This is the Truth Network. Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is set for one floor. Introducing first, Lithuania, E. Weighs 123 kilos. The Russian nightmare, Nikita Koval.
Welcome to another episode, QA with Coloff, The Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back, QA with Koloff, questions and answers, where you get the opportunity to get a personal phone call from yours truly, the Russian Nightmare. And or maybe sometimes in studio like today. And with me today in studio, I am thrilled to have Pastor Julius Koontz. Pastor, welcome to QA with Koloff.
Absolutely. Glad to be here. And with Pastor Koontz, Tanya Skelly. Tanya, welcome. Thank you so much for having us.
Yeah, QA with Koloff.
Now, we're going to jump right in here. Pastor, I'm going to start with you. I know you pastor down in Thomasville, North Carolina. Yes, sir. Take a minute, just quickly tell us about the church and the family.
Absolutely. You know that Thomasville is where God actually lives. He's housed. He sets his home up there. 100%.
Nice, nice. God's country. That's God's country. Absolutely. So a church is there in Thomasville, North Carolina.
It's called. Called Christ Transformation Ministry.
So we've been there now almost a year because we relaunched it from Salisbury, North Carolina. Also, I'm involved in another ministry called Christians in the Marketplace. I am the executive director of that. We've been doing this ministry for 16 years. And how this ministry got started is that my late pastor, Otis Lockett Sr., Invited me to come to a marketplace ministry there in Atlanta, Georgia.
And when I went there, I was in business. I was in business and I thought I was prior to pastoring. Yeah, prior to pastoring. And I thought I was going to go there to network and to grow my business and to make a lot of money. Right.
But when we got there, the host said, Listen, if you come for that reason, you come to the wrong conference. You come for the wrong conference for the wrong reason. Why am I here? Why am I here? And then I learned that in this particular conference, They were teaching you how to live out your faith in the marketplace.
And I never heard that before. And they started teaching how Jesus did most of his ministry. In the marketplace, and three of his disciples came from the marketplace.
So there was a reason, a passion to have ministry in the marketplace. I didn't realize that my business could be my ministry.
So I was able to grab that. And on the way back, that's when my late pastor said to me, I think God wants you to be in the marketplace.
So I said, well, you send me, I go. And he prayed for me. And 16, almost 17 years later, It has been a great, a great journey and a ride so far.
So, you're still working in the marketplace in addition to pastoring? I'm doing chaplaincy service in the marketplace. I'm a chaplain as well. Gotcha. I'm a chaplain, so I went from IT services.
To chaplaining services.
Okay.
So that's kind of what I do now by way of making a living, as well as running a school, which we started about five years ago. A chaplaincy school, and now we are in 40 states, we're in Canada, and we're in East Africa. training believers to become chaplains. Wow, that's amazing.
Well, and you know, you mentioned the marketplace occasionally, and I don't do a lot of this, but from time to time, opportunities will pop up to speak at corporate In the corporate world. And a while back, Coca-Cola Bottling Company, one of my man camp alumni, works there, and they have like these prayer luncheons, these faith luncheons, I guess they call them, and invited me in to speak to the employees. And, you know, voluntary, they could come. It's promoted them to be there. I walk in and in the main lobby of their business there in Charlotte, it says, Our purpose to honor God in all we do, to serve others, to pursue excellence, and to grow profitability.
Wow. I thought, whoa, that's a pretty bold statement. I mean, bright red, bright red reception area with that, you know, boldly on their wall. That's a firm foundation for any business. Yeah, right.
And so just. Uh Julius real quick, just so There's such a need for the marketplace and people to share their faith in the marketplace. And I have a number of different friends who are business owners who don't shy away from their faith in the marketplace.
Somebody listening out there, maybe they're a businessman, businesswoman, would want to get involved with what you're doing. Do you have annual meetings, monthly meetings, website? Like, how would people find out more about Christians in the marketplace?
Well, you can go to our website. We are simpcimp.com. That's the website you can get most of the information from. But in short, we have a Monday morning devotion at 6:30. Where's that at?
That is online. That is online. Online. That's online. It's a Monday morning devotion, marketplace.
I call it the word for the workplace. And then on at seven o'clock we have our national prayer. This prayer is about 15 minutes and we pray for the weak that God would position us to reveal Him To others. That is the gist of the prayer time. And we pray for anyone else that's there.
And then we with our school, we have chaplaincy school with part of Christians in the marketplace. And again, we train Monday through Thursday and on Saturday. for people to become licensed chaplains. And they can find out that's online too. And they can find out more about that all on that same website?
