Q&A With Koloff- #64

This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it and share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is set for one flaw. Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, The Russian Nightmare, Nikita Kolov. Welcome to another episode Q&A with Kolov, The Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode Q&A with Kolov, Questions and Answers. Hey, this is where you get the opportunity to ask me the questions. Now, normally, if you're on the Man Up show, I'm typically asking all the questions, but that's what's fun about the Q&A with Kolov is you get a personal phone call from The Russian Nightmare, Nikita Kolov, and we get to discuss and talk about anything. I mean, we'll talk about wrestling, we'll talk about ministry, we'll talk about Jesus, we'll talk about life, we'll talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. And typically, it's pretty organic, meaning there's no script in front of me at all, so I don't even know what kind of questions you're going to answer.

And yes, I have been put on the spot a few times. But all that to say, it's a pleasure to have on Q&A with Kolov today, Steve Hendrick. Steve, welcome to the Q&A with Kolov. Hey, I appreciate it. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, it's great to have you here. We're going to jump into our conversation here and find out, let's first find out for our listeners a little bit more about Steve Hendrick.

Give us a little backdrop, a little background on Steve Hendrick. Well, I'm a 40 year old male, lives in a small town in Indiana known as Fairmount, hometown of James Dean and Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, population 2,700. Okay, and now born and raised, born and raised in that town? Born and raised in Fairmount, yes sir. Born and raised, so no aspirations to ever move out of or leave Fairmount, Indiana?

I left once when I was 18, and there's something here that draws you back every time. Okay, well it must be in the water, you know, having James Dean, the legendary James Dean, and the creator of Garfield there having been raised in that town as well. And so, what do you do in Fairmont, Indiana? Actually, I'm a vice president of my town board in Fairmount, so I serve on the board of directors for a senior citizens center in a following neighboring community that's about 20 miles to the east of me, and I'm a collections account manager for a rent-own store. Okay, and I feel like there's something else you do too. On the weekends, I'm a ring announcer for an independent wrestler. Okay, there we go.

I was wondering, well, we'll get to that in just a moment. Well, I definitely want to talk about that, what that experience is like, and of course, how long you've been doing that, but family? You have family?

I do. I have a 15-year-old daughter, basically the crown and jewel of my life. Come on, the apple of dad's eye.

Yeah, or as I like to say, the beat of my heart. Oh, I love it. What's her name? Her name is Chloe.

Chloe. Well, you're gonna have to let her listen to this show and so she can hear dad's interview. That's awesome, and you do you get to spend some, when I say quality time, do you, I know what I did with my daughters, especially at that age, because it's so critical, age 15. You have dad-daughter dates? We do, and she also, she comes to all the wrestling shows.

She loves wrestling just as much. You know, Road Warrior Animal kind of spoiled her over the years by every time we'd go to a show he was at, would always yell at me, leave her alone, dad, she's with Uncle Animal, she's fine. Ah, that's Uncle Animal.

How'd you like that? Who's this? It's my uncle, what's his name? Animal. Oh, okay, Uncle Animal, that's okay. Well, there you go. Well, and I remember way back, way back when one of the first tattoos that Animal got was the Tasmanian Devil. He got on his arm, I'll never forget that, and I'm like, well, that about summarizes who you are, Road Warrior Animal, right? So it is no joke.

Right, right? So she's a wrestling fan as well. Let's talk about that for a moment. Let's talk about how long have you, well, let's do this. Give a little backdrop on kind of your, when you first were attracted to professional wrestling, give a little quick story on that, and then at what point did you get involved in and become a ring announcer? I've been a wrestling fan for as long as I can remember, at least 35 years at the minimum. Wow.

I remember watching NWA on TBS, growing up. Superstations, 605 Saturday night, right? Yep, 605 Eastern time. 605 Eastern, yeah, you guys probably, are you on Central, Central time?

