Q&A with Koloff - #26

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So enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Not the key to Koloff here. Questions and answers. Q&A with Koloff, the devil's nightmare. Yeah, this is exciting for me today. Maybe I'll call him a superfan.

I don't know. Gene Stover is with me today and we're just going to chat for a bit and let him fire some questions at me. Gene, welcome to Q&A with Koloff. Hey, it's a pleasure to be here. Well, it's great to have you with. Hey, Gene, for our listeners, so where are we connected? Where are you living?

Give our listeners a little backdrop on Gene Stover. Oh, well, I'm in Marshall, Illinois, which is about an hour and a half west of Indianapolis, Indiana, and about two and a half hours straight east of St. Louis, Missouri. Okay, so that gives kind of, for those who are geographically, is that the right word? You know, I'm no scholar. That at least gives people an idea where Gene, where you're living, where Gene's at.

So, well, very cool. And Gene, what keeps you busy back home? I'm a farm boy. Oh, a farmer. Okay. Yes, sir.

We farm about a ballpark of 3,000 acres of grain. Wow. We finish up toward 20,000 side holes a year. Wait, wait, wait. What did you just say? Say it again.

We finish about 20,000 side holes a year. That's what I thought you said. Wow. Okay.

Yes, sir. Feeding America. Feeding America. Wow. Yep. And we also feed, we feed cattle too. We send cattle the same way, just not that many. Good.

It definitely keeps us busy. Yeah, well, I guess. I mean, thousands and thousands of acres. And so, family business or how many generations have been farming, Gene? Well, it's not my family. I am working for the farmer. But to answer your question, though, there are five generations into this farm.

For real? Five generations? Yes, sir.

Five generations. Okay. Well, well, just tell them thank you. Thank you for helping feed America.

Can you pass that on from the Russian nightmare? And I can definitely do that. Well, I appreciated it. And I'm guessing, of course, I've never spent the day trailing and watching, but I imagine you do earn your keep out there on the farm. Yeah, I'll tell you what.

It's full days. I mean, if you sit back and you think about it, it's rewarding. I mean, we're doing good things. We're putting a lot of meat on tables around the world. Today, it's not just the United States, it's around the world today.

Yeah, I mean, it's become a world economy in a sense, right? Yeah. And same thing with the grain. We put a lot of corn out also.

And ship it all over the world. Yes, sir. Wow. So, Gene, when do you have time to watch wrestling, Gene?

It sounds like you're out tilling the fields every day. When have you had time to watch wrestling? Well, I'll tell you. I watched wrestling when wrestling was real wrestling, and I was quite a bit younger then. In the 80s, I'll tell you right now, I didn't miss wrestling very much. I was still in school, and I always left. And my father, he was not exactly a sports fan, but me and him come from the movement Saturday night about five o'clock in the evening. I was in front of the TV, and I was there until my master was seven in the evening. Wow. And him kind of made peace with that, and that's just the way it was.

I hear you, I hear you. And so, did you have any favorites that, like names that just pop up? Well, other than present company accepted, of course, Gene. But did you have any other names that were kind of favorites of yours that come immediately to mind? Oh, yeah. Dusty Rhodes, for one.

I was a big Dusty Rhodes fan. Okay. The Rock and Roll Express. Ricky and Robert, yep. Yes. The Road Warriors.

The Animal and the Hawk. Oh, what a rush. Oh, yeah. They was two awesome individuals that, you know, that when I was in high school, a short story with them, when I was in high school, I was on the weightlifting team. And, you know, you hang up a poster here and there, you know, of one thing or another in the weight room.

To motivate you? Yeah. Yes, sir. I had a picture of the Road Warriors hanging on the wall in the weight room. And that was my goal.

I wanted to be, I wanted to be like Road Warrior animals, especially. Come on. Well, a picture of them guys of the Mohawks and probably Spike shoulder pads should motivate anybody. I'm just saying, you know, paint on their face. You know, that don't come easy.

