Q&A with Koloff - #41

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Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Nikita Kolov here. Questions and answers. Q&A with Kolov, the devil's nightmare.

Welcome back to Q&A with Kolov. That's right, questions and answers. It's not me asking the questions.

It's you asking the questions. And if you'd like to submit some questions, go to kolov.net, email me and let me know, hey, I'd love to be on your Q&A show. And with me today in the studio, a man who really needs no introduction, but I am going to introduce him anyway, Stu Epperson Jr. He is, when you talk about Truth Radio Network, he is the poster child for Truth Radio Network.

I mean, he made this all possible. And Stu, great to have you with me on Q&A. Well, it's good to be here when I'm in this close proximity to Nikita Kolov, the Russian nightmare. I'm just looking around, making sure that they're not planning on carrying me out on a stretcher. If I can walk out of my own accord and unscathed and unbruised and uncut, praise the Lord. Take it easy on me, brother.

I would. And I didn't even bring my Russian chain today. You don't need it. You got chain. You got, you're a living, walking chain. Look at those pythons, man. Look at, look at, look at the nightmare there. Come on, come on.

Still in the gym after all these years. It's always a safe place when you're having lunch with Nikita or in the studio with him because no one messes with the Russian nightmare. They know better, especially the devil. He knows you're the devil's worst nightmare.

I'm trying to give him serve notice. I think my wanted poster with my, my picture on it is in hell by the way. Well, it sure is. Yeah.

And I'm okay with that. So doing my best to damage his kingdom and build God's came in. And so, well, for those who don't know, I mean, Stu, you made, you made the whole man up show and, and, and the Q and a, and all that we're doing possible. And as the man who, who had the vision originally for truth radio network. And, uh, when you reached out to me, uh, spring of 2020 and, and, and that's what made all this happen. And, and for those who don't know, give, give the listeners who those who may not know who Stu Epperson Jr. is.

Give them, give them a quick insight, quick snapshot, uh, husband to Julie, uh, father to hope, grace, joy, and faith, father-in-law to Harrison and grandfather to Walker. Yeah. And, uh, in a girl grew up in a radio family, didn't want to do anything like that. I had a whole nother career track. Actually, you know, at one point in time, I wanted to be a pro wrestler.

Okay. Come on. Confessing that publicly on a national radio show. I actually just dreamed about being a pro wrestler and a little thing called basketball got in the way. And then a big person named Jesus got in the way and changed all of that. And then coming out of college, following Jesus, I wanted to go to law school or grad school or seminary or play basketball overseas, actually had a contract from Germany to play basketball overseas and God had other plans.

I didn't want to go on a radio because that's what my family had always done. Right. And, but God had other plans in the middle of my senior year in college, I got kind of roped into, into taking a class on broadcasting, but it was with an easy professor. And it was, we were just cruising, you know, it was like, we were going to, we're going to get an easy a, you know, you know, tap out, graduate and go on to next.

Right. And then the professor said, well, for our class, a project class, we're going to start an on-campus radio station. And that's how we talked to doc Saunders. And I thought, well, that'll be interesting. And then he said, leadership starts at the top.

Who's going to be our manager. And I started to duck underneath my, you know, those, you know, this old wooden wraparound desk from school when you were going to slide down in your seat. I just completely slumped under there. And everyone looked at me because they knew me. They knew I had a radio background, my family. I'd worked in radio. I grew up as a little radio Pratt and all these stations and mics. And I used to eat the sugar cubes as they never had food. Yeah. So frustrated by that. And so, and so they all looked at me.

So I became the manager and I loved it. I love the power of getting behind a mic. Like we're doing right now, you and I are talking about these in these microphones and thousands of people can hear this. Yeah. Right. Millions. Yeah. We're not putting up the phone and making a million phone calls. Yeah.

We never do that. And the energy. And so, and so on the, even on that campus. So I had to put together a little team of people doing the production and I had to put a little team of people doing the engineering, had a guy named bill who could fix anyone's truck on campus.

And he was in the class. I said, Hey bill, you're our engineer. He's like, so he grabbed his toolbox and we'd go to harvest old radio sites. And you know, my dad's company had some old radios, you know, tower sites, we'd go get equipment and in the soundboard and we, in the main dorm, there's a little tiny janitor's closet.

And we say, can we use this for our station? But we put it all in there and we, someone had a six CD player, you know, which was rare back then you could play six CDs and rotate them, you know? Right. Yes.

So we had a way to semi automate it, just run reels of, you know, all the, whatever the songs were back then, you know? And so, and then I had a sales guy who could sell anything. I mean, this guy could sell ISIS to Eskimos. Who's that good, right?

No, not that good. But this guy, his name was Lauren Jones. And when we would, when we would walk out of chapel and it'd be raining, we'd look out and Lauren would be standing in a lobby with an umbrella hat on. And he had a whole bag of them and we like, Oh man, I want one of those. So he would sell out of them and, you know, and he'd make a, you know, a few hundred bucks. I said, Lauren, he was in the class and Lauren, you're our sales manager.

