You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Ladies and gentlemen. The following contest is set for one fall. Introducing first, Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kola. Welcome to another episode, QA with Cole Off, The Devil's Nightmare.
Welcome back to another episode. QA with Kolov, questions and answers. And this is where you. Get a personal phone call from the Russian nightmare and get to ask me whatever's like burning on your heart to ask me. Is it wrestling?
Is it ministry? Is it life in general? Whatever it is. Go to koloff.net and you can put in a personal request and be on the show. Today, an extra special guest.
I feel like I say every guest is special because they are. But today, I have with me a man who wears multiple hats. I mean, from being a husband to being a daddy to being a health coach, fitness trainer, and yes, a professional wrestler. Matt Sigmund, welcome to QA with Koloff. Hey, my brother.
Good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening, good night, whatever it is. It is somewhere. It is somewhere because this show, actually, Matt, has been downloaded in over 100 countries.
That's wonderful. Yeah, so it's definitely one of those somewhere for our listeners. But, man, great to have you on the show. And, you know, we're going to dive in here just a few minutes and kind of give our listeners kind of a little behind the curtain look at Matt Sigmund and who you are, what you do, and then we'll get to whatever questions you have for me. But the one thing I didn't mention, the last thing I want to mention is that in addition to everything else, you're also a Christ follower.
And I understand about about thirty years about nin nineteen ninety five that that became a reality for you. And about thirty or so years now, you've been on that straight and narrow path to trying to do the best you can, right? It is a tough battle each day. You know, as we were talking before, we're all broken sinners, but thankfully, we do serve a loving, wonderful God. Uh and and yeah, it's uh it's been thirty wonderful years and and I'm finally uh kind of Applying it a little bit more and paying back to what he's given me so much of over the last few years.
And I know you said you had mentioned you grew up, you're up there in Knoxville, Tennessee, volunteer land, right? Volunteer state. Yeah, of course. Tennessee volunteers and the volunteer state. Yeah, yeah, a bunch of volunteer work here.
That's good. I think it's actually, I hadn't done the history on that, but I think that's how it got its name in a sense. But I think it had to do with the Revolutionary War or the Civil War, or one of them. But anyway, on another note, on another note, because I know you told me you grew up in, essentially grew up in a Christian home, Christian school, and that kind of laid the foundation for you to make that decision in 1995, correct? Yeah, yes, sir.
I grew up in a private Christian school, family very plugged in to our church there, and just a loving, kind welcome into the Christian faith, and really set me up for, I guess you would say set me up for success. I know some testimonies we hear are about trial and error in a lot of valleys that they're having to overcome. And then finally, see Jesus. I got to meet Jesus on the front end, and goodness, he's pulled me through so much. Yeah, I was I was telling uh you know, we're at lunch after I was preaching at a And actually, it was a called Freedom Biker Church in Hickory, North Carolina, just a while back.
And we went out to lunch after, and a guy kind of plops down next to me and goes, So, man, what was it that you, you know, you realized you needed Jesus? You know, what, what, what led you there? What, you know, and kind of got the impression, you know, he had overcome drugs, alcohol, that's which he, which he did tell me that is what he had to overcome. You know, you try, you know, one of those stories, like, I tried everything else. Didn't work.
All right. I haven't given Jesus a chance, right? And, like you, in a way, that's kind of my story, too. Yeah, I don't come out of that. Kind of background.
But for me, I just realized, you know, something's missing in my life. And of course, in 1993, a couple years before you, about 11 months after I left wrestling, I had my aha moment. And that is, I know what's missing is that personal relationship with Jesus.
Now, I mentioned pro wrestling. You. You've been out there about twenty years and so and you were young when you first wanted to get involved. That's pretty pretty cool. Dr.
Tom Pritchard and Killer Kowalski were a couple of your your your trainers kind of helped help guide you Along to launch that career. Um I know you've won multiple belts over the years, and some of the partners you've, of course, partnered up with, but also some of the guys you wrestled against, I've wrestled against, which is pretty cool. Yeah, and I'm going to direct people over to the Man Up show to hear more of the full story on, especially on the wrestling career and what all you're doing with that. But one highlight: what's one highlight from your wrestling career that just like pops in your head? You know, I was thinking back as a kid, I used to love going and sitting and reading the magazines at the stores, right?