That's right. A lot of work. Well, and now, my experience, Gene, with being around, you know, I've been around some farmers and, man, you guys just have, you know, either growing up or working on a farm, just raw strength, man. Like, natural raw strength.

I'm like, whoa. And some that never even touched a weight in their life, but throwing around bales of, hey, they might as well have been in the weight room for all their life. You know what I'm saying? You can probably understand what I'm saying, right?

Yes, sir. Actually, by me doing that, when I got into high school and they come to me and when me to join the weightlifting team, that kind of gives me a step above, you know, the team members that was raised in town. You know, I mean, they hit the weight room, you know, earlier than I did, maybe. But they was, you know, they was bench pressing, you know, 150 or 175 pounds or something, you know. And I was throwing around, you know, 100 pound bales of hay, 75 pound bales of hay.

Like it was nothing. Yeah. Yeah. They would be in the weight room for, you know, 30 minutes a day or whatever. And I was throwing hay for six, eight hours a day. Wow.

So you already had, if you might say, a leg up on them already when you hit the weight room. I did. I did. That's amazing. That's amazing. And I know the Warriors, you know, of course, they're at this point, they're walking streets of gold.

Both of them made a profession of faith prior to their passing. And so, you know, they're enjoying where they're at right now while we get the opportunity to enjoy this conversation, right? So.

Right. Well, let's get to a question for me, Gene. Fire away at your first question. I have no idea what you're going to ask, just by the way for the listeners. So, but fire away your first question. Well, I'm going to tell you what, before I ask you my first question, I'm going to tell you, well, when I found out that I was going to do this with you, I sat down and started making a list of some questions. And literally I went from two pages of notebook pages of questions down to a few to fit in this podcast. Well, you're, you're not, that just means, Gene, that just means I'll have to have you back on another time. Fair enough. And hey, yes, I would love to.

I sat down and finally put it in the old way. Well, so you, so you've narrowed it down to maybe your top two or three. Okay. So. All right. I can do that. All right.

Go for it. What did you like better, being a baby face or heel? You know, I really, honestly, I enjoyed them both.

Well, I'm glad, I'm glad, let me say that. I'm glad I got the experience to experience both, being on the, on the good side of the tracks and if you will, and, and on the bad side because, because they were two different, very different experiences, especially how back in those days anyway, especially how you related to the fans, right? Like as a bad guy, you know, I wanted to, you know, my goal was to be hated by everybody.

Right. And I guess I accomplished that because at one point I was the most voted, most hated, you know, in the world of wrestling, you know, number one, most hated. And, and, and of course I, I fed off that, but then fed into that too by, you know, somebody tried to get my autograph and, and just give them that stork, you know, Russian nightmare look, you know, with the, with the eyes and, and to try to run them off. Uh, so, you know, so I, I'm glad I had that experience. I am glad I had the experience on the other side, you know, to be a fan favorite. And someone just posted just the other day, maybe it was yesterday on social media, you know, Twitter, Instagram, um, some of their favorite magazines. And I, I glanced at it and under most popular, so obviously I already became a good guy at this point, right?

Under most popular at the top was Hulk Hogan and at number two, coming in at number two was yours truly the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kolov, uh, as, as most popular in that particular, uh, edition of, of the wrestling magazines. And so I'm glad, I'm glad I got to experience both sides of it. So I can't say I enjoyed one more than the other. I see. I see. Well, you've done something there with, uh, most wrestlers, most wrestlers don't get in the top five of, of, uh, maybe faces older heels and you have been in the top three at a minimum of on both sides.

You know what, Gina, I never, I never thought about it. Like honestly, tell you said that. I just, you're, you're right. Uh, number one, most hated.

And, and, and I don't know if I actually officially ever climbed to number one, but I know in this particular edition, I at least, I at least was just behind the Hulk star, you know, brother. Right. So, right. Well, very cool. Well, great question. What, what else do you got, Jean? Do you have any regrets of, of something that you wished in your, in your wrestling career, something that you would have done that you did not get to before you, before you retired?