Yes, sir. All on the same website. And then every year we have a conference. As I mentioned earlier, we have a conference where that we have a chaplaincy conference and then we have a living rested uh retreat.
So that the believers will come and learn how to rest. At work. And I think that's just play on words because, again, who wants to rest at work? We're not talking about going to sleep at work, right? We're talking about resting in Him at work.
You're not talking about taking a siesta, taking a nap at work. Being able to rest in the Lord while you labor for the Lord, right? That's correct. I love it. I love the vision.
And also, we, this past, this past conference retreat, We were, well, I was awarded with the Pioneer Award. And a Pioneer Award is someone who's been given the organization that we're part of is Chaplain International. And they awarded me for the work I have done as a chaplain in the last four years. Congratulations on that. Yeah, he flew out all the way from California to give you that award.
It was amazing. That's awesome. Website one more time for this. Is we are ciamp.com or you can just put in Christiansinthemarketplace.com.
Okay, ChristiansInthemarketplace.com or CM Yeah, we are SEP. Oh, we are.
Okay.
Yeah, we are. Yeah. I missed that.
Okay.
All right. Christians in the marketplace. Yeah, we are Christians in the marketplace simp.
Okay, all right, all right.
So very good.
Well, Tanya, you're here with Pastor Julius.
So you guys met, I know, 10 years ago and created a real bond with one another and kind of have similar visions. Yours is centered around prayer. We talked more at length on it's time to man up about your whole vision for the prayer movement across North Carolina. And um We'll make sure people have that website where they can find out more about that. All 100 counties across North Carolina.
Take a minute, just a quick introduction of who Tanya Skelly is though before we get there. Yeah. So I live in Salisbury in Rowan County. My husband and I moved there about 13 years ago. Neither one of us are from North Carolina, but we say we got here as fast as we could, and we love the Carolinas.
And yes, we started almost 10 years ago. It's called Pray Rowan, started out of Rowan County, and it is believers from all over our county coming together monthly to pray for one hour. And what was birthed out of that is Pray North Carolina.
So all 100 counties coming together to pray under the blood and the banner of Jesus Christ. We are going to petition him, we're going to glorify him, but we're going to show our dependence on the one true king. And so the first two years we were in Raleigh. And then the last few years we've been in Greensboro. And in 2026, we're going to be at a theater in Lexington, Little Lexington.
So you come and get your barbecue and then get your prayer off. Lexington, North Carolina has some good barbecue. I would just say, for the record, quick question: Do you have representation in all 100 counties currently? Not yet, but we have in many counties, most of the counties we do.
Okay.
We do.
So we're fairly new. You know, if you think about it, so we're going into our fifth year. It is, our state is long. It is long.
So to go from the coast to the mountains, I mean, it could take you nine hours. Yeah. Not as long as Texas, but it's not. And not as long as Texas, which is where my dad retired from the military. I grew up in my Fort Worth, Texas.
Okay.
I don't have on my boots today.
So you drive 12 hours to Texas and still be in Texas. That's right. That's right. Which I've actually done. Yes.
That's a whole other story. But keep going. Keep going. What's even crazier is people think that Texas is our largest state and it's actually our second largest state. And you can fit two and a half Texas inside of Alaska.
I thought you could. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. Yeah. All right.
So as a newish ministry, we are still seeking representation in every county, 100 counties. And so there's several ways that we're doing that. But our website is a great hub for people to go to. What is that? Yeah.
That's prey-nc.com. We even have an interactive map on there. We've taken the map of North Carolina and divided it into eight districts. And then you can hover over each county, you can hover over the district, and you can find out what's happening in that area. And or if nothing's happened in that area, and start something.
That's right, that's right. And start something.
So, whether you're a pastor, a prayer group, a prayer ministry, or just somebody who God puts on your heart to start a prayer movement in your county, they can become a part of that. They can go on the website. Pass their information on to you. Yeah. Guessing you'll have a conversation with them and help them initiate that.
On our front page, there's a place that you can fill out. It says to volunteer or to find out more information. You can fill that out. But also, please know that we have a place if you have a prayer request to please put that on there as well. It'll only go to one person and they will faithfully be praying over that.
Pray it up because prayer works. Amen. Prayer works. All right, let's take before we get to your questions. Let's take a minute, Tanya, and talk about Project 2026.
Okay, yeah.
So there is a gentleman named Doug Small that started a ministry called Prayer at the Heart many, many years ago. But one of the things that he has clearly Knows that the Lord is calling him to organize and to lead is something called Project 2026.
