Q&A With Koloff- #114

Africa needs Jesus. Give a radio and give hope. Many parts of Africa do not have the means of connecting to the Internet, so join with the Truth Network and Transworld Radio to put the Word of God straight into the hands of those most in need in Africa.

Visit truthnetwork.com and click on the Africa Needs Jesus banner, or call 888-988-5656 to pledge your gift to put a wind-up radio into the grateful hands of people desperately in need. This is Truth Network, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it. Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. Hi, Nikita Koloff and I am excited to announce that I will be hosting my first ever Holy Land Tour. That's right, a trip to the Holy Land with the Russian Nightmare. And I'm extending a personal invitation to you. Join me December 27, 2023 to January 5, 2024 for a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Go to NikitaKoloff.com and get registered today for the Holy Land Tour. Welcome to another episode of Q&A with Koloff, the Devil's Nightmare. And with me today on the show, Hilmi Ari, a good friend of mine. Love this guy.

Hilmi Ari, him and his wife Tina. Hilmi, welcome to the Q&A with Koloff. Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me. Well, great to have you. And Hilmi, of course, I've had your wife on the show before and we've talked and reminisced and tried to remember. And I'm going to test your memory here because I don't remember. How did we first meet?

I think it was at one of the local wrestling shows. And I'd mentioned to you that, you know, some of the other talent, we've offered them to, while they're traveling, to stay at our house to save money on the road. And I told you that. And I think it was more of the, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Yeah.

And a few weeks later, I got a telephone call because I'd given you my number and said, Hilmi, this is Nikita. Are you serious about the offer of spending a night at your house? I'm like, yes, sir. Well, I need a place to stay. You got it. And then it turned into, I think I may need a couple days. That's fine.

Rent's the same. Zero. And from there, you know, started a great friendship. Well, yes. You have kind of jogged my memory now. And yeah, I think it was like a local indie show.

I think I was doing an autograph signing or something. Right. And I think that's correct. Yeah. Just meaning some, some of the fans, of course you guys live in Lincolnton, North Carolina.

And, and so I don't know if it was there in Lincolnton, but it was anyway, you were at the show. And so I do vaguely remember now and, and yeah. And so for those listening out there, because of all my travels, the way I travel, sometimes it's just convenient for me when I have, I actually have several friends.

So you're one of several, Hilmi. I feel very blessed and very fortunate to have several friends who, who sometimes will just open the door of their home to me. And cause I got a spare bedroom and say, yeah, if you need a place to sleep before, you know, for a night or two or three, you're, you're more than welcome to stay here. And so certainly grateful for you and your lovely bride, Tina, to do that for me. You guys are amazing. So.

Well, let me tell you this very quickly. The room that you sleep in has a closet and we have, after Christmas, purchased some gifts that we're going to give next year because they were on sale. And we didn't know where to put the gifts so that we could remember. So I said, let's just put them up in Nikita's closet. Your room, it's renamed. I got a room with my name on it. You're daggum right you do. Man, well next time I stay there, I'm going to rummage through that closet and see what's in there for me.

I'm just saying. I'm going to have a room for Christmas. Go ahead, I'll play Jenga with it.

Go ahead and rummage, see what happens. Well, that's amazing. And of course, you've been very instrumental, very helpful in another sense for me, not just opening your home, but for many, many years, you had a printing business there in Lincolnton. And you've helped me secure banners, which you still help with a lot of these banners and some of my 8x10 photos and my little cards I hand out for people to connect with me, cards that promote the podcast and the radio show on Truth Radio Network. You've been instrumental in all of that, which I'm grateful for and can't thank you enough for helping out with all of that. You're quite welcome. It's an absolute honor, sir. Well, we make a good team, homey, and we make a good team. Well, that's what friends are for.

That's exactly right. Well, let's do this. Let's segue and transition, and I have no clue, no idea what kind of questions you're going to ask me, but let's roll with question numeral uno for me, homey. Okay.

Here's the first one. Each superstar or wrestler had their own finishing or their signature move. How did you come up with the sickle? I'm going to answer that question, but before I do, because I know you're a long-time wrestling fan, what's your favorite finishing move?

What wrestler and what finish, just out of curiosity? Oh, goodness gracious. To me, I would never, ever want to be put in the covert clutch by Sergeant Slaughter.

It just looked treacherous. That's a good one. Well, you know, Don Curnodle, who was really kind of my first coach, trainer, mentor in professional wrestling, right? Him and Uncle Ivan, who kind of taught me the ropes, so to speak, because he teamed with Sergeant Slaughter. Do you know I actually used the Cobra Cutch for a while? No, I did not.

Right? So, I'm sure there's some footage out there somewhere of me putting the Cobra Cutch on someone back in the day. As I was actually, this leads into the answer to your question, as I was actually trying to determine what my finishing move would be, because my very first debut match, it was either backbreaker or bear hug. I actually can't honestly remember which was one or the other.

