What's Really Important?

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. Once a world champion wrestler, now a champion for Christ. Once the Russian nightmare, now the devil's worst nightmare, and your tag team partner, Nikita Kolov.

It's time to man up. Coming up today, a story of inspiration from tragedy to triumph. Hey, listen carefully to Magnum TA's story as he explains how professional wrestling was a building block to him becoming a real hero.

Not in the ring, outside the ring. Stay tuned. Well, I want to welcome you back to It's Time to Man Up, Nikita Kolov, the devil's worst nightmare. That's right, but today, today, what a special treat for me today as I introduce our guest today. Any of you who followed wrestling, or as we say sometimes in the South, wrestling, I have with me today such a special friend, Magnum TA, Terry Allen. Terry, welcome to the show.

My friend, I could not be any happier to be here and be with you, and whenever I get to share a few moments of my day with you, it's like a breath of fresh air. Well, I appreciate it, I do, and we'll talk a little bit about that and cover some of that, how we remain friends today from our introduction really years ago through the ranks of professional wrestling. But before we get to that, I was trying to do a little research on you to give our listeners a little backdrop for those who maybe don't know, aren't familiar with Magnum TA, or as you know, I used to back in the day call Maga TA. One of my favorite lines when we were arch nemesis, but I was doing a little background here, and you may, if I did my research right, going back to really your high school days up in Virginia, what I found was Norfolk Collegiate School in Norfolk, Virginia, but you were a member of the collegiate wrestling team. You won a state championship at 167-pound division, if I did my homework right.

Tell our listeners a little bit about your formative years up there in the Chesapeake area. Well, wrestling was like a beacon for me that kept me on the path, much like other people that choose sports like you did, like football. For me, I got introduced to wrestling in a gym class in the eighth grade, and I had no natural aptitude towards it, anything else, but to me it was just a fascinating challenge, and it was something that I was part of, like the inaugural team that my school put together, the very first wrestling team they had, because their big deal had always been basketball.

They were basketball conference champions and all this kind of stuff. So the wrestling for me was, like I said, it was just a great challenge, personal challenge for me myself to better myself and try to become a champion, but even more so than that, I was almost like the old common ship with the 80-pound weakling that got sand kicked in his face. I couldn't hardly do a push-up in the eighth grade, and I was just not a natural athlete, and I formed myself and melded myself into a champion over a four-year period of time. As you pointed out, I won the state championship my senior year at 167 pounds and built a real strong basis for myself physically that I obviously built on in later years, but it was that love of the amateur wrestling that made me maintain the grades and went to a college preparatory school that was really tough to begin with, and you had to maintain at least a C average to be able to play sports. So I had to hit the books and do things that I otherwise wouldn't have been as interested in if it weren't for the fact that I wanted to compete at athletics and particularly in wrestling. So I did wrestling from like October till the end of February, and then I did track and field in the spring. So it kept me on the right path through the high school years for sure.

Well, so it kept you focused. Yeah, I can certainly relate to that for me, with my love for weightlifting and bodybuilding at a very young age, seventh grade for me, and then in football as well. But you bring up a couple interesting points on how, I mean, just the value of competitive athletics at such a young age for us and how it does, right? It keeps you focused for many of the athletes, keeps them focused and driven to, as you said, driven to study and at least get a C average if not higher, but so that you can be a part of the team and be able to compete. And so you got the opportunity, what I'm hearing, to really pioneer that whole wrestling program for your school. I did, and I learned about building blocks and foundations and how there's a lot of people who sit around and dream about achieving something, but they don't have any idea, a path about to get there. And athletics teaches you a path. The first time you walk to the gym, you generally don't pick up 300 pounds and be able to bench press it.

You start where your baseline is and you work and you go through different things and you build yourself up to try to achieve a goal. And the athletics obviously did that for me, did it for you. And I lost every single match that I had my freshman year with the exception of the last match that I won, which was like, you know, I thought I'd won the Super Bowl.

I was so excited about it. But then, yeah, but then again, by the time I was a senior, I pinned everybody that I wrestled in the state tournament in less than a total of six minutes for the entire tournament. And it was a journey that seemed really crazy at the time because of the transformation that I had made in such a relatively short number of years.

But really, it was just the preface of what was yet to come because my life was really on this meteor-type rise that I really had no idea where it was going at that particular time in my life because it's just, you know, when you look back at the time frames that I was involved in amateur athletics and then, you know, less than five years graduated, you know, main eventing in the professional wrestling world, things like that just don't ordinarily happen. Right, right. And we're certainly going to get to that. We want to talk about that as well. It's interesting.

