Q&A With Koloff- #75

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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 of Q&A with Kolov, the Devil's Nightmare. With me today, no stranger to the Q&A show. We've had him on before, had him on the Man Up show, hopefully go back and listen to that story in the archives on the podcast, but Hilmi Ari, the Turkish tornado, is with me today. Welcome, Hilmi. Thank you, sir. I'm glad to be back.

Good to have you back. And hey, so for our listeners out there, give them a little quick backstory. Why would I call you the Turkish tornado? The first six years of my life, we lived in Turkey. My father was Turkish and my mother was from South Carolina. Okay, so next obvious question is, how did a Turkish dad meet a little southern belle from South Cackalacky? Well, the way I would get my mother riled up would be, say, oh, no, no, she was mail order bride. And she quickly, in a very nice southern way, and without many bad words, would correct me that they met on a cruise and that she eventually moved to Turkey and learned the language that she's going to let me know what I can and cannot say about her. Okay, so all right, let me just get a quick snapshot of that. So they meet on the cruise, they obviously fall in love, they get married, and she moves to Turkey, which is pretty, wow, that's a major step, right, from South Carolina to Turkey.

That's a culture shock. That is correct. I'm guessing.

She had lived overseas for a little while in England. Okay. Loved to travel.

Okay. And so it was no big deal at that point. And it was tremendous growing up there. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Great influences and great friends, and we still do. And learn the language is pretty impressive. And so you're there for the first six years. Was there any advantage of you learning English? I'm guessing she taught you English as well.

Correct. Dad knew both languages. Mom quickly learned Turkish. And when we came along, my sister and I, we were raised in a multi-language home, and there were no preconceived barriers to, you know, let's come to dinner.

One would say it in English, maybe one would say it in Turkish. And after a while, we picked it up, learned it, and moved on to the next phrase or the next sentencing, the next word. Yeah, yeah.

So it was very simple, and we didn't feel like we were learning. That's pretty cool. Here's what I find interesting is I did a missionary trip with one of my daughters into Moldova, my former motherland, you know.

Back when it was part of the former Soviet Union. And I'll never forget, and I have this picture somewhere on my website in a photo gallery or something, little Henry. I'll never forget his name, little Henry. I think he was about 11 years old, little round wire rim glasses, long and short of that story is somehow I befriended him, we got in conversation, and language came up. That little dude at 11 spoke five languages, like fluently though, like fluently. And I was like blowing away, and it just blows me away at how many people overseas, having been now to 30 different countries, how many overseas know more than one language, where here in America, most people here struggle to learn English, I'm finding, you know.

So anyway, that's pretty impressive. You must have been a favorite with all your friends then. Absolutely, especially in kindergarten when we were beginning to learn English as a class.

So the teachers would divide us up in teams, and they were not competitive, but they were encouraged to communicate together. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Nikita Koloff here.

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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 Joyner, 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. And honestly, I didn't realize all the kids were like, Hey, let's, let's get him on the team.

Let's get him up. He knows all the, I knew the answers. I knew the words. It wasn't that big a deal to me. And I'm wondering at that time, what's the big deal to them?

Well, if I had stayed in school there, probably once we learned English, it would have been German next, French, Spanish, and potentially another offshoot of any other language that you wanted to learn. It's amazing. That's amazing. It's really amazing. So it would have been a blast. Yeah. And I know, so you come back to America at six and I know from, from getting to know you and your lovely bride, Tina, who by the way, we're going to have on the Q and A show as well.

Just so give her a heads up to let her know. We're going to have her Q and A show with Koloff, but I just love her story and I'm sure she'll have some great questions. So you come to America, you're six years old and, and you, now you're, you're, you're adapting now to a new culture. And I know part of the reason you came, your dad was in the medical field. And I do know not only from what you've told me, but from others who into Lincolnton, North Carolina, where you live, uh, your, your dad was a man of impeccable integrity.

And, and I don't know, I've met anybody yet who didn't know of him or know him who has nothing but good things to say about, about your dad, who was in, which is what brought him to America, right? The medical field, correct? It was, it was. Yeah. I'm very humbled to hear that in the key. Thank you. No, for, for real. I'm not, I'm not just saying that cause you're on the show or, and, or cause we're around each other.

I'm telling when I'm not even around you, if I bring up your dad's name, Dr. Ari, they're like, Oh my gosh, we love him. You know? So anyway, that's, that's pretty amazing.

I know both of them have gone on, gone on onto the walking streets of gold with Jesus at this point, right? Absolutely. All right. Well, let's do this. Let's, uh, there's so much more to your story and I would encourage all you out there. Go, go, go to the archives, look up a Hilmi Ari, my interview with him on the man up show, and you'll get even more of the story, the full story on, on, on Hilmi, very successful businessman, entrepreneur there in Lincoln to North North Carolina, North Carolina, almost in North Dakota. I'm like, where did that come from?

