Q&A with Koloff #44

Hello, this is Will Hardy with ManTalk Radio.

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This is the Truth Network. Nakita Koloff here, questions and answers, Q&A with Koloff, the devil's nightmare. In studio with me is a special guest. Well, you know, I think I say that every week, but then again, every guest is special in my eyes anyway. But I got the man of the hour, the Tower of Power.

No, I'm not talking about my former superpower. I'm talking about Michael Carbone, COO of Truth Radio Network. Michael, welcome to the Mad Up Show. I appreciate being here.

Sounds like you've never lost the art of cutting a promo. I don't know when the last time I was the Tower of Power. Well, you're the Tower of Power because you hold, in my view, you hold all of Truth Radio, you hold it together. You're the glue that holds this place together. That's the way.

The Tower of Broadcast Organization. Well, there you go. That works for me as well. But no, on a serious note, great to have you on the show for real. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Yeah. And so what, you know, what I want to do is just, I mean, let's just have a conversation. And as I've gotten to know you over the course of the last, I guess, year, year and a half, or just thereabouts anyway, let's, for our listeners, let's tell them who Michael Carbone is.

Like, where'd you grow up? I know you're a wrestling fan. We get into that a little bit, but it's all coming together. Yeah.

Yeah. Youngstown, Ohio, born and raised to spend a few years in Cleveland before I moved here to North Carolina, which is where our studio is here. And Steel Town, tough guy town, bare knuckles, you know, you meet every problem fist first, that kind of thing. So my family background, I grew up with a mafia family. I have cousins that are... Carbone.

Yeah, I could see that. Well, if you ever saw the movie, The Irishman, apparently The Irishman also featured, it was about the Danny Green car bomb murder in Cleveland in the late seventies. Okay. The guy who ordered the hit was my cousin. Okay.

And he spent 26 years in the Mansfield Reformatory for said act of aggression. Okay. That's a polite way of putting it, I guess.

So yeah, it was interesting. And my father wouldn't participate in it. He would do odd jobs for them now and again, but when they finally told him, it's time for you to decide whether you want to go deeper or kind of stay out, and he decided... Yeah, in or out? Are you in or are you out?

Yeah, and he decided to stay out. So we were kind of on the periphery of it, but you know, obviously weddings, funerals, and everything is, you know, we were all of it. The gold chains, the how you doings, you know, all of it. No kidding. Wow.

Just picture that in my mind's eye. I'm like, so was that kind of through, so Youngstown and then up to Cleveland, was that kind of through all your youth, teenage years? Right. Yeah. I went to Youngstown State University. Go Penguins.

Okay. Now there's a mascot that'll scare the opposition. Scare the opposition, right?

It'll force them off the field. Pete the Penguin. Well, there's something to that, right? Because the Pittsburgh Penguins, right? The hockey team. So what's up with the Penguins in Pennsylvania and Ohio?

Must be a local gimmick. Okay. Ohio and Pennsylvania, the Penguins. Yes. Okay. Very intimidating.

Right. So it was a steel town. My father was a steel worker.

When I graduated from college, I went to work for a steel company up in Cleveland, spent several years in Cleveland, and then moved south here to buy into a fabricating company that my uncle owned at the time and spent quite a while there and then moved over to broadcast or back to broadcasting. I actually started in broadcasting at a high school radio station. I was 14 years old.

Wow. And by the time I was 15, I was the junior manager of the station. Don't be fooled by the title. It was a trick just to get somebody to come in at six o'clock on Saturday morning and turn the radio on. Well, I guess the title was what? I was the junior manager.

Junior manager. That sounds impressive. Impressive enough to get you in at 6 AM.

That's right. And to sit through the Slovenian hour, the Irish hour, the Polish hour, the Ukrainian hour. It was all ethnic music because it was an educational radio station.

So my introduction to radio was board hopping and having people call in to request songs in several languages that I didn't speak. Wow. That's pretty fascinating. Let me just a little bit more on the backstory. So your family involved in that other world. So as a teenager, as a youngster, did you, I mean, obviously, you know, some of the stories now, did, did you realize all back in those days or not really kept it from you? You know, I think other people knew it more than I did. And we kind of had a, I mean, we knew that our family was involved.

