Chuck Coats- 3 Time Cancer Survivor

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Enjoy it and share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Next, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, The Russian Nightmare, Nikita Kolov. Now, The Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Welcome back to another show, another time with The Russian Nightmare.

Well, how come I always say that? The Devil's Nightmare, Nikita Kolov. Hey, I am thrilled to have on the show with me today this man who goes back. You want to talk about manning up. I mean, this guy has manned up. I think I'm accurate in saying this, a three-time cancer survivor, and we're going to find out if that's true in just a moment here. Chuck Coates, Chuck, welcome to It's Time to Man Up, The Man Up Show.

Nikita, I'm so excited about this. I was so good to see you last weekend and catch up a little bit, and I tell you, God's been so gracious and good to me, and I just love telling my story, and it's an opportunity to do that today. Well, it is an opportunity, and in my introduction, Chuck, was I correct? Was I accurate? Three-time cancer survivor? That is correct.

It's three times, 2006, 2012, and 2016. I tell you what, when I get to heaven, I'm going to shake Joe's hand and give him a hug. He's my inspiration, man.

He's your hero, so to speak. Oh, big time, big time. Big time. Well, you know what? We're going to jump into that.

Before we get to that, a little more details on that. For those out there in the listening audience, and by the way, people who listen around the world, we've had 59 plus countries not only listen to the radio show and or podcast, and so your story is going to go worldwide here today. But before we get there, give our listeners a little backdrop, a little back story on Chuck Coates, and then we'll talk about your victory in overcoming cancer. Well, Nikita, I was a big wrestling fan early on in my younger days. My dad was a fan, so I got hooked when I was little, and I got good grades. I got to watch wrestling. You got good grades. Come on.

Yeah. Well, you guys kept me A plus, and I went to NC State University in Raleigh, and that's the Dorton Arena stomping grounds for the NWA, Jim Crockett promotion, and we were there. We bought tickets in advance. We got ringside. Never, ever, ever sat anywhere from ringside. During my college days, I just got to the point, I thought, I've got to do this. I want to do this, and I've always been told, if you have a dream, go for it.

So not that I recommend this, but me and a friend of mine went to college and went to Nelson Royal School in Morrisville and got some training, and long story short, the next thing I know, they're sending this to New York, and my second night ever on television, I was in the ring with Andre the Giant. A whole lot, though. A whole lot. Now, you're giving a lot in a short period of time. Let's slow down there. Wow.

All right. Let's go back first to the Dorton Arena because you may or you may not know. A lot of the wrestling fans do know. Some don't, but that's where I debuted, right? The Dorton Arena in Raleigh, and it is a crazy story for me because I didn't dream of being a pro wrestler, and I didn't quit college, Chuck. I actually graduated college, but then through a five-minute phone call to Jim Crockett Jr., the promoter in Charlotte, North Carolina, through that conversation, I showed up at the office the day he said to be there, and the next thing you know, I'm standing before a camera, and it would change around my neck, and looking mean and menacing, and then said, be in Raleigh tomorrow night. You're going to wrestle. So, let me ask you a question. So, did in those early days of getting good grades and rewarded by going to professional wrestling, did you ever see the Russian nightmare in action in the ring in Dorton? Absolutely. Just Nikita and Magnum in the chain match.

Nikita and Dusty versus Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard. Actually, I have some photos of that in my scrapbook. No way. Yes, sir.

Even though it could be good guy, babyface days of Nikita. So, from the red singlet to the black singlet, and I mean, I thought, oh, man. Come on. Yes, sir, you were one of the reasons, and it's, I mean, it's a good way that I wanted to excel and do this, and like I said, wrestling was just the biggest sport, just football to me, or anything else.

It was something I just dreamed of doing, and thankfully had the opportunity. Okay. So, you grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina? Yeah. Well, Durham, Raleigh. Yeah, right. 30 minutes away. Yeah.

Okay. Raleigh, Durham. They call that the triangle? Is that what they call that?