And just seeing all the wrestling magazines. You were featured on quite a number of them. Thank you, Bill Apter, by the way. Yeah. Yeah.
It would always talk about her. There'd always be some good pictures from the boys in Japan, specifically at Ribera Steakhouse, right?
So that was always like a big moment. And so doing the Heat Secret tag over the years, we've been goodness very blessed with just what we've been able to do, where we've been able to travel. But that moment when I did our first Japan tour and we were taken over there to Ribera and got the jacket. Ribera Steakhouse, he's referring to for my listeners. Oh, man.
Not only is the food good, but just that moment. It was something different. It's special, right? And you sit back, and it takes me back in time to sitting there at the grocery store in front of the little pharmacy area reading these magazines and seeing the Ribera pictures. And it's like, wow, I'm here.
How cool is that?
So that's a moment.
Somebody just, just recent, very recent, posted this picture of me in my Ribera Steakhouse jacket with Ric Flur's gold belt. And what it was was the caption was, like, I took the belt, like, I. We're in the match. He gets DQ'd. I get mad and take the belt back to the dressing room with me.
Yeah. But in those days, certain buildings, right, there's no interaction. There's no, right? And the fan was making the point of how far, you know, I carried Kayfabe, which simply translates mean protecting the business. I took the belt home with me that night because like I, you know, I didn't see Flare, right?
So yeah, good on you. Yeah, it brought it brought it to the building the next day, but somebody captured a photo of that in my Ribera steak jacket. I was like, that's pretty cool, you know.
So, well, that's that's pretty amazing.
Now, let me let me touch on this. Um, I know you also do personal training, you know, you're an elite fitness trainer. Take a minute and tell our listeners about what's your passion behind that. You know, growing up, as we've talked about the business, the business itself is a body business and just health. And I've always loved to interact and help people and just especially overcoming health problems.
We look around today, especially Nikita, you look, we see a prevalence of heart disease, diabetes, just all sorts of health. Challenges. I'm not talking about making people bodybuilders, right? I'm saying just be healthy, yeah, healthy, more protective state. And so I've been passionate about that for you know the last 15, 20 years, and the last five to ten years.
Specifically around health coaching and just looking at our overall life balance. What's nutrition like? What's activity like? How are we feeling with sleep and stress and all of it, spiritual side of it too? And because it all plays together, and we are in a pretty rough position as a country overall right now in how we treat our health and how we go about our day-to-day life.
So, really, just out there trying to make an impact around that.
Okay. Pretty passionate about that.
Okay. Well, and so you know, what's interesting about that, Matt, is I, for the longest time, I get mad when I would see people really out of shape. I don't want to be hard on people, and for whatever reason, but the stage of life I'm in now, Matt, I really honestly, I don't feel like I walked by somebody the other day and I'm just like, man, that's got to be pain. One, it's got to be painful. And now it's just, it really kind of breaks my heart.
It actually breaks my heart more than getting mad at the person for not taking care of themselves. You know what I mean? Does that make sense?
Well, I've seen where it leads, right? And I know the pain they're going through. And I try to be empathetic in all these situations.
Sometimes it is things that they can't help. And then a lot of times it's a combination of things they might not be able to help, but also they're not really attempting to put themselves in a more protective state. That's good. Yeah. That's good.
So have you seen some good success stories with people you've worked with? Yes, yeah. You know, I've been blessed over the last 10 years or so to work with a thousand or two thousand people. And I've seen diabetes turn around. I've seen heart-related challenges improve dramatically to where no activity was happening, to where they were able to do marathons.
I mean, there's a lot of good change out there when people apply themselves. Good.
Well, and kind of to your point, too, I just had recent lunch with a friend of mine. When he walked in, I almost didn't recognize him. And he sat down. I'm like. How you doing, man?
He's like, he goes, You probably noticed I've lost some weight. I go, Uh, yeah, I almost didn't recognize you, right? Different person walked in the room.
Well, he he pulled up on his phone. He goes, Yeah, here, here's where I topped out at. He topped out, man, at 400 pounds. Oh my gosh. And he was ginormous.
