Q&A with Koloff - #24

This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Q&A with Koloff, the Devil's Nightmare. Well, I love it, I love it, I love it. Well, here is the format for Q&A with Koloff.

The roles are reversed. In other words, on the Man Up show, I'm typically asking the questions, but on the Q&A, you get to ask the questions, and so they can be wrestling-related, ministry, life questions, you know. If you're ready, I'm ready. Are you ready?

I'm ready to rumble! Whoa, they should have hired you for the WWE, I'm telling you what. You could have been there mainly. Well, I'm available, and I'll put in a little bit of good work for Jesus while I'm doing it.

Well, amen, that may not get you hired, but thank you anyway. Hey, Jeff, I remember you telling me, and we've been together almost 24 years now, tag-teaming for Jesus, and body-slamming the gates of hell, and at the same time opening up the gates of heaven. When you first got the call up there in Minnesota from the Professional Wrestling Organization, they told you you had to shave your hair and just come looking like Kojak, and I know you had a full head of hair.

That would be quite challenging for me. I've had my hair 150 years. I voted for Abraham Lincoln, and I'm proud of it, so it's been there all this time, but how did you respond? Did you have any second thoughts, or did you just plunge right in and go for it?

That's a great question. Did I have any reservations? Rick Flair is famous for saying how he's styling and profiling. I just want to say, for the record, you do a pretty good job on styling and profiling that hairdo of yours, I just want to say. I resemble everyone. Yes, you do. For anyone who knows you, and those who don't, they'll look you up and go, yeah, he's got a pretty good head of hair there.

Anyway, back to the question. It was really a great question, because back then, I used to be old enough to remember the old Sunnyn spray that kind of highlights your hair and stuff, and so I had this kind of feathered look. I thought I was such a pretty boy, and at least in my own mind I was.

And here's some irony, too, because Road Warrior Animal is the one who called me. Anyone who sees old pictures of him and I together, pre-wrestling days, we were like two peas in a pod. I mean, we both had similar hair flow going on, and I thought we were all that and a bag of chips, but come to learn, we weren't. But that said, I actually had no reservations for real, because I thought, at least I was confident it would grow back.

But I thought, why not? In fact, when I hung up the phone with Jim Crockett Jr., that was about two plus months before I was coming to Charlotte to introduce myself to him face to face, I didn't even wait. I just did it like, I got this buddy of mine, Brad Leeson, who's a workout partner, I'm like, hey dude, I'm going to go give wrestling a shot, shave my head, get some clippers, and let's shave the hair. Like, bald. And you were right. You said, Kojak, you know, Telly Savalas and Yul Brenner, I think, along with Uncle Ivan Kolov were about the only bald guys back then. It was not in vogue, for the record. That's true, brother. Yeah, it wasn't all that popular like it is now, but no reservations, I just thought, why not, let's do it. And then, here's what's crazy too, for real. I got more attention, I guess because it was so unusual, with the shaved head than when I thought I was a pretty boy. That's even the more irony behind it all, Ronnie.

I mean, I had women just throwing phone numbers at me and stuff, you know? I'm like, ah, kind of tongue in cheek right there. Well, I know one thing, champ, that I want to tell your beloved audience here, your great fans, we preach together now right at 24 years tag teaming, and we usually go to the church in the same vehicle, and the wind can be whipping. And I'm running in the church, man, I mean, like, degrees lightning, not wanting my hair to get messed up, and the champ, he just walks calmly into the church.

I stroll. The wind don't affect him at all. The champ, Nikita Kolov, never has a bad hair day.

The preaching machine does. Well, I'd like to say you never have a hair out of place, let's just say that. All right, hey, next question.

We talked a lot about hair today. What's another question you have burning for the Russian nightmare? Well, I would like to, my favorite story that you tell is when you fought in the ring, it was kind of a spare of the moment deal with Dick the Bruiser, and I would like to know your exact thoughts when you was in the ring there with him, and you slammed up against him against the ropes, and he looked at you and went rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat. Well, let's back up before we even square it up in the ring together, as him and Baron Von Raschke and the legendary crusher, the Keg Toten wrestler from Milwaukee who made Milwaukee famous, I understand there's actually a memorial statue of the crusher somewhere in Milwaukee since he made Milwaukee famous. Yeah, don't surprise me.

Like a keg of beer on his shoulder or something like that. That was kind of his deal. Well, when the three of them came to the ring, and we were at the Chicago Stadium, the baseball stadium there, and man, the people went crazy. Now, for the listener, understand, I mean, I was green, green, green, brand new. I mean, I don't even know I was in the business for a year at that point, and it was Ivan and I and Crusher Khrushchev and the dirty Russians and the Cold War.

And the people went crazy. In my view, Ronnie, no disrespect to any of the three of them at this point, but being young and jacked up at 285 pounds, I thought, we gotta wrestle these three old men? I mean, that's what went through my mind, right? I'm like, there ain't no way people are gonna believe that any one of those old men can hurt, you know, the Russian menace, right?

The Russian nightmare. And then, lo and behold, I get partnered up with Dick the Bruiser in what we call a six-way, where all six of us are in the ring. And when he started throwing those punches and added those sound effects and those, I like, for real, I like shoved him like a rag doll, and I went over to Uncle Ivan and I said, Uncle Ivan, get that old man away from me, I'm gonna kill him. Because as he's throwing the punches, I'm like, how can I even make this people believe that this punch is even hurting me, you know? But man, he was so over with the crowd, he was legendary, of course, in the Midwest and Indiana, Dick the Bruiser. Oh yeah, that rat-a-tat-tat, the first time you told that, I mean, I went sailing and I'm still airborne.