Yes. So, you grew up in the triangle area, and you were in college, studying in college, but an avid wrestling fan, and you got a vision for you. You got a vision, got a picture. You might, as you said, a dream of becoming a pro wrestler.

So, you drop out of college, and for those who are in college, you go either way on that, right? You can say, hey, if you have a dream, and I mean, for you, it turned out rather well for some, maybe not so, but you drop out, and you threw a name out there, Nelson Royal. Yeah. Now, there's a lot of people may not, may or may not know who Nelson Royal was, but in fact, he still has. I think till to this day, and he's no longer with us. He's gone on to heaven to be with the Lord, but he's got a Western store there in Mooresville, North Carolina. I believe it's still there. Do you know? I do believe his daughter took over.

I think she's kept it going as far as I know. Yeah. He's been there like 50 or 60 years, right? I mean, which is interesting, a Western store in North Carolina.

Texas, I could picture that, but North Carolina, okay. Anyway, so, and I knew he had a camp, and he was the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion, correct? That's correct, yes.

Yeah. So, he had a history behind him and a history of success in wrestling and pretty big name in the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Arena area. And so, you went to his camp there, and I know any other guys that listeners might, names that they might recognize that you were in camp with at that time? Well, I was a little bit younger than George South and Tommy Angel and some of the guys you wrestled. I was more, most of my time was spent in WCW, and so, but they were finishing or just didn't, they were still wrestling for Jim Crockett when I was starting. And so, you know, Gene Ligon was there helping train, and, of course, Gene Anderson was there in training. Ricky Nelson was there, and David Eisele.

I know you know David well. And, you know, a lot of the guys, the enhancement guys that put you guys over, you know, Reed and I bought tickets to see live because of the job they did to make this stuff, you know, go. I mean, it's a totally different world back then, you know. You wanted to be your inside.

I mean, not everybody can go to the Charlotte Coliseum or the Greensboro Coliseum. When you go to the high schools and armories and all the places like that, I mean, that's where you get the crowd and the house shows, and that's what pushed, to me, those guys made me, you know, want to, I was willing to do whatever to get a chance. And so, that's what I did. Yeah, yeah. Well, and you named some names there. Again, for some, maybe not so recognizable, but they are to me, Chuck, because I became, you know, I got the privilege of stepping in the ring with, you mentioned some names, you know, Dusty Rhodes, Rock and Roll Express, Ricky Steamboat, Johnny Weaver, Black Jack Mulligan, Barry Windham, Tully Blanchard, who we've had on the show before, and of course Sting, Lex Luger. I mean, the list goes on and on. But what I want people to understand today, even in hearing some of, you know, your, the early part of your story, is that I, Nikita Koloff was successful because of many of those names you mentioned.

Not so much the names I mentioned. Now, I'm grateful to have stepped in the ring with Ric Flair, and I say he can make a broomstick look good because he made Nikita Koloff look good. But for the record, it was because of guys like, you mentioned, Gene Ligon, Ricky Nelson, Tommy Angel, Chuck Coates, and others, because you guys went in the ring on television with us and made guys like me look really, really good, that then in turn put me in main event matches against guys like I mentioned, the big name guys as well. And so, you know, you guys really, you guys really are the gold standard of that day of professional wrestling. I just want you to hear that from me and to know that. Well, you know, I hear a lot about over the years, you know, well, hey, you almost, you almost made it. Well, I did make it. Right.