And my cousin had an inordinate number of Jordache jeans in the back of his van that he sold out of the back of his van at the high school. Okay. And, you know, and the student admitted the administration didn't do anything about it. So I mean, looking back, I can see what was going on. But at the time, it just seemed like your family. Yeah, I just what you knew, right? Right.

So, so, so, okay, random questions. So does the name Michael Francine mean anything? No, not at all. No, the if those folks were the folks that we knew that we were dealing with were the Pittsburgh faction and the Cleveland faction. So you had Joey Naples, and you had Jimmy Prado. So those were the guys and the sheriff, Jim traffic and who later became a US Congressman, he was, how shall we say is, he was allegedly holding money for both sides, to allow certain activities, right to allow certain activities to go on because Youngstown is halfway between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Yeah, you didn't want war all the time.

So they kind of split Youngstown a bit. Interesting. So do you know the name Michael Francine? Or no, I don't at all.

Not at all. He is. He was part I'm not which not sure which crime family he was associated with. I did some prison ministry with him in the islands on the Caribbean Islands a couple of years different times over the years, and and heard some of his story. And I mean, like at the time, like he was the youngest, like, crime mob boss in the history of the crime family.

And pretty, I mean, for real, from a standpoint, pretty impressive from a standpoint of what he did, although it was all illegal. Yeah. Well, honestly, if you think of crime families as local promotions, right, if you're a wrestling fan, think of his local promotions. And you know, you would have a certain territory and your guy didn't go over into the next territory and unless you had an agreement with the promoter in the next territory, who's gonna drop a belt, who's gonna keep something. So it was very territorial. So there were a lot of crime families, you know, people, you know, they watch the Godfather and they think one family control the entire controlled 15 is, you know, an area like millions. No, it was there was a lot of local control and a lot of local families. So Michael could have been in any large city back in the 70s.

Gotcha. You know, when I that I really get that, you know, because my era of wrestling, when I broke in in 1984, that's how it was there was I think like 30 something territories to exactly to your point with with promoters at each other. And what Vincent man did was was like break what we call taboo or what? Yes, he was the Michael Corleone.

He consolidated all the five families. Yeah. And I crossed over those lines with if you want to say without permission, and eventually ran all of those other promoters out of business, essentially, and, and, and at one point, controlled it all for himself. Yeah. And so, interesting, a parallel there, actually. So, so you start in broadcasting at age 14. You go to Youngstown, you graduate from college, you go into the into the steel mill.

Mm hmm. How how many how many years you work there? Well, not my father worked in the steel mill. I worked as a sales representative for a stainless steel company. So that was out of out of college.

Okay, gotcha. So but I mean, I've spent a little bit of time in the plants, which are we're incredible places at the time with the technology of the day, the rolling mills and the things like that. But no, I worked in sales. I was an office guy.

Office guy. So So you show at what point? At what point to two parts to the question? At what point did you get married and begin to raise your family? And of course, that family had nothing to do with the other families.

Right. Right out of college, I got married, I got married to the my smoking hot Italian wife, the former Miss tercini. Right out of college, she was 19. And I was 23. And fresh out of college moved up to Cleveland took the first job. Okay, and had children.

And we went about 10 years trying to have kids and not being able to and eventually adopted one child. And I think I've added to him. You have met him. I think he's a wrestling fan, too. He's an incredible wrestling fan. He knows wrestling front and back side to side inside in ways that I will never know. He knows matches he he I say to wrestlers names and he'll say, Oh, that was it.

You know, whatever was WrestleMania 17. Right. Oh, my gosh, he is a he's a plethora of information is what how I would phrase that is that and well and and on that note, I mean, adoption is so important. I wish more would consider that, you know, if, if they're not wanting to have a child that they would consider, you know, putting that child up for adoption, because there's lots of lots of families out there who aren't able to have children for whatever reason, but have a real desire to want to have a child. I've got one friend right now they've actually they have adopted five, they're a multi racial family adopted five different children, you know, out in this case out of foster care.

