Firstly, Oleg Prudius is not even from Russia but actually the Ukraine. Ukraine is touching Russia on the world map though, and a Russian stereotype is far easier to create than a Ukrainian one, so let's go with that. Rule one) when creating a stereotype in the WWE, don't waste time with research, just switch a wrestler's home nation to make the writing team's life easier. Kozlov became a stereotype of a Russian from the country's communist days of the past. The character was very cold and straight faced; put it this way, I imagine he wasn't the person cracking 'knock knock' jokes at the WWE Christmas party. He probably just drank vodka and rambled on about Soviet mobsters. The character was a beef-cake, no-nonsense, brute. He was full of aggression and for a time period, just destroyed everything in sight. His entrance featured no music or titantron, just a spot light shining down on him. I also think that they just googled 'famous Russian people' and picked the first one on the list, when picking out the character's first name.
A wrestling enthusiast, currently educating the youth of Taiwan English; there are now a bunch of Asian kids running around with Yorkshire accents. Read about that trip and others at dragonstravel.com.