I was on the big stage as well. I just might not have been a starter. You know, every good football team has backup players, right? That's the way I look at it. You know, Nikita Koloff here, if you're needing to buy a car and have marginal credit and considering using buy here, pay here, that's worse than taking the Russian sickle. Winston-Salem motor cars will put you behind the wheel of a car you can rely on while helping rebuild, repair, or establish your credit score conveniently located on Silas Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem. Be sure to check them out today at WSMC, the number one.com because you are number one. at redemption go to www.koloff.net and donate today well and not but not only that i mean yeah you well you said okay so let's let's let's talk for a minute you said you're you're you're in new york and you're wrestling andre andre the giant ha ha so you okay so you break you go to nelson's camp you break into wrestling you're shipped off to new york and you stand in the ring with andre the giant what was that tell our tell our listeners what that experience was like because i was never in the ring with andre i'm thinking if i didn't have it on youtube i wouldn't believe it myself but uh we you know nelson we were in the we trained you we worked with him and he said he needed he did you face it he's been using the same guy to do wrestling you know back then they take everything and they wanted the variety so nelson said i'm sending eight or ten of you guys up but you think you're ready and i said well nelson not been ready you know and he put us in and uh we we flew out of charlotte and like said back then you know we with the tv you know you guys uh with the tvs then you know you wrestled uh guys like us but we didn't know we get there at one o'clock and we eat and you know about three or four o'clock they take the chalkboard out remember that nikita yeah and they're writing the writing the names and it says uh paul roma and chuck coates are right there i'm excited i'm tagging the paul roma versus aku and andre the giant and so i'm like did i just read that correctly so uh funny story about that andre was playing cards that day and kaku went over some stuff with me he said now listen don't bother andre while he's playing cards that's okay so i thought maybe he'll get with me about five o'clock five thirty well show starts at seven and we're third match i hadn't heard from andre so i'm standing at the curtain the gorilla position if you will here comes andre where is he and he asked me on the back kaku says there's andre he says i give you headbutt you don't go down and i was like yes sir i was scared to death i thought if i go out there and mess up he's going to kill me so he's a big bad it was a bit seven foot four five hundred fifty pounds for those who don't know he's going to tell me that that's that's all he said they're finished with hot to regret you he holds you on uh i'm like andre would grab you and hold you to get headbutt i could would do it my kick to your face you fall andre drops the elbow and thankfully i've watched it enough on television where he'd have to tell me that but i want to hear from him uh make sure he didn't take anything and then after the match he shook my hand with a giant hands and said thank you and um that was my experience with andre the giant wow that you know that's a great that's a great story because i've never heard it before and i know the listeners are gonna love it that's awesome yeah so so so andre the giant so who were some of the other names chuck that that you you know are maybe some matches that are memorable beyond you know that that introduction right there that would then follow well you know if you remember i know you will um at the end right there at the end of jim crockett days the russian afasas made appearance correct right uh well a lot of the indy indy promotions would take a run off of that and you know you know use a russian afasas i've seen russians that were 110 pounds soaking wet and i've seen russians that look russian and so i got it i was told by a group that i did a great macuna co-op ironically and i need you to get a russian outfit and uh we're gonna make you the russian pretty wet i did that and i'll i was about 260 pounds and i was fairly built um and i did a lot of the uh independent shows as a russian and russia fast and i would work but i would not work matter of fact about what you were not in front row virginia for bobby fulton and uh i don't know if you remember that but it was about two thousand people there and you hit me with a russian sickle and that would be into that i was gonna ask yeah i kind of remembered that but i just wanted to see if you were uh many say how could you forget it but anyway oh yeah you got in touch so i wrestled makita i wrestled ivan which was that was that right there is worth everything to me um on into wcw i have i was stone cold stunning steve austin's first tv match out of texas so um it's on youtube steve austin's first wcw match if you want to watch me get beat by steve austin come on yeah you were there at the time makita uh we actually traveled from together to the tvs um they brought you back in with lex if you remember you got you destroyed the united states belt how dare you and uh that was then and then of course i went on to wrestle sting and lugar and uh mike rotondo and um some of the new york guys you know johnny d bad with mark merrow i was there tonight he got his break in uh in ashville and um it goes on and on