And yeah, is that did you adopt out of foster care or just outside? Oh, we, we adopted, we were actually set for an international adoption, we were going to Guatemala, but things just weren't falling in place weren't falling in weren't falling in place. And, you know, we didn't know at the time, it was God working something different. At the time, it was very, very disappointing. But eventually, the county knowing that we were going overseas and were willing to adopt, you know, different ethnicity, right, had an abandoned baby at the hospital from a from a migrant, you know, a migrant couple and asked us if we would come down and take a look.

So, you know, he had all the strikes against him that, you know, there were there were some birth defects, there were, you know, a lot of problems, genetic problems, he had a lot of medical issues, you know, his parents were migrants, they they abandoned him, he had everything against him, you know, but God had a different plan for it. Amen. He's, he's a wonderful young man. I've enjoyed talking with him and getting to know him a little bit as well. And he's here at the station now working.

He is he works right down the hall. Good, that's awesome. And let's talk about that for a minute. God had a different plan. I'm going to go out on a limb here.

And it could be way off target. But I'm thinking there might have been some Catholicism in the family there. You think?

Well, you know, you never know. I tell you, Roman Catholic when you're when you're in Youngstown, and your name's Carbone, you're gonna be a Roman Catholic, Roman Catholic, and we were and we were for for my formative years. Okay. It was in 19 altar boy, the whole deal, all of it altar boy, my mother was in the altar and rosary society, my father played guitar because they were starting to allow guitar into the Wow. Wow. Catholic Church. Right. This is the old days when they were, you know, if it let the nuns play blowing in the wind or something like that. So my dad, they stand, they actually, my family got saved at a Morris Cirillo crusade in 1976. July 26, in Youngstown, and it was actually in Cleveland. Okay.

Morris Cirillo. And it was I'd never seen anything like it in my life. I was sitting out there.

Yeah. And we went with another, you know, part of our family, my mother's sister and her family, and we went with them. And we, this guy was yelling and shouting and talking about Jesus. And I was comfortable with that because I was an altar boy. You know, you know, we were good Catholics, we, we did our mass. We were all of that.

But he said things that, you know, we really hadn't heard before. And, you know, when he gave the invitation, our whole family went, you know, to get saved. And my father, who was an angry, angry man, angry young man, just kind of had a, just a real rebel streak and an angry streak in him changed overnight, overnight transformation from a hard man to a soft man.

He was just, we never looked back from it. So I was 12 years old for that. And, and so he was playing, you know, he was playing folk music before that, and instantly converted that to church music, started playing choruses. And, you know, this is the 70s and 80s. So, you know, it's just all those old scripture choruses that you remember. And, and that led him into music ministry. And so my, my father played for, I mean, he's still doing ministry. He's 82 years old. And every once in a while, if he can get somewhere where the, you know, have guitar, we'll minister. Pete Slauson Wow. So, he was really kind of a pioneer. It reminds me, I saw recently, I don't know if you're familiar with it, the Jesus Music movie.

Chris I have not seen it yet, but I need to because it's just, it, it is telling a story that I am familiar with. Pete Especially with that back, what you just described to me, you know, and how, you know, how, how through the Jesus movement of the late 60s, early 70s, and musicians and guitars being allowed in church and all the, man, talk about, you know, wow. Chris You're typically not very popular when you're in high school and your friends are listening to ACDC and Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and you're listening to Glad and Servant and Petra.

Pete I know, I learned some things from that movie. I mean, I, you know, Striper and I mean, they're still playing, I just found out. They still tour.

Striper still tours and, man, I was watching the movie, I'm like, wow, those are like, like a Christian version of Twisted Sister. But it was pretty, pretty fascinating movie. Just plug out there for the Jesus Music movie.

Go see it. I think you'll appreciate it. And so, certainly you will with, with your dad's background on, on music and his heart for, and just how it evolved. How, how, you know, from that hippie movement in the West Coast, Christian music moved across.