And he would go and get local people to advertise, but it was Christian radio. Wow. And it was really just a tremendous blessing. I'm like, man, I want to do this the rest of my life. So I swore I'd never do three things.

Number one, I swore I never get into radio because that's what dad and them did. Right. And I'm going all them.

I'm like, I don't do carve out a different track. You don't want to be, you know, right. You know? Right. So I said, number two, I says, I'm never going to go to Bob Jones university.

Okay. Because it was a super strict place. You know, it was like really confined and rules and all that and a great Christian school, but I didn't like all the other stuff. And of course they've changed now. They're very, they've dropped a lot of that stuff, but more liberal, but many colleges. Yeah. Yeah. But, but not liberal in a bad way.

They've really, they've kept the faith, but they've, they've lightened up some of those kinds of crazy rules, but here's the thing. The only place in America that had a graduate program that combined broadcasting and management. Okay. Was Bob Jones university.

Okay. So here I am on my way back with my new bride from Southern California to Bob Jones university, literally in the buckle of Bible belt, Greenville, South Carolina. The third thing I swear, I'd never go back to North Carolina because that's where I grew up. I wanted somewhere different sprouts your wings. Right. So I'm in Greenville and I'm working in going to grad school, loving it and working in secular radio and get a great job with some great stations, heritage stations in Winston Salem.

And I ended up coming back to North Carolina. So those are the three things I told. So, you know, you want to tell God your plans and you want to hear, you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.

Right. So that's what happened. So then, you know, literally maybe five years later, three years later, four or five years later, somewhere in there, God woke me up at four in the morning and I just burned the word truth on me. And I am driving around listening to great Christian music, but I couldn't find a station that had programs like man up that had programs like Christian car guy that had great teaching programs, 24 seven committed to it with a great signal. And so at that point, the Lord just burned my heart to start truth, the truth network.

So literally a year or two later, I left a great pan, wonderful job, secular radio, making a ton of money to start a twenty four seven Christian teaching and talk format in North Carolina. And now we've got close to thirty one signals nationwide and we've got over four hundred affiliates that carry some or all of our programming, you know, across the country. And we're reaching people all over the world in your programs. Now, fifty five countries.

People can hear man up with the key to Cola. It's moving. It's moving along. It's moving along. So a little background on on Stu. But Q&A questions and answers, Stu.

So your opportunity to to on air ask me a couple questions that are burning to what do you want to know? OK, so the opponent you least you look least forward to wrestling. Oh, man. Well, you know, I tried to get along really honestly with every guy is not, you know, people think, oh, you're all buddies, you're all friends.

But it's like any job or anything. You have personality clashes you have. So there were certain guys that, you know, if you say didn't get along with like one guy who's the name was Rachie Bull, Manny Fernandez, for whatever reason, we just didn't click. You know, I mean, we had matches. In fact, Ivan and I defeated Dusty Rhodes and Manny Fernandez for the World Tag Team Champions, the NWA Tag Team Championships. And I had other matches with him. And now that he was a, you know, a bad guy in any sense, but for just we just didn't click. And so I did not look forward, especially if I had a single match. I just didn't really look forward to the step in the ring with him, but still tried to go in and have a good match.

A couple of the guys real quick. Jake the Snake Roberts. You know, I tried to I was cautionary if that's if that's a word. I used caution with him and another guy, Big Van Vader, who actually right here in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was my very last match ever against Big Van Vader. Got two injuries that night. He was at 450, 500 pounds, somewhere in that range. And he had a history of being reckless.

And he injured me that night. And so if you would understand the sport pro wrestling, if they don't want to call a sport, they don't have to. But the bottom line is when you're in, you're that kind of size. Yeah. And you're in that there's a lot of there's a lot on the line.

Very athletic. And if someone goes rogue or gets mad and they go off script, you know, there's there's like, you know, there's there's things called vertebrae and there's things called ligaments and tendons. Right. And something could rip and tear pretty bones. And yeah.

They look at the Russian nightmare and they think that this guy but but did that was that was your profession. What motivated you to pump the iron? I mean, I know you're in the gym all the time. You're still in the gym. But what was it that kept you going in the weight room? Was it just a as part of the the the persona that I'd built?

Well, and a little bit of back story. You know, I was age 12 when I picked up a magazine called Ironman Magazine. It was a bodybuilding magazine. And I was enamored by the guys in the magazine. And and I remember making a statement to myself and a few others that this statement one day I'm going to look like one of those guys. Age 12. Went and bought a 110 pound plastic set, a weight set filled with sand or concrete from from some might be old enough to remember Sears and Roebuck.

Sears and Roebuck. And I just began lifting, Stu. And and and thought one day, fast forward 12 years later, I walk into Charlotte, North Carolina, a town I'd never been after a five minute, literally just just a five minute phone call with a guy named Jim Crockett Jr. Stu Epperson Jr. Jim Crockett Jr. introduced myself from that five minute phone call.

He put me right on the TV set. Remember I said I want to look like one of those guys. Fast forward 12 years later, I went from about 100 pounds dripping wet with rocks in my pocket to 285, 8 percent body fat with a 34 inch waist.