thankfully jody liked me i didn't wrestle evader because i was always worried about that um which you should have been just for the record because i did suffer with no no that's that's amazing you know you're throwing some some phenomenal names out there and and uh how many years chuck did you end up um wrestling then um i wrestled right at 20 and and um from 2000 and actually uh 1986 i got the ring for the first time which i didn't know what i was doing i wasn't even trained but after nelson spent it was more like uh 19 year run and uh 2006 56 was my well i take it back 2006 was my last uh match i did full time or on a regular basis i've had one i've had one match since i got sick um it was a um charity event and i they put me in with hat saw jim duggins because hacksaw um i told him i said i don't want to get hurt i'm getting older and i said i've done one one since then that was 2013 okay um so basically about a 19 20 year run okay um from tv to indies to you know i got that full again because brother they just said bring your bag and i had whatever they needed well you you you you you excelled and uh your dream was fulfilled and you excelled and so you mentioned 2006 if i uh was was paying attention that was when you were the first time that the cancer was detected yes i um this is something else that'll um probably a light bulb will come on for you i i was told i was supposed to wrestle in galax virginia i was wrestling with Lex Luger as the Russian uh and uh i had to get a physical because you know in virginia you have to have that updated license right and i thought okay whatever and i went and got it um i remember the doctor said everything looks great he said you got a spot in your neck we need to get it checked out you're a specialist thought i didn't think much about it um uh so i guess eight nine weeks went by when it went to the show didn't you know no problems they gave me my license and all that eight nine weeks later um i decided to make the appointment got it checked and they they did a check on it and um said we need to run another test two weeks later i came back and he said we can't get enough uh he wouldn't tell me what was going on he just kind of said there's some things we're looking at so he didn't um scheduled surgery to take out lymph nodes and so once they get that all this took place within like a six week period and uh they never would mention cancer because i kind of wondered i guess they want to make sure but then i found out um in 2006 i was diagnosed and you you probably i'm the only time i ever heard it was with your situation with with hodgkin's lymphoma so that was my diagnosis and the first thing i thought about was with you in 1987 or 88 i believe and what you went through right so um uh we went up to bat and we uh we did chemotherapy we did radiation uh in in 2006 um all this from september to february of 2007 and then the lord graciously decided um to keep me around so in 2007 in february i was declared cancer free that was the first go round okay and then fast forward to what 2012 2012 they they had said actually that they had once your past in lymphoma the 90 chance once it once they get into remission it never comes back okay well i was part of the 10 so um in 2012 i had some pain in my side on my back at thanksgiving i remember and i thought uh if you remember that game we golf you know i have foster kids so i was playing golf what we golf with them and and uh we know probably got a little bit addicted to that it was fun i thought i'd pull the muscle so uh my wife being a registered nurse said no we're going to get that checked out so i was trying to uh i guess in my own mind you know i was set it was full muscle it was get better on its own but it didn't get better so um my primary care sent me to specialists once again and the lymph nodes my my uh pancreas had lymph nodes swollen against and that's causing the pain okay and they scheduled um um they diagnosed me once again with lymphoma and the doctors he said this is very unusual uh six years out in remission and for this stuff to return um but we're gonna have to do a bone marrow transplant so in 2012 in the cheetah i got a bone marrow transplant at duke university and that's what propelled me to move back home i wanted to be close to duke hometown and you know duke speaks for itself as far as medicine and um we got we got that taken that took place in um the latter part of all of 2012 and a successful transplant um everything went as planned and um okay uh once again the lord had spared me and and i was cancer free and here we go 2016 give me the role into the next one yeah 2016 then it comes back third time 2016 boom here we go again i had um more issues with um just the inner just didn't feel right and i was tired and fatigued and my wife you're being a nurse is really good because she could panic monitor and keep an eye on me and she knew what she was looking for and immediately this time you know three times she's like we're going right now so boom we go uh this time and this is this is where really god showed out because um cancer's back 2016 they go they have to do a transplant once again this time with a donor first transplant didn't require a donor so without getting into medical terminology they looked the registry over bone marrow donors were alive 10 million people not one perfect match not one match so they said well we're doing this experiment dixon this middle of a study and they're doing half match siblings so my brother was only 50 match i checked him first and