I'm on Eastern time. Oh, you are? Okay, okay, 605 Saturday night, come on. Okay, so you watched it on the Superstation growing up? Yeah, it was always me and my brothers. We would always wrestle, it was abusing, you know, I wrestled as Nikita Kolov, my brother was Road Warrior Animal. In the neighborhood we were, you know, back then we were the Road Warriors versus Sting and Nikita Kolov. Hold on a second, I just, something just, so did it ever, ever dawn on you, Steve? Okay, just hit me. So the neighborhood kids are the Road Warriors Animal and Hawk, the other team is Sting, good choice by the way, and Nikita, the Russian Nightmare, did you ever think you'd actually meet Nikita Kolov and Road Warrior Animal?

You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. If you would like to support Kolov for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption.

Go to www.kolov.net and donate today. I did not. It was, when it first happened, I tell you what, it was humbling. It was kind of like your childhood gets thrown right back in your face and, pardon the expression, but you mark out, you're like, oh my goodness, look who's in front of me, oh my. Did you have to pinch yourself? Yeah, I know I'm dreaming.

In no way this is real. Oh, that's awesome. That's amazing that you guys grew up, you know, portrayed and then all of a sudden, boom, here you get to meet him and then you eventually, you eventually get in the bit. At what point then, Steve, did you get involved in wrestling and become a ring announcer? I started ring announcing about four years ago for a promotion that's called Delaware County Championship Wrestling.

Okay. A good friend of mine actually started the promotion, him and a guy that he's known his entire life and I started out, I'm an EMT, so I started out just basically being at ringside as an EMT in case anything happened. And then over time they approached me and they said, hey, you want to ring announce for us? I'm like, me?

And they were like, yeah, you. And I said, well, guess I'll give it a try and we'll see what happens. And it's, it's one thing led to another and I've, you know, been fortunate enough to ring announce for some of the best names in the business now. Who, throw a few names out there. Well, I did, just did Marty Wright, the boogeyman. Did him a couple times. I read, you know, did Terry Sibinski, Warlord was nice. Did that and franchise Shane Douglas, which absolutely one of the nicest men I've ever met in my life. I just did Elijah Burke, the Pope. Oh yeah.

Like Elijah. Now, in about two and a half weeks, I get to do Carlito. Carlito. Come on. Old Tatanka. Okay. You know, I've done Rakeesh, you more than, about a handful of times. More times, more times than you care to count. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah.

Four, five, six times. He's a big man. Very big man with a big heart. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, that's been the highlight of my life.

Sounds like you, yeah. Sounds like you have fun doing the ring announcing. I do.

You know, I didn't realize how much really goes into it. I had the opportunity to talk to Justin Roberts back in November. Okay. And he told me, he said, I had tried and tried and tried for years to become a ring announcer.

Like if you, first you don't succeed and you don't like how it sounds, you got the next show, try again. Right. Good advice.

Good advice. That's awesome. So, well, that's amazing. And perhaps sometime I'll make it up to your community. You're more than welcome here anytime. We would love to have you here. Well, that sounds like a potential plan for the future there. Well, let's do this. Let's, so let's give you the opportunity to ask me a couple, three questions and see where it can be, as I mentioned, related to whatever. So, you, have you got a few questions in mind, Steve?

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You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Here's one that kind of, I've kind of always wondered this now that I got older is, who came up with the Russian nightmare gimmick? So, great, great question. The, the, the credit goes to two men, one by the name of Sergeant Slaughter. You may have heard of him and, and the other Don Kernodle, who for a couple of times in his career was a, was private Kernodle. He was a part of, of Sergeant Slaughter's team there as, as private Kernodle. They eventually had private Nelson too, Jim Nelson, who went on to become, he flipped to the other side and, and, and Jim became Boris Zhukov, one of the Russians. So Jim, Jim had the experience of, to, to, to do both as did Barry D'Arso, right? As Crusher Khrushchev. And then also as, as demolition, he had that opportunity. So Sergeant Slaughter, Don Kernodle, the short story is they were traveling, they had finished a show one night.

