#HWETW Top 10 – Heat

8. “Chernobyl” Heat – Rusev & Lana

The charming foreign cousin of “cheap” heat, “Chernobyl” heat is cheap, somewhat sustainable nuclear heat.  While the Cold War being over has scaled back the amount of “Soviets”[ref]2. The best example of the NotquiteaSoviet “Soviet” trope is of course, Nikita Koloff, who was born Nelson Scott Simpson in Minneapolis, and taught himself Russian before changing his name legally to his stage persona in 1990. A Born-Again Christian, he now appears on the Lifetime show “Preachers’ Daughters” sans accent[/ref] and the new War on Terrorism is far too “real” a subject to make light of (anymore at least) has left a massive hole in a once great tradition.

At least until the “Bulgarian Brute” Rusev and the “Ravishing Russian” Lana came into our lives. Not since Yokozuna has a “foreign menace” done so much damage and stayed so hot for so long. And that comes from the remarkable talent both he and Rusev possess. Make no mistake, before he ballooned up the point of immobility, Yoko was a top-line starter and a transcendent worker for someone as genuinely enormous as him. Rusev, with his SUPER ATHLETE gimmick, will hopefully never deal with the issues — both weight-wise and psychologically — that the late Rodney Anoa’i went through and we’ll be able to watch RUSEV CRUSH for a very, very long time.

Other examples: Nikita Koloff, Nikolai Volkoff, Russian Assassin I, Russian Assassin II, Yokozuna, Ludwig Borga

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