if you want to be willing to enter this study we'll be glad to uh give it a shot and see and you know and basically 50 50 is what i was told um because they weren't quite sure if it was where they wanted to be with that so of course right here three times you run out of options so he donated bone marrow as a 50% sibling and the lord just graciously took it uh everything went as planned the healing process the situation with everything was like compared to what they expected that the the it's just only god could do this because i was within a hundred days um back uh out of out of you know that quarantine back then for that because i couldn't be around people my immune system at all so they sent me back home told me to go ahead and just start getting checkups and and next thing i know this thing took and and and um all the numbers were just it was like you have to live it to understand where i'm coming from i understand yeah yeah yeah and uh i told i remember saying lord i've been a christian for a while i've been i've been i've trusted you but lord i have never i remember for the first time saying god this is my third time i can't i finally fully submit to you that's the time nikita that i have given him everything and i mean this i got my church going to church right in a um being a witness to doing stuff like this where he gets the glory i prayed this morning i said no matter what happens lord i want you to get the glory somebody would hear this today and they'll need to hear it and that god you put people in in their paths for reason and i just totally said lord if i get through this if i can if you know you're you control the light switch if you will you know it's on or it's off and if you allow me to to get through this lord i'm going to give you everything i've got the rest of my life and i've meant that do i fail at times yes but overall um it's just been absolutely amazing what he's done right in my personal life right i'm able he's opened doors to kita i'm able to speak at churches to um meetings like with recovering drug addicts with i mean about once a month i'll get a call about once a month i'll get a call hey are you available and i'm able to share the same thing i'm sharing with you nikita about how god is just the purpose everybody has a purpose everybody is here we're not accidents right and although i might not be a preacher yet i'm here to do something for god and so um here we are in 2021 and i'm out um in remission this time uh let's say april 1st nikita next year will be six years and so um i'm just gonna you know if i live the rest of the day i'm gonna serve him if i die this evening i'm gonna serve him i'm giving him everything he's giving me everything and yeah i can honestly say i fully 100 trust his judgment his decisions because he knows everything well and i could not be here without him and that's obvious what i just told you yep no absolutely and we're almost out of time believe it or not um yeah and uh i was gonna ask you know what you know for those out there maybe struggling physically or or struggling in other ways you know whether it mentally emotionally spiritually i mean i was going to ask you what you might say or recommend but you already did i mean you just said it i think the key to what you just said i mean you know as a three-time cancer survivor you know being fully submitted and fully yielded to the lord no matter what we're going through so for those maybe out there listening whether it's it's cancer or some other you know physical addiction you know drugs alcohol um you're struggling with anxiety depression you know whatever the case may be as you hear chuck's story and for me chuck just a story of incredible inspiration and and perseverance and i would summarize it to say you know to everyone listening fully submitted in fact i minister a message you know called counting the cost and challenging people are they fully committed and now through your own testimony fully submitted and so we uh what an incredible story and i'm so grateful to to have you on the show today and and i i guess you're gonna have to have you back sometime because you mentioned uh you made mention of foster care and next time maybe you'd love to hear more about that you and your bride and and by the way chuck it sounds like the lord brought the right woman into your life to a nurse uh absolutely of all things so talk about seeing the hand of god work in your life and and i can't thank you enough for for coming on the show today yeah i've been been a blessing to be here and it's been a blessing to share what god's done and like mickey just said you're here for a reason folks god's got a purpose for you he doesn't make mistakes he never has never will and whatever you're going through trust him i promise you you won't regret it well that's a great word hey thank you for tuning in to it's time to man up chuck coats amazing wrestling career three-time cancer survivor i hope you were blessed by his story today tune in again tune in again for another show with the russian nightmare all feet agree clement's carpet is where you need to be with carpet vinyl tile and hardwood from the top brands clement's carpet does it right from beginning to install voted number one by you in the reader's choice awards doug chad benny peewee and the team at clement's carpet look forward to seeing and serving you soon this is nikita colop and i want to thank clement's carpet for supporting my new show man up saturday afternoon at 12 30 on the truth network this is the truth network