So in 2026, we are coming up to our country's 250th anniversary. And he is calling a million believers to pray for a million souls between Easter and Pentecost. And this is countrywide. This is countrywide what he is doing. And so I've come alongside of this ministry because it's a front row seat to watch the Lord work.
I don't want to miss out on what he's doing. And so if anybody's interested, they can go to prayer at the heart. I think it's dot com and you can find out more there. But it is amazing. I mean, can you imagine if a million souls in America, and I will say, So often we think that it's conversion, is what God told us to do.
Go convert. He didn't. He said, go make disciples. And so. If we We take that million people.
We got to get them discipled. We got to get them, help them understand what God's word says. We need it as believers, kind of something we've talked about before, the kingdom mindset, right? And so, yeah, if you guys know new believers, come alongside of them, disciple them. Yeah, I mean, obviously, as an evangelist, you know, my heart is to see the conversion part of it, of course, as an evangelist.
While at the same time, what I've seen lacking in all of my travels is the discipleship travel. Part of it, you know, that piece of it.
So, no, that's pretty amazing.
So, Project 2026 and Pray, North Carolina. Tanya Skelly is the visionary behind that. Christians in the marketplace. And. Pastor, the name of the church again over there is Christ Transformation Ministries.
Christ Transformation Ministries in Thomasville, North Carolina. Pastor Julius Koontz. And if you're passing through, be sure to stop in. Online? Is it just out of curiosity?
Right now, it's in person.
Okay.
Gotcha. Hopefully, by next month, we will be online.
Okay, excellent. Excellent. 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 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.
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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, it is QA with Koloff. I have no idea what you guys might ask me, but let's have a little fun here.
And shall we go? Maybe I'll go ladies first to be polite here, ladies first. And Tanya, if you want to, let's see what you got. What do you have for me?
Okay, so. When my dad retired from the military, we moved to Cabot, Arkansas.
Okay.
Okay, and so that would have been seventh grade for me, eighth grade, and I was really into wrestling.
Okay.
Okay.
I would not have envisioned that, Tanya. Really into wrestling.
Okay.
Ric Flair. Yeah. And I mean, these guys would come to Little Rock and stuff. And so, my question is: have you? Were you in Little Rock at any point?
Would you say this would have been the 80s?
Okay, so. Most likely, yes. I mean, my career was 84 to 92-ish.
So, yeah, so probably I probably qualify for that time frame. And Back in those days, just to clarify, for the newer listener or the newer wrestling fan out there, there were territories.
Okay.
And so for Arkansas, what have been called the Mid-South? Cowboy Bill Watts was the owner and operator of Mid-South Wrestling.
Some of my buddies wrestled down there: the million-dollar man, Ted DiBiase, Barry Darso, who wrestled as Crusher Khrushchev and as Demolition Smash, Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Junkyard Dog, JYD. A lot of those guys were big in the Mid-South, but.
Ivan and I, Ivan Koloff and myself, would come in periodically from time to time and wrestle with some of their guys. We were here in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling. I mean, there was Georgia Championship, Florida Championship, WWF at the time, up in the Northeast.
So it was a St. Louis had its own territory, Detroit, Minneapolis, all these little territories. And uh but eventually we would travel and and I couldn't tell you the name of the building in Little Rock, but I know I've wrestled in Little Rock.
So so you have to I would have never guessed, Tanya, that you were a wrestling fan. But the coolest thing is, is if in fact you did, I was there. You might have been there. That the Lord knew that we would be sitting here. Isn't that crazy?
And he knew that before we were ever even born. Isn't that crazy? And what's funny to me is I kind of get a chuckle out of it, sometimes. Like, I'll be out to lunch or something, or you know, with a pastor or whoever. And many of the pastors.
Of the churches I'm invited to all grew up watching me wrestle. And then they find out I'm an evangelist, like, you got to come or whatever. And then they go. Never in a million years did I think I'd be sitting down having lunch with Nikita Kolov after cheering you or better yet, booing you, you know? Booing you.
And I've had people go, man, I hated you. And I go, I wear that as a badge of honor. Thank you. That was my job early on, you know?
Well, good. Do you have one, real quick, one favorite wrestling memory from those early days? My memory was a guy that used to cut his forehead. He had a straight razor. Which many of them did.
And so just after getting his autograph, just how scarred up his forehead was. Yeah. Yeah. Look like a... Ivan, my part, his head looked like a...
I say. I describe it as an old-time railroad interchange yard. I mean, there was like tracks going everywhere all over the place.