Ooh, another, another great question. Uh, you know, a lot of times people, people will ask this, of course, you know, I had the world tag titles, the world six man had the, uh, I beat Wahoo McDaniel when we unified the national heavyweight title, uh, having won the U S title, get the best of seven against Magnum at the world TV title, unified that against Terry Taylor at Starrcade when he had the UWF TV title. So I had a lot of world titles. The only one I didn't have was, was Ric Flair.

Uh, you know, when that take that one off his, off his waist. And a lot of people ask me, do you ever regret, you know, not, not winning the world heavyweight title, uh, actually had opportunities to do that. And I'm not referring to the, the plethora of matches I had against him because I had more matches than I can count against, against the nature boy, one of the best of the best of the best. Um, but he offered it to me not once, but twice. And, and Jean, believe it or not, I turned it down. Uh, and some might, might look back on that and go, Oh man, I wish I hadn't, but honestly, you know, I have no regrets in, in, in, in, in gracefully saying thank you, but no, thank you now, you know, would have been fun to win it. Sure. Would have been fun to add that to, to the list of accomplishments.

Sure. But, uh, I look back at my wrestling career, honestly, I don't know. Uh, I can't really say that I, that I have any regrets. I'm just very grateful and very thankful that I, that I had the career that I had. Yes, you did have a, you did have a really good career.

Thank you. Uh, you really did. Now, and that brings me to my next question. When you, when you was in the age, when you was wrestling, I don't have to tell you the cast of characters you had around you. You know, you had the four horsemen, road warriors, rocking and express all of them.

Lex Luger. Did you have, did you have, oh yeah, Lex Luger, you know, had all of these guys around. Uh, if you have any idea at that point in time, that that would be the most talked about era and called the golden era of wrestling. When you guys were going in there and you're trying to do that, didn't have any idea that in 2021, they would still be talking about it and wishing it was still like that today. Uh, I, I didn't, Gene and man, again, talk about being thankful, grateful, humbled, uh, like for real, like, you know, to have this conversation with you. And I mean that in all sincerity, to be able to have this conversation with you as a, as a longtime loyal wrestling fan and so many others going out to do legends, autograph signings, these newest, the things that virtual signings and, and just to hear a lot of your, your insight and, and what you loved about wrestling is probably one of the biggest blessings for me. And, and if I've heard it once, what you just referred to, I've heard it, I don't know, a thousand times or more, the golden era of wrestling. And certainly I would have to say, at least from my perspective, not one of us really ever thought, well, you know what, you know, probably 30, 35 years from now, people are, people are going to be talking about this.

You're going to have your podcast, you're going to be interviewing wrestling fans. And I, Gene, in a, in a gazillion years, I never would have dreamed this, uh, nor felt nor known that, that people would still be so loyal. And that's what I really appreciate about all of you.

So loyal in following us and continuing to support us all these years later, just, it just, it, it, it keeps me humble, Gene keeps me humble. Okay. Go ahead. Let's do it.

Go ahead. I'm sorry. Who was your toughest opponent? Oh boy. You know, to narrow it down to one would, would, would be difficult. You know, we, we've already listed quite a number of guys that, and, and they're, you know, they're tough in different ways, right? I mean, I had to wrestle Ric Flair for 60 minutes, uh, more times than again, more times than I can count.

That was tough. I mean, like for real, you want to talk 285 pounds wrestling for 60 solid minutes. Uh, it took, took some, some tenacity, uh, took some perseverance to, to, to do that. Um, physically tough. I mean, you mentioned two guys who you pinned up their poster in the weight room, the road warriors. Um, I mean, some of the strongest guys, you know, animal 23 inch arms and bench press, uh, you know, a gazillion pounds and Hawk. Um, some of the, some of the Samoans and Tongans that I got in the ring with, I mean, there were some tough guys, Dory Funk Jr. Who was tough in a different way. I mean, I wrestled some pretty tough guys with amateur wrestling backgrounds, Mike Rotundo, Dr. Dust, Steve Williams, right?