That's about how it felt day to day. I know. He said, he goes, man, let me catch my breath. Let me lay on my back. Can't catch my let me lay on my side.
Can't breathe. Let me lay this way. Can't breathe. Can't breathe. Can't breathe.
Right.
So he got motivated.
So at this point, he's lost 100. 100 pounds, and he said he's got 50 more to go, so he wants to get down to 250. And but he's going to the gym five days a week. He said, Stopped eating, you know, entire bags of chips. And you can't eat just one Oreo cookie, you had to eat the whole row or the whole bag, you know, and you know, the super size Snicker bar along with the super size soft drink, you know.
And so he said, I just completely changed the way I've eaten and going to the gym five days a week. And I'm like, kudos to you, man. You know, kind of to that point. It takes a lot of drives, yeah. It does.
Now, you mentioned, I want to mention one other thing. We are going to get to your questions here that you have for me, but you mentioned how they're all interconnected. And I related to, in fact, I know you're familiar with the man camp that Lex Luger and I facilitate down in Georgia. And it's all centered on 1 Thessalonians 5:23, being whole, W-H-O-L-E, being whole in spirit, soul, and body. And so the goal, the focus is when guys come in for those handful of days is to give them the tools for their tool belt, or you might say their toolbox that can help them go back home.
And be healthier. I'm going to just say health. Because some guys come in, they're pretty healthy.
Well, at the same time, they recognize, okay, there's this area or that area where I need some work, right? Because you and I know we're not, nobody's perfect. We're all broken, right? No. And so, yeah, so body, soul, and spirit is our focus.
And it's great to hear that you're on that same. Trajectory. That's amazing.
Now, Matt, how can people like if people want to connect with you, follow you, or get in touch with you, or whether it's follow your wrestling career or even personal training, whatever, well, how would they do that? What would be the best way for them to do that? Yeah, you know, I'm pretty active on social media across the board on X and Instagram and Facebook, all of that. It's at Sigmund Wrestling, S-I-G-M-O-N. Wrestling, all one word there.
I'm pretty easy to contact, get a hold of. And if you see me out at some of the events, you know, we stay crazy busy, come up, talk to me. I'm pretty easy to interact with. Yeah, and approach. And if you and listening can't tell, Matt has a tremendous, tremendous personality.
And well, I do one more thing. Just tell tell our listeners about Pam and Ellie. Before we get to your questions, Pam, my wonderful wife, who has put up with me for 13 years of marriage and much longer than that. On the relationship side here, and then my wonderful daughter, Ellie, who's she's just turned seven. I told you earlier, going on 35 and trying to keep up with her.
She's four and a half feet tall now, Nikita. And I'm not the tallest guy in the world, so I think by next year, I'm probably gonna be looking up at her. But such a sweet, sweet and sweet daughter, and I'm a very blessed man. Yeah, that's that's amazing. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com.
Nieta Koloff here, and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?
Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Koloff Fans, and like it and follow today. I don't know where to keep. If you are a business owner and would like to advertise your company or product on the Man Up Show and/or QA with Koloff, contact me directly, Nakita Koloff at Koloff.net. The Man Up Show is honored to have Dr.
Johnny Gayton as one of our longest-running supportive sponsors. Dr. Gayton is regarded as one of the world's leading elite eye surgeons. He is motivated by his faith in doing all things heartily as unto the Lord. His desire to do his best has contributed to success in his eye care practice, performing over 70,000 eye surgeries.
In addition, he's a world-renowned speaker, writer, and author. Go to iAssociates.com for more information. All right, well, let's segue into whatever questions you have for me. If you want to fire away with your first question, what do you got for me? Yeah, you know, we've you've had this trip.
Tremendous career of not only just speaking and wrestling and fitness. And so, when was the first time, Nikita, that you started looking at just taking the good care of yourself? When did that truly hit? When was it that that moment that's like, you know what, I need to start investing in my health, my wellness, and become something different? Great question, age twelve.
Age 20. 12. What happened is, just the shorter version, is I picked up a, you know, you talked about looking at the pro wrestling magazines, and, you know, I looked at This magazine called Iron Man. It was a bodybuilding magazine. And I was enamored by the guys in the Matt.