Now, him up and down, but many of the guys like Dusty Rose, just straight across the forehead, back and forth, and all the scar tissue and stuff.
So you remember that. No, I do. It was very impressionable on this little seventh grader. You're like, look at that dude's forehead. That's crazy.
Wow. Well, that's a good question. Thank you for being a fan back in the day. All right, Pastor Julius, you got a question you want to throw out there for me? First, I want to make a comment, and that is.
If God can save Nikita Kolof. Come on, I'm just saying. If God can save Nikita Keloff, there is hope for the world. Hope for everybody. There's hope for the world.
Yes, sir. I guess for me, you are absolutely right. You made champions. More excited because we did not like you at all. No, like for, like, like legitimately, people say, I hated you.
Let me tell you one question before we get to your question. I was finished up a church service. I was out at my resource table, and this woman, Tanya, comes up to me and she goes, She goes, I hated you, girl. She goes, No, she goes, She goes, I hate you. And I go, Oh, hold on.
We're in church. I just preached. She goes, No, she goes, I don't hate you now, especially after hearing you preach. She goes, But I grew up with four brothers, and that sickle thing you did, I can't tell you how many times my brothers hit me with that thing. Oh, God, for real.
And I'm like, I'm so sorry. I didn't intend to prop that, but she goes, no, there's a time I just hated the name Nikita Kolov.
So, all right, Pastor Julius, back to your question.
Well, I know you have traveled the world. Yes, sir. And I know you have seen a lot. Yes, sir. I'm curious.
to know the moment. that your heart was convicted that Jesus Christ is my Lord. Given the fact that you have seen, done, and that may have been the reason a lot. But I'm just curious of that moment. Yeah, I guess kind of the reader's digest version of that.
It's a great question because, you know, I tell people, obviously, obviously, for those who still don't know, and believe it or not, I still meet people like I was in the sound booth at a church not long ago, and this guy comes up, he says something to me, and I respond, and he gets this look on his face. I'm like, you okay? And he's like, you just shattered my childhood. All these years, I believed you were really from Russia.
So, for those who maybe still don't know, not from Russia, from Minnesota, but I didn't grow up in church. But that d but but that doesn't mean I didn't know the story. I knew the story. You knew the story. But the story had never made the, as I phrase it, never made the 18-inch trip from my head down to my heart until 11 months after I left wrestling.
And I was on a search, a journey, a quest, if you will, for what life holds next. For Nikita Koloff. And it was in that moment. In fact, I write about this in one of my books, I was successful but unfulfilled. Even with all the championship titles and belts and accolades and everything that came along with it.
And so Uh through the marketplace, through a Christian in the marketplace. Believe it or not, I met this couple and with some other business adventures I was involved in, and they invited me to their church. And it was just God's timing of the day I said, I'll be there Sunday. And they're like, we'll meet you there. And it was the first time ever through those doors.
Now, that's not to say I've never been to a church before, because I had, but this was a divine appointment. And it was in that church that I felt the conviction that you asked me and the prompting, and the, and if you want to say the aha moment of what was missing in my life, the reason I felt that something was missing was that relationship with Jesus. And I first went to the altar on my knees, 17 October 1993. Praise God. Yeah, confessing, repenting, and asking Jesus into my heart.
Praise God. And then from that decision, that encounter, which was very real, I've just, you know, I've just never been the same since. The little I'd known, all these years later, you know, here I am, here you are, and here I am. And, but, yeah, that's how that happened.
So, his arm is never too short. It's not. And for those out there listening, you know, just know that, you know, I've had friends in the past that said, oh, you know, I've done too much. There's no way he'd forgive me. And that's just simply not true, right?
That's just a lie from the pit of hell, right? Right, Pastor? Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's what he does, he lies. He's good at it.
The Bible said he's the father of lies.
So he know how To lie and convince us or deceive us to believe the lie. And whatever he said, just do the opposite. Yep. Yep. So, yeah.
So, and it's just been a whirlwind of a journey ever since then, you know. Can you still do the accent? I would love, wouldn't you guys love to hear the accent? Because it may trigger me, though. It may trigger me.
I don't want you picking up any metal chairs or anything.
Well, it may trigger me now. Just make sure the room is clear. No metal chairs here in the studio.
So, you know what's funny is. I can't tell you how often I get asked that. Because I still do autograph signings and all that sort of thing. And they'll ask me now and go, How much money you got? And they'll look at me and go, Oh man, come on, come on.