There is a parallel course there. I really marvel, honestly, at those of you with the amateur background in wrestling because I didn't have that. So, those who know my story or some who've heard my story or will, you know, hear about it or read about my story, in fact, shortly here, I'm going to be coming out with a revision of my last book, Nikita, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption, that's going to share more of my story.

We wrote about six or seven or eight new chapters, including some stories from fans, from other people that maybe watched my career. But I say all that to say I marvel at you guys because I know we competed against a number of guys, whether it was a Brad Rengans or a Mike Rotundo, Steiner brothers. I mean, there were different guys who had, you know, Dr. Death, Steve Williams, who I know you know very well, that had that background. And I used to joke with those guys and say, like, hey, don't be trying to shoot any single legs on me or put any of them chicken wings, whatever you call them, moves, because I'm here on the entertainment side of this.

I'll clearly let you get your hand raised and go back to the dressing room because I'm like, man, I know you guys could tie us up, tie me up like a pretzel, you know? And so certainly admire all of you guys that had that amateur background. But that brings up an interesting point you just made, how you went from, as you kind of described, this 80-pound weakling, if you will, when you were pioneering the school wrestling program, to becoming really, if you want to say, 167-pound state champion, you kind of maybe doubled your weight or at least, as you said, had a rocket ship career there. But that really is interesting because that parallels, you mentioned, your professional career. Before we really jump into that, did you always want to be a professional wrestler?

I know some do, some don't. When did you first kind of fall in love with professional wrestling? I fell in love with it as a fan of it when I was young, when I was like, my earliest memories of watching TV with my dad, probably six, seven years old, was watching Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling with him on Saturday nights. So I watched it and to me, it was like watching, you know, any of my superhero-type shows because those guys were heroes and villains and just like watching The Lone Ranger or a John Wayne movie or anything else from that era that I came up, you always knew who the bad guys were, the good guys were. And I enjoyed watching it from an entertainment-type perspective, but I never really, as a kid, imagined being able to do something like that. And then when I got into the amateur wrestling, my focus was very much just on that.

Dan Gable was my hero back then. I'd read his book after he'd won the 73 Olympics and he was the big inspirational motivator in my life to try to aspire to be, you know, one-tenth the amateur wrestler that he was. And I was building towards that thought process to want to go to the Olympics one day.

And in 1980, if you remember, that was the year we boycotted the Olympics. And I was also in the process of rowing because I had guided my entire, you know, high school career to stay down at 167 pounds. And I even wrestled 167 my freshman year in college.

And then all of a sudden, like, the cork came off. I started working out with some guys that were power lifters and bodybuilders and eating a whole completely different kind of diet than I'd ever eaten in my life. And all of a sudden, in one summer, I went from 167 to like 215. Wow.

It's like somebody pulled a cork out and zipped me a year ago. Right. Because I had, like, basically starved myself for years. And so it changed my focus because there wasn't really a happy place for me to be at that weight that I was at in amateur wrestling. And I didn't really, I wasn't big back then, heavyweights where there wasn't a limit. There was guys like Chris Taylor weighed 400 pounds.

Right. I remember. And so, you know, I wasn't in that range. And it was like, you know, I was kind of at a crossroads, but I was working security bouncing in nightclubs while I was going to college and the pro guys were coming in the one of the nightclubs in Virginia Beach where I worked. And simultaneously in one of the Virginia papers, they wrote an article about professional wrestling. And I, for the first time I looked at it like a business opportunity because they were talking about guys making six figures and this is 1979 and I'm going six figures that in 79, you were a millionaire to me if you were making six figures.

And, and so it, the, you know, the light bulb went off, the opportunity all of a sudden looked like something I potentially could do because of this new group I was running with and, and getting bigger, you know, by the month. And, uh, that's it. So it wasn't until I was like 19 years old, almost 20 that I even gave professional wrestling a real hard to look as a potential for a career.

Okay. And, and, and if I'm not mistaken, old dominion university is where you were, uh, wrestling in college, correct? Yeah, exactly.

And, uh, um, uh, Billy Robertson, uh, um, uh, Billy Martin Jr. Was, uh, the, my coach and his dad was a legendary coach from Granby that was famous for, uh, inventing a move called the Granby role that all the kids were doing back in the, in the seventies that came out of his camp. And, uh, and I still had a passion for it, still loved it, but in thinking about a life and a career and realizing that, you know, the Olympic dream, uh, wasn't probably going to be in the making, particularly with the fact that we weren't going to have, there wasn't to be an Olympics for the U S in 1980. Then that certainly, uh, just like flipped the switch.