So that's how I broke into wrestling. And and and all these years later, 50 years later, you know, still in the gym working out and exercising and taking care of this body. But the motivations have changed now from from the early days. I'm not trying to impress anybody anymore. Now I'm just trying to take care of this temple that God gave me, this body that gave me motivation.

But you still are on mission to reach folks and stay healthy now. Yes. I want to ask you, your most hated foreign object. My most. You had the chairs, you had the, you know, you had bats, we had tables. We had a cow. Well, the cowbell, probably the bull rope match with a cowbell tied in the middle.

Okay. Because that thing got swinging. Stan Hansen, Stan the Larry Hansen, used to carry that thing and swing that thing around. And he was blind as a bat. Like for real. Like if you take his glasses off, couldn't see his hand in front of his face.

Oh man. In fact, one of my buddies was working the bell at ringside one time in Charleston, South Carolina. Stan was swinging that thing around.

You were just a blur. And I jumped out of the ring and he swung it over the rope and hit my buddy. My buddy got mad. I'm going to sue that guy.

Go, Rich, you can't do that. You're part of the show. Sorry. You know, so the cowbell. Wow. Believe it or not. So the cowbell was your most hated. Yeah, I didn't like the cowbell. What was the bloodiest match you had that you were, you were just cut and bloody?

Magatie, magatie. Okay. That one. Was it a, was it a real blood or was it contrived? Uh, oh no, it's self-inflicted wounds. And so there's, there's no chicken capsules. Like I'm like, like, where do I, do I carry those in my tights, in my cheek?

Where do I carry those, you know? So, we call them self-inflicted wounds. Uh, but Magnum, I, I, I, I, it was too high up on, on the head. I hit a vein and, and I was, as they would say, crimson red, as they would say. So. But that, boy, that really made for some good posters and some good shots in the magazines and everything.

It did. Made for some good magazine covers and, and or, or shots inside the ring. We're just glad you're still alive to talk about that, brother. Well, I am too. Well, all right. One more, we got time for one more question. I want to cut you short, but we got time for one more question and. The most, uh, okay.

Where are they now? Question. Okay. Who is, of all the wrestlers you've ever faced or you've ever known about today, modern day time, this century, this, this year, this day.

Okay. Who is it that you're most astounded by their condition? And that could be good, bad, or ugly, or that you're most shocked by, like you say, I would never in a million years, because I know people say this about you all the time. I never think this guy to be an evangelist for Christ. Who is it out there in the wrestling world that you are the most, just, just in awe of how they are today?

Well, really a pretty quick answer that, uh, the stinger, the icon sting. I mean, he's with AEW wrestling recently even had a tag match. And him and I are 11 days apart in age. And so yeah, hats off to him. He's still going, still going and mostly outside the ring, you know, mentoring younger guys and, and, uh, but, but can still get in there and do it. And, and more than anything, more than his wrestling, uh, what he's accomplished in the world of wrestling, which has been a lot. I mean, he does qualify as an icon in wrestling, uh, is the fact that in 1998, uh, he surrendered his life to Jesus. In fact, his whole story is on the man up show. People can go back to archive the podcast show. Great episode.

Yeah. And, uh, and how he gave his life to, and I had the privilege of mentoring him, uh, over the years in his walk with Christ. And so he is salt and light in, in a wrestling world that predominantly is, is pretty dark. Um, but he goes back in there and, uh, and true to his faith, he is salt and light in, in the wrestling community. He's held in there with a multiple organizations, multiple MOs. He's reinvented himself.

How many times, how many trench goats, how many changes, how many good guy versus bad guy. He's there with Hogan. He's there against him. He's there with you. He's against you. He's okay. I mean, wow.

I know. I can't even imagine how many times he has painted his face. I may have to ask him one day, but, uh, anyway, so, but the testimony, what a beautiful testimony that how God's brought the two of you together in a, in a deeper camaraderie. And of course your passion is it, is it anyone you've ever wrestled with or known in that profession would come to know Christ and you want, you and sting want to spend eternity with those guys. And so many have, and I love how your show highlights the testimonies of these wrestlers who are now, you know, in the ring for Jesus. And, and I've had the privilege, I'll kind of, I'll kind of end on this note, uh, cause I've had the privilege, Lex Luger and I who do a camp together, co-facilitated camp. We've done a lot of ministry, had the opportunity to mentor him, invite uncle, uncle Ivan Cole off to a revival in 1995, surrender his life to Jesus, set free of drug addiction, alcohol addiction, uh, tobacco addiction, many other things, Magnum TA, who's been on the show, a believer and, and road warrior Hawk prior to his passing, witnessed him giving his life to Jesus and then bringing him on the road with me for the year and a half prior to his passing, mentoring and discipling him.

And so I've been fortunate to be able to have an impact, not only inside the squared circle, but outside as well. But Stu, thanks for being on Q and a with Cola. What an honor. What an honor. This is a highlight of my very brief 92nd wrestling career to be in the air with you, the man of the hour, the tower of power to three to be power. If you will do episode, baby, that's what I'm talking about. You are on the Q and a with Cola tune back in again for another episode. God bless you. Have a wonderful day. This is the truth network.