Anyway, North Carolina. And, uh, but Hey, this is the Q and A with Koloff. And so I, you've probably got a couple, three questions burning to ask me, Hilmi.

So actually I do have three questions and two of them are related. Would you rather have those two or the oddball one? Uh, you know what, since it's, since I'm highlighting you right now, you decide, it's your call. Go for it. Okay. All right.

I'll go with the oddball one first. The, um, if you watch wrestling on TV now, the referees have earpieces to communicate with producers or whoever else in the back. You're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com. If you would like to support Koloff 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.koloff.net and donate today.

Hi, 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 today.

Hey, you're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com. How were messages passed in the good old days to the wrestlers inside the ring or were they even passed by the referee? You know, excuse me. That's a really great question and I have never been asked anything like that before.

So it is obviously a totally different product that is produced in today's day and time. You know, some tremendous athletes with all the crazy things they do in the ring that you couldn't have paid me enough to do half of what they do. I'm the ground game. I'm not part of the air show.

Okay. I'm the ground, you know, I barely went off my feet, let alone, you know, flying from a 12 foot ladder out to a table. But like Sting recently did, you know, leap from a balcony onto someone on a table. And I'm like, dude, my prayers just increased for you. Like I literally took, took screenshots and sent them to them, you know, text them to them.

I'm like, I'm praying even harder for you now, bro. And he'd set back like, ha ha ha, whatever. Right. Anyway. So, so no, so really in a sense, and many people don't realize like, so especially some of the smaller buildings and stuff, we're an opposite, you know, we're coming out opposite ends of the building. So we never even see our opponent until we got in the ring. Many a nights, you know, we weren't all back in, in, you know, one room all gathered together, huddled together and talking over our match.

We were in separate dress rooms, opposite ends of the building. The referee would carry what we call the finish. We'll carry it back and forth. Like, like the agent or the promoter or the booker would give the referee all, all, all the finishes, right. How, how the matches were going to end. Right.

For those who still don't know, wrestling's a, you know, it's, it's not fixed. It's just predetermined just to clarify. Okay. Well put, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. So anyway, so, so, and, and then he'd get it and carry it over to the other dressing room and you know, you might have a message or two, hey, you know, tweak this, tweak that or whatever, but people don't realize like our matches were, were improv. I mean, spontaneous in the ring from opening bell leading up to the predetermined outcome.

Okay. Improv 99.9% of the time. Now there were times in the ring where we maybe had, we want to convey a message to our opponent or something, and we might be looking like we're screaming at the ref and we're actually giving him some instructions. And then he goes over, like he's chewing out the other guy, but he's actually like giving instructions. So there were a handful of times when we transmit a message that way. And so that, but, but like if it was time to, you know, time to take it home, time for the match to end, like sometimes the agent, whoever was there or the local promoter might do the Rodney Dangerfield, like walk out and like, like, you know, wiggle his tie, you know, like, Hey, time to, time to take it home, you know, time to finish the match.

So the referee would be cued in on that to know the, you know, look for the local promoter or, or whatever, but all hand signals, bro, no earpieces, no, no studio time, you know, no guys back in the room with all their monitors and all that kind of high tech stuff they do now. So, yup. Yup. No, we did it.

I appreciate the school, old school, which made it much more organic and much more fun and interesting. I think personally for the fans, but that's just me based on what the fans tell me. So there you go. No question. Okay. All right. A two part question. Now you're, these two are, um, related.

Um, I have seen you and Magnum at various shows and the true friendship that you two have, was it there before the, um, best of seven? It's a great question. Yeah. Uh, okay.

What is that? Do you want to do it? Okay. Is there a part two or you want to just chime in?

There is. Okay. Once, um, with his accident and once it was decided of combining you and Dusty as the superpowers, is it true that very few people knew that it was going to happen until you guys walked out of the, from the curtain? Okay. So let's start with the pop of the, uh, the crowd was wow.

Yeah, it was. And there's, I'll give you a story behind that too. A brief story behind that.

Sure. So I have to almost chuckle cause I, you know, I'm sitting in the studio, got my phone in front of me and, and you were meant to ask this question, you know, why? Uh, tell me. Magnum TA just texted me about like, like two minutes ago as you're almost asking the question, like for real, uh, I'm looking at my screen and like, he just shot me a, uh, actually I think he called me, but anyway, so it's funny you're asking this question.

Um, all right, let me start with part one. So no, we were not friends. We were, we were co laborers in the ring, right? So we were wrestling or wrestling peers in the ring. We did not hang out with each other. And I really thinks, you know, too, Oh, you guys are all buddies and friends.

And not true. Um, you know, like any job or any family, I mean, there's a, there's a clash of personalities, right? So not everybody loves everybody gets a raw along with everybody, right? There's a sermon in there somewhere, a message in there, but, um, so, so no, we were not friends. We were not buddies.