So I started looking at the next move and what I could do to, uh, have a, you know, career. Right. For the listeners out there, if you're not familiar with the name, Dan Gable, who, uh, Magnum is referring to, I encourage you to research, Google his name, but, well, that that's interesting. So, so you are now entertaining this idea. You're meeting professional wrestlers.

You, you, you see this, this article. And, and so now you're, you're. Contemplating considering, and you eventually jump into the, the world of professional wrestling and you dominated really from what I can tell, almost out of the gate and looking at some of the, your history in Florida championship wrestling and mid South championship wrestling, cowboy bill Watson, eventually where you and I would meet in the mid Atlantic wrestling that you and I would meet up, but just briefly give us a little quick history on, on Florida and, and mid South. Well, it was when I got to Florida, I'd actually been in the business for a year. I broke in in Portland, Oregon, uh, under Don Owens.

And I was there for six months, just working underneath journeyman type thing, trying to learn the ropes and six months there hopped down to Texas and six months with Joe Blanchard and in San Antonio and his organization. And while there, I meet this young man named Mike Graham, Mike Graham, the son of Eddie Graham who owned and ran Florida championship wrestling. And Mike and I hit it off. Like we were brothers. Like we've known each other our entire life. And Mike said, I'm bringing you to Florida. We're going to do this.

It's going to be great. And we did, he brought me to Florida. He was good to his word and they treated me like gold. And he taught me things that I, I mean, I got a crash course on psychology and, and everything that about the wrestling profession that, you know, you couldn't pay a professor to teach you, but I had Eddie Mike's dad in my ear every night talking to me, talk to me, talk to me about what I was about, what it took to be successful in the business, critiquing not only what I did, but stood there with me while we watched everybody's matches and told me what was good, what wasn't good. And it was like, I said, it was just a great education. And six months after being in Florida, I meet the bigger than life personality that we both know so well, the American dream dusty roads and dusty. And I became almost instantaneously tied at the hip and just developed an amazing friendship outside of the rain. I wrestled for another year in Florida with dusty learning more and more and more about what I needed to do to be successful.

Then I got the opportunity to go to Mid-South and Mid-South where the Magnum TA persona came to life. And it was at the recommendation of none other than Andre the Giant. He had come up with his name one night while we were having breakfast. And I looked kind of like that Tom Selleck guy that was on Magnum PI back in the day. He came up with the handle, the name. I didn't know what that meant. It sounded good.

Magnum TA sounded really good, didn't know what the character was going to be. But, you know, again, you jumped off the cliff and built your wings on the way down and dove headlong into the opportunity. And it worked.

It was amazing. If you feel you're receiving value from this show, it's time to man up. And you'd like to support the show along with Koloff for Christ Ministries, go to koloff.org, koloff.org, and make a donation of any amount. A note. You want my latest book and you'll receive a personalized copy of Nikita, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Yeah.

And because you would eventually come to the Mid-Atlantic where you and I would meet and of course the number one by the wrestling fan, the number one most mentioned thing when I'm out and about talking to fans or signing autographs and doing legend signings and all that that you and I still do today all these years later. Who would ever thunk of that? But we do thank God.

Thank you, Lord. But we have these legendary matches, this best of seven, this creative idea, again, of Dusty's that puts together this series, Best of Seven. And for sake of time, folks, you'll just have to go research that and you can watch matches on the WWE Network and all that the best of seven. But your career is skyrocketing. Here's where I want to get to. Your career is skyrocketing.

You're being groomed to become World Heavyweight Champion, NWA Heavyweight Champion, what would become WCW for our listeners, and a program with Ric Flair. And in the midst of that, tragedy strikes, the rugs kind of pulled out from underneath you. And by the way, I was personally shocked when I was first made aware of this. I had just come back from a tour in Japan. I remember I was in Philadelphia, Dusty and Jimmy Crockett pulled me aside and say, you had this accident, you'd had this wreck. And it took a while to convince me, but once they did, I was just kind of shocked by that.