I'm like, wow, the fact that some guy could build his body to look like that. And I remember at age 12 going, making this statement, one day. I'm gonna look like that. One day. And anyone who spends any time around me at this stage will know and/or hear me say, I'm an all-in kind of guy, right?
That's just in my nature, it's in my makeup, it's my DNA, it's who I am. I'm all in.
So I went and bought a 110-pound plastic weight set from an old company called Sears and Roebuck and started reading the articles and just going to work, right?
So I'm reading the articles, trying to apply what I'm reading. And then, fortunately, Jerry McFarlane comes into my life. Who's Jerry McFarlane?
Well, he was the junior high health teacher, but he was also a state-certified professional. Bodybuilder and competing for like Mr. Minnesota and some of the Mr. USA and some of the. Yeah, so you don't think I gravitated to him?
I spent five years under his tutelage all through junior high and high school. Man, I can't. Countless hours in Jerry's classroom or in his gym. Out of four junior high schools and three high schools, he had the best workout center in his school. And so even all through high school, I will go down to his gym and work out and train.
And at one point, he and I were training partners. Like he literally took me as a partner. And so I learned a lot from him, obviously, for weightlifting, but also nutrition, supplementation. I mean, 50 plus years later, man, I supplement.
So I try to eat good, but he taught me the benefits of spending a little bit extra of your hard-earned dollar and supplementing, making sure you're filling in the cracks with all the vitamins and minerals and all that you need just in case you can't get it from all the food you eat or whatever. And you know, the money that you put in, a little bit of extra effort, right? It's an investment on the front end, but when we're talking about health on the back end, In when things go south, that costs so much more.
Well, it's that you've heard this expression, I'm sure, and or if not, you know, for the even the listeners out there, and what you just said was: I would phrase it this way: an ounce of prevention. is worth a pound of cure.
So true. An ounce of prevention with a pound of cure.
So, yeah, I may have to spend a couple extra bucks on supplementation and that sort of thing. But if it keeps me out of the doctor's office or I never have to get, you know, take prescription medicines and whatever, whatever, you know, then how much am I really spending on the front end, to your point, versus saving? On the back end, right? Yeah. And so, man, listeners, take that one away.
An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, man. Pay me now or pay me later. Right? It's coming one way or the other. One way or the other.
So, no, that's a great question. I appreciate that question. What, what else you got for me? Yeah, you know, I was thinking back just on our relationship over the last 15 or so years. And you're just, you know, growing up, you were always impressive, not only physically, but just in the ring too.
And then just outside, you've been a constant source of good. Faith-based, but also just in general, motivation for me with check-ins you've done and just messaging and uplifting me and others. I know you do. Yeah. Um, so what is where do you plug in in terms of what keeps you motivated?
What are the checkpoints for you each day that kind of uh keeps giving you a boost, right? That's a that's a that's a great question, and um. A Lifetime Scripture. That breaks it down, Colossians 1:10. People will see it on my 8x10s.
If it's not on there, I'll put it on, you know, if I'm signing something for somebody. You know, I'll usually put that scripture reference down, Colossians 1:10.
Sometimes they're like, Oh, that's it. What scripture is that? I'm like, go read it for yourself. You know, so I won't tell them. I make a problem.
I'm like, you got to go read it for yourself. I'm not going to tell you, right? But I've really adopted that. And I don't necessarily pray it every single morning, but there are many mornings I do pray as a reminder for what my day-to-day goals are, right? And I will read it for our listeners today.
I won't leave them hanging, but it says this: so that you may live in this translation. That I'm looking at, so you may live a life worthy of the Lord, please Him in every way. bearing fruit in every So, if you pause for a moment and just break that down, okay, so one of my goals that keeps me motivated, man, is man, I want to by come to the end of today, I hope I leave a mark and not a stain. Yeah. Okay.
I hope I've left a mark and not a stain. And, you know, by stain, I hope I hadn't stained his name. You know, so a life that's worthy of those.
So I want, Lord, help me to live a life worthy of you, a life that honors you today. one that is worthy of you, of of calling myself a Christ follower.