And, uh, the list goes to really, the list just goes on and on and on for, for who I was fortunate to get in the ring with. So man, you're firing some great questions. We've got time for one more, Gene, one more question, and then we'll have to have you back on again. You're killing me one question.

Which one do I have? It's funny. I don't know. I told my son, I would ask this.

All right. Down deep inside right now, you have the desire at all to throw on the wrestling boots and challenge Nick Aldis. That's the one time, Nick.

That's the one time. Nick would not stand a chance. I'm just saying, even at my age, Nick would not stand. He, he's a consummate professional. He's the modern day, Ric Flair. Like for, on a serious note, kudos to, to Nick. I really appreciate his interviews. I appreciate his passion, his love for the business, how he carries himself.

You know, he really is. So when I say a modern day, Ric Flair, I think he's personifies what Ric represented back in that golden era of wrestling. And so my hat's off to Nick and, and, you know, 10 years ago, you know, 15 years ago, maybe if you'd asked me that question, I maybe would have considered it, but consider this. Gene, I am one of the few, if not maybe even the only one, I don't know. I'm one of the few who actually retired and stayed retired.

So, so I don't know that I would, I don't know that I would want to tarnish that. Cause I say all the time I've been coined the Barry Sanders of pro wrestling. Now you probably know that name, Barry Sanders, right? Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. Being from where you're at, are you a Chicago bear fan? No, sir. No. Who's, who's, who's your favorite team? Do you have one? Yeah, I am a 49ers fan.

$40. And I'm going to tell you why. Please do keep it short but tell me why Gene. Okay. You have said more than once the reason you didn't go to the WWF is your loyalty to crickets for all those people, right? Correct. Well, I'm loyal to San Francisco because I was a Joe Montana fan. Okay.

All right. I was a Joe Montana fan and they drafted him and everybody knows what he's done. And just because that, that one player had retired and everything, I still stuck with the 49ers. I've been there. I've been there within the 49ers fan almost as long as I've been to the pools. You know what? I appreciate that answer.

I do. Well, like one of my buddies, Gene Legan, who wrestled in the NWA for many, many years, who's, who's from Salisbury, North Carolina, all these years has been a Green Bay Packer fan, right? I'm like, Gene, you're from the Carolinas, bro.

How can you be? And he had just a similar story. Let me end on this note, a Joe Montana note.

Joe, get this, Joe Montana actually inspired me. Really? Uh-huh. You ought to know how?

How's that? When I was growing up as a kid, you may not appreciate this Gene, but when I was growing up as a kid, I, I'd watch these professional athletes. I'm like, what, why can't these guys like retire on top?

Why can't they walk away? You know, as a champion, I want to say for the record, I, I, Joe Montana was one of the best of the best, but, but Gene, I'm like, Joe, you don't look right in a Kansas city chief uniform, bro. You look, you look right in a 49er uniform. Anyway, I say that to say him, Jerry Rice, I'm like, Jerry, you don't look right in a Seahawk uniform.

You're a 49er. All that to say, all that to say for, for reals, it was, it was those kinds of stories that I said to myself as a kid, when I make it now, back then I thought it'd be pro football. I didn't know it'd be pro wrestling, but I said, when I make it, I will walk away on top, you know, if you will, as a main event, if not a champion, which is why Gene, I left at age 33, which is unheard of right for that business. Right. But that was the number one motivator as to why, cause I had said, I said 35, 35 will be the max that I'll get out of active in-ring wrestling.

And I beat that goal by year and a half. So there you go. So, well, Hey, we will have you back on Gene.

You fired some great questions and man, keep, keep feeding us across America and around the world. Okay. I'll do that. All right, Gene. Well, God bless you. Thanks for, thanks for the time. And I'll look forward.

I'm serious. I'll look forward to talking to you again and we'll get to more of those questions. Okay.

Well, I look forward to, I look forward to talking to you. All right, Gene. Thanks so much. Have a wonderful, wonderful week. All right. You too. All right. Bye-bye. This is the truth network.