikita's musculature. Ole rallies and tries to power out but it fails. Ivan goes to the top rope, Keith tries to draw referee Tommy Young's attention to this but instead Tommy tells Keith to get back on the apron and that distracts long enough for Ivan to jump off and hammer down on Ole's head. Tommy sees Ivan as he scrambles away but doesn't do anything but warn him. Ole gyrates his hips (? ) to try to rally out. Finally does so as he claps Nikita's ears and breaks out. Ivan tags in, prevents Ole from doing the same. So now Ivan gets some time to beat on Ole, with boots and a bodyslam for a nearfall. Ivan misses an elbow drop, crowd cheers as Ole briefly slips away but Ivan tags in Nikita quickly and Nikita gets to Ole before he can tag out. Ole makes an odd face in peril if I'm being honest. Not bad, just odd. First thing in the match I don't really like happens when Nikita slaps on the bear hug again. With stuff like this I'm just like "we saw this already". Nikita was still very new at this stage so maybe too green for much else. We get a closeup of Ivan on the apron and I realize he has a hammer and sickle tattoo, which is a commitment to the gimmick! Reminder that he's Canadian not a Soviet and I have my doubts he was a communist. Anyway, Ole breaks out of the bearhug again after some punches and lifting and dropping Nikita. Double down crawls and Ole finally gets the hot tag out, and Keith gets to Nikita before he can tag out himself. Keith throws some haymakers and they continue to look good, knocks the Russians' heads together. Keith whips Nikita and hits him with the back of an elbow and I like the way Nikita bumps after. Keith misses a dropkick when Nikita holds on to the ropes. Nikita whips Larson and then holds him down with a choke, which gets a count from the ref. I'm enjoying this match but its starting to feel like its going on too long? I looked and its the longest match of the card. Wait, the main event goes shorter? Well, ok. Anyway Keith rolls Ivan up but he's too close to the heel corner and Nikita breaks it up, Ole comes in to try to deal with thats, beats on Nikita and gets him out of the ring. But oops! This gives Nikita a chance to get some heat by going after Kernodle! This gets a good reaction from the crowd as Ole comes in and beats Nikita for it and throws him back in the ring. A fan reaches out and pats Kernodle's shoulder to try to rally him. As the ref is dealing with Ole and Nikita, Ivan hits Keith with his signature chain. Camera foolishly switches to watching Ole and Nikita brawl more and Ivan gets the fall. I'm blown away they had the hated heels go over here, really shows how Starrcade really was just a stop on the tour and not a season finale. Some trash throwing as a heat segment commences. Nikita throws Ole into the ringpost and joins Ivan. Nikita picks up Larson in a cradle as Ivan goes to the top rope with the chain. Kernodle charges in with the crutch and takes out both Russians. Doesn't seem so grievously injured now! Anyway, small flaws aside I really really enjoyed this. Yeah this is like a *** or 6.0 match to me. Just a fun watch. Bad finish but thats to be expected, so I'm just focusing on the fact that i liked watching it."
[3.0] "Very dragged out match with the first half being one sided beatdown, followed by bearhugs that go on for way too long. If it was cut down by 5-7 minutes, it would've been more tolerable to watch."
[6.0] "I thought this was a solid, classic 1980s tag team match. I agree that the bear hug segment in the middle was about eight years too long but I thought the action before and after that segment was pretty solid. There was a frantic pace at the beginning for a strong-style match. And the manager's revenge at the end was fun and kept to a reasonable amount of time. I would definitely show this as an example of 1980s Mid-Atlantic/Crockett/NWA/WCW tag team wrestling to someone interested in checking out this style."
[7.0] "This is honestly close to an 8 for me, I just think Ivan's beating in the beginning of the match went a little too long. The match starts with the American team going to town on Ivan before Nikita is tagged in. Nikita then goes on to dominate grizzled veteran Ole Anderson, especially with the bear hug. Nikita is treated like an absolute monster in this match. He comes in after Anderson and Larson go to town Ivan and totally puts a stop to their momentum. This sets up the tag to the young (, hot, ) American underdog Keith Larson who lets loose on the Russians. Nikita is really the star of this match and the strongest worker. Not only does he absolutely fit the bill as a monster heel, his movement also manages to very expressive which isn't something see from as lot of giants/monsters. I love the way he stumbles off the ropes when whipped by Larson and the way he falls out of the ring too. Ole sells well during his section against Nikita, but Nikita is by far the best seller here despite being a big man. Very good tag match, but again, the ending makes it feel less definitive which is an ongoing problem for this PPV. Many storylines are started here rather than finished which is odd for what is supposed to be the flagship event for the NWA. I'd still consider this a classic tag match from the Golden Age though and very underrated by Cagematch users"
[5.0] "Good teamwork from the Americans, who focused on a specific limb to weaken their opponent. Unfortunately, the finish is pretty bad and we fail to see the final pin on the WWE Network version. In-ring quality: 0.75/4. Stakes: 0.75/2. Justification: ? /1. Place on card: 1/1. Suspense: ? /1. Bonus/Malus: finish badly filmed and bizarre -0.5. Total: 5/10. Match seen on WWE Network."