I want to say Charleston, South Carolina, and they were driving to Savannah, Georgia for the show. The next night, the way I understand it stopped at a 7-Eleven, picked up a notebook and started talking about and creating a quote nephew for Ivan Koloff and just laid out this whole storyline, approached Jim Crockett, the promoter, with the idea. He said, well, yeah, I guess if you can find someone to be this nephew. And then Don Kernodle approached, guess who, Road Warrior Animal, and, and asked this question, do you know any big guys who wouldn't mind shaving their head and becoming a Russian? And Animal said, I know the guy right now.

I think he'd be perfect for it. And of course the old cliche goes, the rest is history. So there's, there's the story of how the birth of Nikita Koloff came to be. It's always fascinating when I hear stories from, about you or when you're answering questions, it always comes back to Road Warrior Animal always had such a big influence on a lot of things.

Well, he did. I mean, it was certainly a big influence in my life. Little would I have known that when I recruited him out of high school to play college football with me, that we'd have an instant brotherhood connection. You know, I became, so he had two other brothers and I became like the prodigal son to his mom and dad, Joe Sr. and Lorna Laurinaitis.

And in fact, I'll just tell you this little side story. One year, like I'd always spend Christmas over at their house and the boys all got mad at me. Mark and John and Joe all got mad at me because Lorna bought me more Christmas presents than she bought any of them. They're her own sons. And I'm like, it's not my fault.

I didn't ask her to do it. Like for real, it's a true story. And I'm like, you know, but, but she just fell in love with me and I just fell in love with the family. And in fact, I'll tell you another little side story. During my wrestling career, I probably saw her more than, than, than Joe, her own son saw her. They eventually moved to Florida, to Safety Harbor, Florida, cause she had, she had battled lupus.

She eventually passed away from lupus, but I used to take specific time off, fly to Tampa and spent three or four days just floating in her pool, hanging out at their house to get a break from, from, uh, from the road from wrestling while, while Joe continued traveling on. So anyway, there's another little side story for you. And I know he had an impact in your life too. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com.

Nikita Koloff. And I am here with a huge announcement, like, like big, big announcement, Man Up Men's Conference, Morningstar Ministries, Fort Mill, South Carolina, August 25th to the 27th. You're thinking that's a ways away. No, not too soon to sign up. What a lineup of speakers we have, the Benham brothers, David and Jason Benham, all star NBA all-star Al Wood is speaking, world wrestling champion, the total package Lex Luger, Chris Reed, Rick Joiner, Delta Force Commander, General, Lieutenant General, Jerry Boykin retired, yours truly, Nikita Koloff, world renowned evangelist, Frank Shelton. Register today. It is live. M-star events, mstarevents.com slash man up. Go get registered today. You will not want to miss this event.

You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. He did. He was a very impactful, um, you know, I felt very privileged to actually get to know the man. Well, go ahead. I'm sorry. Finish your thought.

No, you're fine. It's, it's a hard one to talk about. Um, you know, because he was very big influence in my life. You know, my daughter fell in love with the guy. I have pictures of those two together every time he was around.

Um, you know, the hardest thing in my life was when I had to make the phone call to my daughter and tell her, unfortunately he passed away last night. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that brings up an interesting point, uh, for our listeners. And, and, and I would, that is this, that it was in, in many people, yours, mine and others, a very untimely death.

Um, but it illustrates that there is no promise of tomorrow and, and for our listeners, hence the importance of having, having your heart right in the right place and, and connected to, uh, the, our Lord and savior Jesus. But, um, that said, um, another question, you have another question for me? Yep. I got another one for you.

Okay. So you had a good successful run in your wrestling career. Um, I remember watching it from the WCW and WUWF days, but is there anything you could have done differently? And if so, why? And if so, why?

Man, good question. You know, many have asked me, uh, are the, have I ever had any regrets on not holding the world heavyweight title? Of course I wrestled the nature boy more times than I can even count for that belt. Had it in my hands several times, having won by disqualification, which the title cannot change hands on a disqualification.