I have never in my life heard a story like that. You know, I tried to figure it out, well, this great rascal, I mean, he's an alleged, what's the rat-a-tat-tat all about? Yeah, well, if anyone's old enough out there listening to remember the Rock'em Sock'em robots, you know, where you press the little button and the fists kind of fly up and then I think the goal was for the head to pop up, right? Knock the block off, Robbie said, knock the block off. And that's, I mean, that's what I felt, I felt like he was like one of them Rock'em Sock'em robots, like rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat, I'm like, oh my gosh, he can't fight his way out of a wet paper sack, let a little knock my block off. So that's the deal, my one Dick the Bruiser story, that's good. Go ahead, Robbie. That was shine, seal, delivered, you don't need another Dick the Bruiser story.

That's right, and occasionally I run into people who actually bring up the name Dick the Bruiser, so I get to tell that one story. Hey, we got time for one more question, what you got, what you got for me? Well, champ, I've been with you in airports many times, either taking you or coming to get you, and I'd sit there as you'd be walking in off the plane into the airport, and in fact people have been sitting beside me and go, I know that guy, I know that man from somewhere, and when you'd come up where I was at, they'd come up and say, I should know you, I know you from somewhere. Of course, others know who you are, and they're, you know, they're ecstatic with excitement, you're autographing everything, but of the two experiences where someone comes up and they're trying to figure out who you are because they know they know you, or the ones that do know you, and wanting, you know, you're autographing, just flogging you and being all over you, how do you respond to both of them? Is there a special, certain response that you have to both of those issues?

Well, that's a great question, because each scenario is slightly different, right? Oh, yes. And certainly by the ones who do recognize me, certainly more than any, humbled by that. The fact that I'm close to, I guess you'd say, three decades removed from in-ring wrestling, the fact that anybody still recognizes me and or even wants my autograph, or is willing to pay for an autograph, now, you know, of course, because I do a lot of legend signings, virtual signings, and those sorts of things, and selling my books, right, go on Koloff.net, you'll see a couple of my books.

In fact, I just updated my last book, my life story, I added three or four new chapters, and more pictures, so there's more stories and more pictures, go on Koloff.net and you might want to get a copy of that, hear my whole life story, but that said, the fact that anyone, whether they're paying for it or not, even want my autograph, is humbling in and of itself. So let's just start with that. Totally grateful to all these years later, just continually run into such loyal fans. I mean, I think the wrestling fans, I've said it over and over and over again, are the greatest on the planet. They're certainly, I feel, the most loyal. And so we'll start with that. So, grateful.

The others. The one thing I say to compliment you, champ, I've been a wrestling fan from day one, but back in your heyday when you was wrestling, the interviews, either before the match or after, were 100% real compared to the scripted stuff going down now like a soap opera drama. You guys made the wrestling event either before or after the match by your interviews, and it was spontaneous combustion and not something pre-planned or scripted. Right.

Well, a very valid point. They weren't scripted, and you used the word spontaneous. That is 100% accurate.

I was never, not once ever, handed any kind of a script for any interview I ever did. That's just the way we rolled back then, and that's why I believe it came across more believable and more real for the fans of that era. And fans really have conveyed that message back to me that they love the golden era of wrestling, the 80s and 90s. Oh, hey man, champ. And you said the word. R-E-A-L. You're as real as sunshine and real as rain.

Through the roof, up to the sun at high noon and back. Champ, you are real. Well, I appreciate it. Let me, in our last minute or two here, let me address the other side of the question, which is the ones who maybe don't know who I am but recognize me as being, quote, somebody. And so, you know, it just depends kind of on the scenario, the situation. I mean, whether it's a restaurant, an airport, or just out in public shopping or something. And you're right, they kind of look at you kind of sideways, like you're saying. They're like, I should know you.

And so, you know, I just have fun with that sometimes, you know, because I'm like, so who do you think I am? And of course, you know, when they say Stone Cold to Bill Goldberg, I do take it as a personal insult, just for the record. Just kidding, Bill, Steve, if you're listening out there, I actually take it as quite a compliment that both of you decided to imitate my original look. So I just, for the record, I want both of you guys… Hey, man, the last time I preached in North Carolina, the audience looked like Nikita Kolov convention.

I feel like, look… I mean, the hands were shining under the lights, man. You've got an influence on people no matter what. Well, we already said at the outset, right, look, that I was a trendsetter, okay? I mean, Joe Brenner, you know, Telly Savalas, Uncle Ivan, Nikita Kolov, we were trendsetters, okay? Yes, 100%.

That's right. So Steve, Bill, thank you for modeling and carrying on the bald look, but all that to say, Ronnie, it just depends. I may have a lot of fun with them and let them kind of, you know, just guess at who they think I am. But ultimately, we'll get to, you know, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kolov, and then they're, you know, typically, usually, they're thrilled to meet me. So anyway… Oh, yes, they are, champ, believe me.

On a scale to 1 to 10, Nikita Kolov, the champ, is a 13.5. Well, you know, your stock just went up in my world. I just want you to know that with all the compliments, and there will be a check in the mail for you on its way, okay? I may just keep it for a souvenir and cherish your autograph on the chain.

That's it. Don't cash it. Just hold on to it.

Because it might bounce anyway, so… Hey, Ronnie, so great to have you on the Q&A today, man. You know, I love you, my friend. You're awesome. I love you too, champ, and you have a great day and always a thrill to be with you no matter what it is, television, radio, talking on the phone or in person. Love and appreciate you, champ. Well, thanks.

I look forward to the next time we break bread together. You're amazing. God bless you. I love you, my friend. Love you, champ. All right. Bye-bye.