It was just fascinating. Chris The picture of my first communion, my father's hair was down on his shoulders. I mean, he was just, he was the picture of the hippie movement and then the Jesus movement.

Pete Yes. No, I get it. Especially after watching the movie, I get it because, you know, they're like, wait, where's their shoes?

You know, they're, they're walking in bare feet with beards and long, like, hair down on their shoulders. Chris But did not care. Nikita did not care. Did not care what denomination you were from, what your background was, what your race was, any of that. It was about the Jesus movement. And we were gonna, we were gonna preach the Word and we were gonna be together. And I can't tell you how many folks came through my house and how many people my parents went to minister to them.

And it didn't matter. It was about the ministry, about the message. It was about Jesus. Chris And, and what, Michael, what I love is, is that the, what you said, the, for him, the immediate transformation, right?

He was an angry man, go to this, this, this Cirillo. Chris Crusade. Chris Crusade, yeah.

I had a loss of words there. And, and, and the whole family goes down and he gets immediately transformed, like, like overnight. Chris Yeah. That, by the way, that'll happen when you see people standing up out of wheelchairs. Chris Right. Chris You know, when you see people who are on crutches with casts, who are throwing their crutches down. I mean, that was a, it was a, that time in the mid-70s, late 70s was a genuine time of miracles and, and just things that we haven't seen in America for quite a while on that kind of a widespread scale.

Chris Yeah. Just, I mean, just a sovereign move of the Lord. Just a sovereign move of the Lord. So, so at what point then, okay, so, so your family has, has had this, the whole family's had this transformation. At what point did you get back into radio broadcasting or? Chris Yeah, I just, it was 911. I, I was working for a company that, part of my territory was Washington, D.C. And, you know, here I am, a young father with a three-year-old and he might have been four at the time.

And I'm spending long chunks of time away from home, you know, drive up Sunday evening, stay there till Thursday afternoon, kind of calling on all these government agencies doing all this. And I was in D.C. on 911. And, you know, when the planes were coming down, I was, you know, I was nearby and it just, it was difficult, you know, for my family to process being out of communication with me, not knowing what happened, because all the cell phones went out. I mean, nobody could give phone calls through, so it was hours before I was able to communicate with my family. Chris That you were okay.

Chris Yeah. And after that, I told my wife, next job I have, I'm going to make it no travel. And so the next job, there is nothing that is less travel than a local radio station, because they only, you can only travel as far as the signal goes, because all your customers are going to be inside the signal. So I said, you know what, maybe I'll go back to radio. And I got a job at a radio station here in Winston-Salem.

And that was 2002-ish. Chris 2002. So at what point did you meet the man himself, Stu Epperson, Jr., and connect with Truth Radio? You've been here about 10 years. Chris I've been here about 10 years.

I used to a few years before that. Stu used to come to me all the time and say, when are you going to leave Pharaoh's Court over there at the secular radio station? And I say, Stu, you know, these people need Jesus too.

It's okay. Chris Which is a true statement. Stu And he eventually wore me out. Chris He wore you down like, fine, uncle, I'll tap out.

Stu Yeah, I'm tapping out. So he did, he wore me down. I was a bivocational pastor at the time for about eight years. We had a small local independent congregation here. And it fit real well to be able to come here. So I actually came here to work part time.

I was supposed to work part time. And then I almost immediately was full time. And then within a couple of months, Stu figured out that he had a guy who understood radio. And he elevated me after just a few months here. And we've been working on growth and expansion and preaching the gospel ever since. Stu Yeah. And you have done from what I can see and what I have learned, phenomenal job in doing that and growing the message, the signal, the towers, the cities and the message.

Chris The Holy Ghost does the work. And we try to fill in the background. We can.

Stu And real quick, I want to in our last couple minutes here just talk about your wrestling background. But let's just say so you're expanding the station too. So you're expanding it more studios and Chris Right.

More locations, more studios. We just picked up a few more in Ohio and keep growing. Stu Awesome. Back in the old stomping grounds area. So okay, so let's just totally shift gears here to wrestling. How long had you been a wrestling fan? Chris I was going to wrestling shows when I was 14, 15, 16 years old. My local high school had one of the largest little field classes in the area.