Uh, I lobbied to change that rule by the way, but unsuccessful I might add. But all that to say, people have asked me that many, many, many times. What they don't know, what many don't know is Rick actually literally offered me the title two different times, um, for which I respectfully declined the invitation. And I say that to say, you know, it would have been looking back, it would have been fun to, to have won the title and be able to say that I had that belt along with every other belt that the NWA offered while at the same time, uh, I'm probably in a very narrow category or a short list of, of people who actually turned it down. And so I guess I would answer your question that way.

Sure. One more got one more for me. What motivates me to pull up every day? Ooh, what gets me out of bed? I usually ask that question.

That's not fair, Steve. You saved the best for last. You saved the best for last. And, uh, man, you know, uh, I, I tell you, uh, uh, I tell you what gets me out of bed every day is, is the opportunity, um, the potential opportunity to make an impact on somebody's life at this point in time. Um, I, I just, I look for opportunity, whether it's, whether it's through a post on social media, um, anyone who follows me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, those sorts of things that got a brand new Nikita Kolov fan page.

Um, and if, if for those of you listening out there, if you hadn't gone and liked it and, and, and, uh, do that, Nikita Kolov fans, brand new Facebook fan page. Um, so I'm constantly, constantly looking for ways to make a positive difference or an impact on other people's lives. Uh, it may be, uh, again, just a post on, on social media. Um, as part of, uh, as part of Truth Radio Network, I, I now, I have what's called the Man Up Minute that airs a number of times on Truth Radio, uh, during, during the week. And, and again, it literally is 60 seconds and it's just an opportunity to hopefully motivate or inspire or, uh, get put, you know, put out there a, something that's thought provoking that may change somebody's life, uh, in, in just, believe it or not, in just 60 seconds. Or if it's, if you're preaching a sermon like I did last Saturday, or excuse me, last Sunday in Elon, North Carolina, uh, at the church there, or facilitating a man camp like Lex Luger and I do.

Uh, and, and we'll do one here and, you know, coming up here and, and we do one in the spring, one in the fall and bring small groups of men in to just empower them, equip them, train them, teach them, uh, to go out into the world and make a difference themselves. And that's, uh, kind of a long answer to your question, but I want to make sure you and, or our listeners, uh, clearly understand, you know, what, what my drive is, what my motive is, uh, and what gets me out of bed each and every day. It's way more than just, you know, paying the bills, you know, and, and, and, and, you know, feeding my, you know, shoving food down my gullet. I'll just say that, you know, uh, way, way, way more than that. And so, and I would encourage, you know, all those listening out there to, uh, consider that question for yourself.

It's a great question, Steve, what motivates you to get out of bed each day? And you're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Nikita 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. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. There's plenty of people who, who I have learned don't know how to answer that question. So, thank you for asking that question. No, thank you.

I appreciate the answer. Well, uh, we are going to wrap up the Q and A with Koloff and, and Steve Hendrick, uh, you are, you have made some incredible inroads, uh, with your own life and are making a difference, uh, just in the short time, not only we've talked today, but we've talked in the past and, and just knowing more of your story. And, and for those of you who've not had the chance to, to, uh, listen to more of Steve's story, um, it's, it's on the man up show. And so I encourage you and so I encourage you to do that. If you'd like to get a call from the Russian nightmare, go to koloff.net.

You can learn more there about the man camp. Uh, you can connect, uh, to me on social media. You can submit some questions if you'd like to do that, or just say, Hey, I'd love to be on the Q and A with Koloff. And so, Steve, thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for having me. I do appreciate it.

All right. Well, God bless you out there in the listening land and tune in again for another episode of Q and A with Koloff. Hi, Nikita Koloff. Be sure to check out the man up show now available on television, broadcast and podcast. Go to monistartv.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet download the Truth Network app today. Nikita Koloff here.

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