And what people don't realize is. The strain on the vocal cords and on my voice doing that. Because what you may or may not know is. I did that. A lot of wrestling fans know this story, but I carried on that persona in public 24-7 for not only the length of my career, but up to three years after my career, I still maintained full character mode.
Wow. Wow. Anywhere in public. Wow. And I even owned a health club down in Concord.
I'd be in there eight, nine hours a day in character, training people. Oh wow. Writing up workouts. Because that's what they wanted. Meal plans.
Well, not so much that, I was trained old school and to protect the business before it was known as sports entertainment. You know, because we were schooled to make people believe it. Yeah. You know, that it was real. And for people to believe I was really from Russia.
Yeah. And so that's what I did. And so. Of course, the older I've got, the harder it's been on my voice, Pastor. There's a little sampling, Fast.
There's a little sampling. That's good. No, I work with that. I can work with that. You can work with that.
I can work with that, yes, sir.
Well, but no, on a serious note, it's my voice, my throat feels the effects of it all these years later. But yeah, it's just amazing to me how I'm like, people are like, I'm like, go online, like research, do something, you know, when they realize I'm not really from there. I have one other question.
Okay.
We got time. What. What was your favorite? Match that you remember that brought you to probably a level of super status.
Well most l I guess the The way you phrase the question, because you know, it's hard to Sometimes it's hard to pin down a match, right? 1986, I had 454 matches. Oh. Wow. Yeah, do the math on that.
Wow. 454 matches in 1986 alone. Wow. Okay.
That said, though. Certainly without a g For sake of time, people just have to go get the book, Nikita, a Tale of the Ring of Redemption, which actually in this very studio, I actually did in my own voice an audio version of that.
Now, people can go on Amazon and get my whole life story in audible form, and I will today. But, um, yeah, because you know, some people, especially guys, just don't like to read, right?
So, I'm like, all right, well, I'm just gonna put it in book form then.
So, that said, though, um. Um There's many that I could highlight, but probably from my introduction in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the Dorton Arena. to fast forward 13 months later, I had already become with no training, no background, no experience of any kind. I had become a world tag champion, world six-man champion, and at the first ever Great American Bash in Charlotte, North Carolina, I was wrestling Ric Flair for the world heavyweight champion. Wow.
So the goal was: we're taking all the gold back to Moscow. That was our plan, Uncle Ivan and I. Uncle Ivan. We're taking all the gold back to Moscow.
So I've already got the tag belts, the six-man belt.
Now we're going to get Flair's belt and take it back to Moscow. And so certainly that match is incredibly. I mean, it was. 30-something thousand people there. And I'm only 13 months.
Like, I barely even know what I'm doing. But yet I'm in the World Heavyweight Title main event. Wow. Right. Against Flair.
So, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you a couple others real quick, too, and we'll wrap this up. But the first ever War Games in Atlanta was incredibly memorable. It was a very unique match that had never been done before. It was Dusty Rhodes' creation.
And then something else that had never been done up to that point was the best of seven series for the U.S. Belt against Magnum TA. And that's probably the most talked about of my career, the best of seven with Magnum.
So yeah, that's incredibly memorable as well.
Well, Tanya Skelly, great to have you in studio with us today. Website once again for your prayer movement. It's pray-nc.com. Pray-nc.com. Check that out.
And if you're a prayer warrior out there, and even if you're not, check it out. And let's help get the word out for her vision to bring prayer across Carolinas. And Pastor Julius. Yes, sir. Christians in the Marketplace, one more time.
Give them the simplified version of that website for me.
Okay, the simplified version of the website is www.christianinthemarketplace.com.
Okay, that's easier for me, you know, because I'm still learning English. That helps me out. That helps me out. That's right. Well, and for all of you out there, thank you for being again so faithful just to tune in week in and week out.
Spread the word. Hey, and I did a full interview with these guys on It's Time to Man Up.
So go over there and go into the archives or keep your eyes open for when that airs, both on radio and on the podcast. Until next time, just go out and have a God-filled and live 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.
Today. I Nikita Koloff, be sure to check out the Man Up Show now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to MorningstarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings, or better yet. Download the Truth Network app.
Good day. If you are enjoying Q ⁇ A with Kolov, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe, and leave a comment. Are you looking for the perfect gift for your pastor?
Well, look no further. Bless him with a trip to the Holy Land with yours truly, Nakita Koloff, the Russian nightmare. I'll be hosting this once-in-a-lifetime trip, December 27, 2023 to January 5th, 2024. Your pastor will never be the same. Go to koloff.net to get registered today.
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Yeah.
