The Bolsheveiks

Not the greatest team were they, everytime I watched them they lost, Bushwhackers, Harts, Rockers always went over. Thought they would have had a bit more about them seeing as Volkoff was a former co-holder of the tag titles with Sheiky baby.

Power & Glory were the team that I wish could have done more, I think when L.O.D squashed them at WM7 that was the end of the road for the potential that team had.

We seem to be pretty similar in terms of wrestling interests. How long you been into "this business" mate?

Your about 18 months up on me mate, my first PPV was Survivors 1990. I've been into WWF (will always call it that) since Undertaker debuted thinking about it.

Dunno about you but it was always exciting as a nipper to go back through old PWI mags and stuff and see about old feuds, and also discovering NWA/WCW and reading up on that was great too. I only really liked to go back as far as about WM3 cos before that to me the WWF weren't that great compared to the 1987-92 era which was just awesome. I've really lost interest in the WWF/E since about 2002, just not been the same, dunno if its because the net has spoiled wrestling as a whole, with kayfabe being killed off and being able to read about who is to feud with who. Perhaps its just because the 87-92 & Attitude/Monday Night Wars era was so good, nothing can compare to it, especially nowadays with Cena, Orton, etc are just pale imitations to the headliners during the boom period.

Aside from the fact that Nikolai Volkoff was pretty played out by the time they teamed him with Boris Zukhov ('88, wasn't it?), the whole "evil heel Russians" gimmick itself was starting to age, too. People weren't as reflexively hateful of Russian heels by '88 as they were in the... well, any time from about 1985 backwards.

So the gimmick (and one of the wrestlers) were both getting stale, on top of the fact that on their best day, Volkoff and Zukhov couldn't hold a candle to some of their tag team competition in those days (Harts, Rockers, Bulldogs, Demolition, etc.), and the odds against the Bolsheviks were pretty long from the very start.

Spot on. You could tell once the Cold War ended, which it was pretty much done in the late 80s, Russian wrestlers really had no gimmick to fall back on. The USSR looked weak as did their wrestlers. Even Nikita Koloff couldnt regain any momentum he had. You can just look at how Volkoff feuded with Hogan in the early 80s to tell that the guy had a semi decent drawing power, but then again it was clearly ran off the Cold War.

Such a shame, because Nikolai Volkoff was awesome.

I just watched them geing hammered by the face Powers of Pain at Summerslam 88.......

Boris Zukhov was only brought in to the WWF just to further weaken the AWA, Boris at the time of his signing with the WWF, was one half of the AWA tag champs.

Vince often just took guys from other promotions with no real plan for them, but at least he used Zukoff and a way past his prime Volkoff to put over their amazing collection of face tag teams.

A bit off topic but for me I don't think you can have a more golden age than between Wrestlemania 6 and Wrestlemania 8.

Around that time I went on a few UK events at Wembley, NEC and NIA and saw pretty much everyone apart from Hogan and Slaughter. Always a regret not seeing Hogan live.

Was lucky to see Warrior vs Undertaker in '91 though.

Yes I do like WM4 - my mate had the big VHS boxset and we used to watch it loads