But I want to lead that to this question. The original diagnosis was quadriplegic. You're going from the skyrocketing professional wrestling career to this rug being pulled out from under you. How did you cope in those early days of that diagnosis, Terry? Well, you know, sometimes ignorance is bliss. And I never lost consciousness when I had this accident. So, you know, I'm laying in the floor of this car paralyzed. I've hydroplaned on a wet road, hit my head on the roof of the car on a broadside telephone pole. You know, I know I'm hurt really bad, but I don't know what's wrong. And, you know, a few hours later, I'm laying on a gurney in a hospital with a, you know, a guy who's brilliant neurosurgeon over top of me telling me, you know, just what you said that I'm, you know, I'm a quadriplegic that my chances of ever doing anything other than sitting up in a chair and being spoon fed are about a million to one. I mean, I'm in pretty bad shape. My C5 vertebrae had exploded in the collision that I was in.

And, you know, for me, it was like everything I've done my entire life has led up to that moment. All the work from the days of not being able to do a push-up to going through all the grueling hours in the mat room to the weight room to all the other things that I've done led me up to this greatest challenge of all time in proving these doctors wrong. You know, because I'm saying to myself, they don't know me. They don't know what I'm made of. They don't know what I've been through to make that kind of decision. And the statement is just really brash. And in hindsight, now knowing what I know about the kind of injury, I know exactly why they said it because what they said was absolutely true.

People do not walk away from things like that. It's just, it's too devastating of an injury. But I had decompression surgery done within about eight hours of the accident and they took the pressure off my spine.

And when I woke up, I was immediately able to move my left arm just a little bit, which was, which was like a miracle in and of itself. And, you know, I never said, you know, God, why me, why this? You know, take this away from me. I said, please just give me the strength to persevere and do whatever it takes that I've got to do to do what's ahead of me.

Right. And, and, uh, and I remember it vividly. I remember saying that prayer more times than I can tell you. Cause I was 30 days in ICU with three people, two personal needs aside of me, both of which died. And I was the only one that came out of that little unit. And then I was a total of five months in the hospital at which time I walked out under my own power. And it's by the grace of God that, that I was able to do all this, gave me the strength and he gave me the perseverance, but more than that gave me a purpose so far greater than anything I'd done in all the accolades and the millions of people that watched us every week on the wrestling program, whatnot, because I played a hero on TV and all of a sudden I'm getting hundreds of thousands of letters from people that their heroes gone down and they've never known me to be anything, but what they've received and saw on television. So I had a choice, you know, I could, I could, you know, crawl it.

I could take all the meds and all the things that were being offered up to me to try to overcome the pain and become just a babbling idiot, you know, not be able to be productive at all. Or I could dig in and try to come back and with some dignity and show people that, you know, through the greatest of adversities, you know, you can persevere and you can find a way, maybe not a way to do things the way you once did, but a way to be successful and a way to still bring honor to the things you are trying to accomplish and give a different kind of message and be an inspiration at a different level. And for me, it wasn't just so much the level of wanting to be back out in the public eye, which I did for quite, you know, quite a bit for about a year and a half or a couple of years, I did, you know, dabbled in doing things on television and things, just so people would see that I didn't just fold up and quit and give up on life. But the day to day is where the greatest testimony of what you put into practice is all about.

Well, I've been in the construction business, I've been in telecom, I've been in lots of things for the last 30 some years, and I've never asked anything extra of anyone. I found ways to make other people comfortable seeing that I can accomplish things that they're not sure exactly how I do. But the fact of the matter is, just by going through your life, I realize you have more chance to touch people and inspire people and help people overcome than I ever would have imagined just being in the world of sports entertainment. Well, your story does that.

We're going to have to have you back again because we are out of time. But I'm going to summarize by saying this, what you just said for our listeners out there, just be encouraged. I mean, it was your faith that helps sustain you through life's tragedy. And I think what you just said, Terry, will be a real encouragement to someone out there, maybe going through a very similar thing right now, or maybe going through a hardship in the future. But I can't thank you enough for just sharing your heart and sharing some of your story today.

And I know it's going to be an inspiration and an encouragement to many others. And we're going to have to have you back on, okay? Will you come back on sometime? Absolutely, my friend. You just call and I'll be here. All right. Well, folks, thanks for tuning in to It's Time to Man Up.

Magnum TAA, Terry Allen. Tune in next week for another great story. God bless you. Men, I would like to challenge each of you to consider spending five days with Lex Luger and I at Man Camp, pursuing the heart of God. Ladies, if you're listening, we'll send your men home better equipped to be men of God, godly husbands, and godly fathers. God appeals to you. Give them your blessing and encourage them to sign up today at mancamp.info. Pastors, if you would like to bring Koloff for Christ Ministries and Man Up Conference to your community, go to koloff.org and email me. Remember this, it's time to man up.