So so let me go out and and make a good impression on other people. And and then the second part of that is and the more challenging part, Matt, Pleasing him in every way, so I break that down, Matt, to mean. Words? actions and thoughts. Words, and so that can be challenging, right?
Sometimes, you know, our actions don't quite line up with being a Christ follower, sometimes, right? Or sometimes our words. I'm like, really? I go, I haven't seen that cuss word in the Bible, but okay, hey, that works for you.
Okay, you know, or yeah, right. And, or, and, and probably the toughest one, our thoughts. our thoughts. 'Cause 'cause I I like to say I say it this way, in our our our man camps and even the man up conferences and stuff, I go, you know what, transparent, there's still a few cesspool things that pop in my brain sometimes. Of course.
Yeah, there just are. And so that's why I got to take authority over you, pull down those vain imaginations or strongholds and cast them to the foot of the cross, right? And then, of course, the other two parts, just real quick to that, bearing fruit in every good work.
So, what kind of fruit? You want to bear good fruit? You want to bear bad fruit? In other words, back to your actions. What do you want to display?
Anger, hatred, bitterness, unforgiveness towards each, you know, somebody? Or, man, do you want to exemplify love? Joy? Peace, patience, right? The fruit of the spirit, right?
And then last but not least, growing. In the knowledge of God. And so that's a daily thing too for me: I have to be. In fact, right now I'm doing what's called the Bible in 365, and I do it on my app, and I'm listening to it every day.
So I'm listening to the scriptures, reading and listening. I have several, about three devotionals. That I do every day on my cardio bike.
So I'm like, double duty there, right? I'm getting my cardio in. But doing my devotionals at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. And then I weave in.
I weave in some worship as well, usually every day to kind of just kind of wash over me.
So, Colossians 1:10, life scripture. And that's what motivates me, helps keep me on track to hopefully, and I'll conclude by saying this way: to hopefully look more like Jesus today than I did yesterday. And should he grant me tomorrow, look more like him tomorrow than I did today.
So love that. Love that. Hey, one more question, just a fun one. Traveling, we've all, especially in the business, or even you did these man camps, so you're traveling across the country still yet. Um what's your favorite go-to?
What's the go-to restaurant? What's the what's the Nikita uh special restaurant when you hit a town? Oh, well you know that I'd say that one's pretty easy.
So um I try if if possible, I try to stay away from the chain restaurants. if possible. And so like if it's you know, sometimes that you know, after Sunday service, the the the the pastor's like, Hey, we'd like to take you out to eat. Where would you like to go? And you know, depending on the town and of course, but but Typically, I'll say, Do you have a little home?
Because usually Sundays is my one day fun day a week, my treat day. Oh, yeah.
So I don't have to be as strict on my eating.
So I'll just say, hey, hey, do you got a good home cook cook, you know, a little home cook mom and pop restaurant here? You know, a little, I like to support the local restaurants versus the big chains. If possible, yeah, that's true. Yeah, and just support, so support the local business, but also get usually some pretty darn good cooking at those little mom and pops. And so, oh, yeah, that's that's my go-to.
Special tricks. Yep, yep, that's my go-to right there. Love it. Yeah, so, well, Matt Sigmund, man, check him out. 20-year projects.
Pro wrestling career, multiple belts and championships, and still at it. He's going to be the next George South of pro wrestling here. That's my goal in life, yeah. Pretty good one. It is a good one.
Some people would argue otherwise, but I'll take it. I love it.
Well, Matt, I appreciate you. Thanks for being on QA with Koloff today. And hopefully, you and I will get the opportunity to cross path here sometime soon, okay? Yeah, love it. Awesome.
And for all you out there in listening, land, hey, again, let me remind you: go over to the Man Up Show, go to the Truth app. If you haven't downloaded, download the Truth app, and you get access to multiple podcasts as well as live radio. And be sure to go check out the Man Up Show, the full interview that I did with Matt Sigmund. And I know you're going to enjoy it. Until next time, go out today and just have a Godfear.
And a God-blessed day. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God. And your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to kolof.net and donate.
Good day. I Nikita Koloff. Be sure to check out the Man Up Show now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to MonestarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings, or better yet.
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