It sat about 2,600, 2,700. So when the WWF or anyone else would come to town, they would they would rent that facility. So I've seen I saw Big John Studd and I mean Bruno Sammartino Bruno. No, I never saw Bruno. Greg the Hammer Valentine and Brutus Beefcake were tagging Barry Barry, Mike Rotunda and Barry Windham. So those were the kind of guys that would show up in in these programs.

Bret Hart and Jim, they were together and I mentioned Sammartino because obviously he was the Pittsburgh guy right from Pittsburgh knows the name Bruno Sammartino. Right. Yeah, I was a little bit I was a little bit after that because I Okay, what do you have? Do you have one short?

And if you don't, it's okay. Like like favorite Nikita Kolov story that Well, actually, my favorite Nikita Kolov story is, my son was about five, six, seven years old. I can't remember exactly how because this is maybe 2005. And our church in Louisville had Nikita Kolov come and, you know, do a little preaching, do a little ministry.

Okay. And and so, you know, my son who's, you know, he had some medical difficulties and you know, so he was a bit undersized and he's not really going to be sports athletic, you'll never be big enough to play or, you know, in any of the field sports. So he really took to wrestling as a sport. So it was very cool to have Nikita Kolov in to do preaching and to be able to connect the gospel with with the wrestling and it he just took to it and I mean, he took to the wrestling so he is so that was that that was a cat. That was there.

That was a catalyst at the beginning. That was, you know, at the very beginning when, you know, we had bought him a few little wrestling toys and little figures and whatever and he just don't call it a doll. Michael, please. That's not a doll. Action figure. Thank you.

Thank you. I said toy. You go ahead your doll. I go No, you didn't have my doll. No, you didn't.

I'm sorry. He did not have my doll. Anyway, so so you got him some probably the ring the little rig got all that stuff. So we have and he's got he's got a collection now.

He's probably got you know, his room is just stuffed. He's probably got 60 or 70 autograph photos on the wall. He's got a hundred or two, you know, action figures and all that collectibles got collectibles. He's got a he has a signed turnbuckle from WWE from about three years ago. AJ Styles signed and probably about 30 guys signed the turnbuckle. So he's got some real neat stuff.

That's pretty cool. Well, and speaking of AJ Styles, back in the early days of TNA, when they were just launched out in Nashville, Tennessee, when he was he was with them. I was actually living there for a couple years and, and doing Bible studies before their live pay-per-view every Wednesday night. And AJ Styles was one of the ones who faithfully came to the Bible study every single time.

He has never knew. Yep, he has a genuine relationship with with the Lord. And, you know, we're all at different points and walks and yeah of our journey, you know, but I do know that he has a genuine he had made a genuine decision and There are a lot more people in the wrestling business that are Christians than you would imagine.

Yeah, some are more outspoken about it and then then others but well, we're almost out of time and and believe it or not, you're probably shocked by that I am. But man, thank you though for real for sharing some of that. What a for real. What a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing some of the story.

I know. I know our listeners will will be certainly entertained by it and We are enjoying we are really enjoying our partnership with you in the ministry with you and of course I'm enjoying it exceptionally because I love the wrestling side of it also. So we're going to preach the gospel and get people in the kingdom.

Amen. Well, and it's just a privilege to be a part of truth radio network. I just you know want to say that publicly and and just look forward to you know, each time I'm in studio and all the interviews that I get to do with yourself and many other I mean, there's many other just fascinating. I love people's stories. I love to hear their stories.

There's no end to the to the kingdom. Now, we want to thank you for tuning in dialing into the man up show today. Michael Carbone. Yo, you know what I mean? How you doing? How you doing?

Michael Carbone. How you doing? Was that okay? Good enough. Good enough. Great to have you COO of truth radio network.

Hey, if you're not familiar with the radio stations, go look them up and maybe you'll listen to one in your local community. God bless you. We'll see you next time. While I say that, we'll talk to you next time on the man up show. God bless. This is the truth network.