[6.0] "The Bearhug was too long, although Ole still did a fine job of keeping the crowd interested while in it, but everything else was pretty good. The Russians looked fantastic physically and obviously had some genuine heat, while Ole and Keith got nice babyface reactions from the fans."
[5.0] "2 and a third stars you know match sure did have too many bare hugs which really messed up this bout which I thought was gonna be somewhat great match considering the story they told .still not bad but could've been much better."
[2.0] "Ass. The bear hug in the middle felt 20 minutes long. I cannot believe this match has such a high rating in this site because it was not enjoyable. Whole thing just felt too long and too boring. Basically sums up this entire show, feels a lot longer than it actually is"
[2.0] "I hated this. I hated everything about this. These fifteen minutes felt like an eternity. Never ending bear hugs and uh, some punches and stuff, I guess? That's about it. For fifteen fucking minutes. My god was this some of the most basic ass 15 minutes I've ever seen."
[4.0] "This match was fine. Another pretty forgettable one. I was happy to see Ole Anderson here and intrigued that he was in face run at this point. The weak link of this match was Keith Larson for sure, but he didn't do awful. I found Don Kernodle annoying at ringside here."
[5.0] "Best match of the show to this point, though it was a bit of a weird one. The faces, Ole/Larson, controlled the entire first half of the match by targeting Ivan Koloff. When Nikita finally gets tagged in, he starts rocking the bearhugs. It's not exactly an exciting match but the crowd was hot and it worked well enough. **1/2"
[6.0] "I really liked this match but I was so confused as to why the faces wrestled like such heels. It really changed how I viewed the match and I saw the Koloffs as much more sympathetic."
[6.0] "Keith Larson's big break, soon will be the Rocky Kernodle repackage. I'm really enjoying this angle with Don Kernodle being turned on by The Russians, to give Don a babyface run in a company where he's been a heel for so long. Everyone did great work for this angle and having the Kernodle parents involved was rather forward thinking for the time. So yeah, we're invested. It's an Anderson match so they're working on the arm, who's arm? Ivan's arm, because Nikita could hardly do a thing in the ring at this point. He can bearhug though. Things are fine enough, the finish is definitive even if the 3 count is missed. Post match there's more on the bone to chew on and we're left with the most satisfying match of the night thus far. 5.75 rounded up."
[6.0] "That was actually a decent tag match that was nicely contributed by all four wrestlers. Having the Koloff's win was an easy way to generate massive heat from the crowd, with Don Kernodle coming in as the babyface American to save the day, adding fuel to this propagandistic storyline. 6/10"
[5.0] "I didn't really find this boring at all personally. I thought it was a solid, well worked bout that felt like it had some heat behind it. It isn't exactly groundbreaking stuff but it was good enough to be a perfectly fine and enjoyable midcard tag match."
[7.0] "The Russians put Don Kernodle on the shelf, so the faces are out for revenge in this grudge match. They jumpstart this by attacking both the Koloffs. The faces get a ton of shine and utilize a lot of quick tags. The heels are great at doing all the stoogey selling and showing the fans that they are getting their asses kicked without garnering sympathy for themselves. Ole Anderson is soon isolated by The Russians and they begin a long face-in-peril segment, with Anderson spending a lot of time in a bearhug, All chaos breaks loose once Anderson tags in Larson. Don Kernodle gets shoved to the floor and this gets a lot of heat for the heels. During all of the carnage, Nikita blasts Larson with his chain and gets the victory. Most of the action here was rather basic, but the tag team psychology was stellar and the crowd loved every minute of this, so it's well worth your time."
[1.0] "Wow this one was a really long, I felt tired after watching this. I suggest you to skip this one, but lads below seem to enjoy it more than me, which is fine."
[5.0] "So after all the weird finishes, they did a normal finish here for once and the camera missed it... WTF was going on. Anyways onto the match, I think it was decent and actually one of the best matches on the show but it was quite boring and felt too long. The hot tag sequence could have also been worked in a better way. Also it felt a bit weird to see the Russians go over after the National Anthem stuff. [**3/4]"
[6.0] "Finally, a slight step-up on this card. Seeing Ole Anderson as a face was interesting but kind of weird, but he brought his tag team expertise to a match with the big Russians, who looked monstrous as one would expect. It turned into a fun brawl with well, worked, NWA-quality tag team fundamentals, and while it didn't exactly become a truly impressive match, but the standards of this card, it was a barn burner."
[5.0] "Boring match. Larson and Ole Anderson quick tagging working on Ivan's arm, then Nikita finally gets in and its bear hug city. No hot tag as melee breaks out, commentary and camera missed the finish. Story here is Don Kernodle was injured by Ivan and Nikita which led to Ole choosing his brother for a a grudge tag team match. Don Kernodle was on the outside and played some role in the end."
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