I mean, we, we had tons of mutual respect for each other, which is why I think we had to, according to the fans, again, such great matches, classical matches, intense matches. We had very similar styles of work. And, uh, and so, you know, it, and he and I talked about it on one of the man up shows that I had him on to, uh, uh, on the radio show. And now I interviewed him on, on our new TV show, the man up TV show too, which, Hey, if you're listening out there, go to morningstartv.com or go to all nations, tv.com and start watching the TV shows totally different from the radio show.

Anyway, a little plug there, a shameless plug. Um, but, um, anyway, so, so no, we just, you know, we had just tons of respect for each other and then, but from the accident, we ended up becoming the best of friends. And as I just mentioned, he just called me, you know, so we talk all the time. Um, he's going to come down in, in Aiken, South Carolina in September to a revival we're doing and sharing some of the story, how the Lord helped him through that tragic injury from a broken neck that was supposed to leave him quadriplegic to, uh, you know, to sustain him and, and give him the courage and the drive and the desire to, you know, continue to go on living and do what he's done, which he's accomplished a lot, beautiful family and twins and several children and everything else.

So, so we are best of friends now. Um, and in the accident, and also one little side caveat to that, had he not had that accident, I don't know that the Russian nightmare, uh, ever would have been a heel. I don't know that ever would have turned, turned, you know, become a good guy, which leads right into your second part of your question about partnering up with Dusty when they proposed, when Jimmy Crockett and Dusty proposed that idea, once it's settled in the reality of his accident, um, it was agreed, uh, that we were going to tell nobody it was like weeks away.

Um, and I was going to continue every night wrestling as a heel, fulfill my obligation and just show up that night in Charlotte in the baby face dressing room, in the good guy dressing room. And, uh, and that would be, as far as I knew the first knowledge that anyone would have as to who was the quote, mystery partner for Dusty. Now on my end, I never told a soul, including Ivan, who was my partner, right? They like, you can't tell anybody. So I took it to heart and I didn't, I didn't tell anyone whether Dusty and Jimmy told anyone else to my knowledge.

They didn't don't know a hundred percent for sure, but I do know there are a lot of people shocked, not only the ones in the arena that night, when I came out, trailing Dusty, but a bunch of guys in the dressing rooms too, were like, really? Really? So that's going to be, you know, cause they're all like, yeah, it's going to be me. They just hadn't told me yet. Right.

I think a lot of we're thinking. And, uh, so, and I already had built up a little animosity for the way I broke into wrestling with no training, no background and, and catapulted, you know, meteorically to a, to a main event level of work. And now I'm going to be the booker's partner. Boy, talk about a tad more jealousy.

That didn't happen, you know, not in wrestling. So you're just living right. Yeah. Well, I don't, I can't say that back down. You are living right now. I'm living right now.

I'm living for the Lord and doing my best to live right now. And all that to say, let me just kind of culminate the question, the answer to the question with this quick story. You referenced the, the, the, what they called a pop or the crowd reaction that night.

Right. What was amazing homey is to see those same fans that only a month prior in that very same building and any other town I traveled to who met, I mean, would throw stuff at me, cuss me out. I mean, they loved to hate me like for real, they hated me. And I mean, phone calls, death threats, all kinds of stuff like for real fans coming over the barricades coming to the ring after me to see those same fans flip, like on a dime, like guys were in the, in the, in the stadium with their shirts off doing my most muscular pose. I mean, Dusty was my biggest cheerleader after we got the one, two, three.

I mean, I, it feels like they were chanting for 10 or 15 minutes, you know, and to hear that building, you know, it's just surreal to think back on it. And as he was kind of the cheerleader, getting him to, to, to chant my name and flare coming out livid, you know, that all of that captured on camera. The last part of that story is Tony Shivani for those wrestling historians, you know, one of the best of the best of the best announcers out there, Tony was asked, and I verified this on, on his podcast recently. When I asked him, I said, Tony, I've always heard you were asked what was the biggest pop out of all the major matches he has been a broadcaster for, right? From Hulk Hogan to Triple H to Shawn Michaels.

I mean, just go down the list, right? And he quickly answered and said, the night Nikita Kolov turned baby face, biggest pop in the history of, of my career. I was like, wow, that's quite a statement coming from Tony Shivani. So there you go. Yeah. Wow is right.

So pretty big deal. So man, but I appreciate you asking those questions and hopefully those of you out there listening and enjoyed the answers and you know me, I just appreciate your friendship and you and your lovely bride, miss Tina. And can't thank you enough for setting some time aside and being on the Q and A with Kolov today. It is my pleasure, my friend, anything you ever need.

Well, I look forward to seeing you again sometime here in the near future. And hey, stay safe out there and God bless you, my brother. Thank you. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. 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.

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