That was my finishing move in my very debut match, and then from there, you know, eventually the Cobra Cutch for a while, and just a variety of things. And then I had an aha moment, you might say, and I'm like, well, I'm Russian, and I have this Russian flag, and on the flag, do you know what symbol's on the Russian flag, Hilmy? Yes, sir, I am holding the one that you signed for me right now, the hammer and sickle. The hammer and sickle, and the one I signed for you. So, hey, go to Kolov.net if you want to get a signed Russian flag.

Actually, just kidding, there's no flags on there, but there are books and pictures and everything else, Kolov.net. Shameless plug right there. Anyway... I was going to say the same thing. So all that to say, so an aha moment is hammer, sickle, and so I actually did what I guess what was now called or was called for a while, the choke slam, right? So you shoot a guy into the ropes, he comes off, you grab him by his throat, kind of pick him up and then slam him to the mat, right? Choke slam. So for a while I called that the Russian hammer, but I'm like, eh, that just don't look devastating enough. Until I eventually said, you know what, if I just kind of cock my arm to look like the sickle on the flag, and whether I throw a guy into the ropes or just body slam him and let him stand up and turn into and posture myself, where people would know, I got my arm cocked, they're like, oh, here comes this finishing move, it's over. And that eventually became the Russian sickle.

Pretty cool. So there was some development to it. There was, yeah. Yeah, there actually was.

I never really went into detail in the story before like that, but so that's a great question. And I'm going to just throw another little interesting side note in there as well, because the fans are out and talking about clothesline, they call it a clothesline, right? Call it a clothesline. You know, Stan the Man had the lariat, right? JBL had a pretty, from what I understand, a pretty devastating clothesline, right? And I got paid a high compliment on JBL. I did a podcast with him and Tony Schiavone, and I think it was Tony Schiavone.

No, that, yeah. Or was it? Anyway, I did so many podcasts. But anyway, I did one with JBL and he paid me one of the highest, because I'd always heard people comment on his clothesline, and he paid me the highest compliment when he said, yours was the most devastating ever. And I'm like, oh, you know, the guy's just being nice.

But no, but he seemed very sincere about it. But I always say that to say this, there's a lot of clotheslines out there, heal me, but there's only one Russian sickle. Just saying. Follow today. Go to www.colof.net and donate today.

You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Absolutely. That's a great story. All right. Your next question. Okay. How would you describe Dusty Rhodes as a booker? The first word that comes to mind is genius. Short answer, genius.

Okay. He was, so now I'll expound on that. So he was, in my view, just my view, one of the most creative guys in the world of professional wrestling.

I mean, so many amazing ideas he had, he came up with. I mean, the war games, two rings, two cages with a top on it, right? I mean, in the past, you know, I was involved in a lot of cage matches, right? He gets Ric Flair, Ivan and I against the Rock and Roll Express.

I mean, so many others. But there was no top on it. It was just, you know, four walls, right? A cage around the ring. And then to have the idea of, let's put two rings together, let's put a cage all the way around both rings, but then let's put a top on it so theoretically nobody can get in, nobody can get out. I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

Of course, the war games, the original war games speaks for themselves. The first one lasting nearly 30 minutes, 30, 35 minutes, whatever it was, with the anticipation of what actually is going to happen because it had never been done before. Alternating guys coming in every two minutes until all 10 are in the ring, until one submits and gives up, right?

Says uncle, taps out, right? It was brilliant. Great American Bash. Great American Bash, you know?

As far as I'm concerned, Dusty gets all the credit for the Great American Bash. The moniker Russian Nightmare. I mean, you know, I was working an angle against Dusty and I thought, you know, American Dream, the Russian Nightmare is good. No, I said, American Dream, I'm going to be your worst nightmare. And I went, oh, nightmare, nightmare.

Oh, Russian Nightmare, that's good. So that's how that evolved too. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah, so pretty, yeah, some great questions. Well, we've got time for one more if you've got one more. Actually, I have two more, but we'll do one. Okay, well, it depends on how long-winded I get. Go ahead, go ahead.

No, no, go ahead. Okay, well, the easiest one is you had mentioned the Rock and Roll Express and Ricky and Robert are friends of ours also. And in fact, I watched a video of you guys this morning.

So what memories do you have of working with Rock and Roll Express? It's a good question. They were, you know, I'd say a night off.

It would be the easiest way. And what I mean by that is when I say a night off, I mean some guys you get in the ring with are harder to work with than others, right? I shall name no names. I shall name no names. But there are some that are harder to work with than others. And I will say this, and again, I'm not going to name any names, but there were some I was more cautious to work with. I shall say it that way. Because I didn't necessarily know what state of mind they were going to be in when they came to the ring.

I'll let the listening audience interpret what I mean by that. But as far as Ricky and Robert, getting back to Ricky and Robert, I mean, they were a night off. I mean, they were great, you know, especially Ricky, but even Robert as well. Great ring tacticians, great ring psychologists, and just knew how to tell a story spontaneously while you are in the ring and worked so well together as a tag team. And I remember when they first came into the territory and Crusher, Khrushchev, and Ivan were going to drop the World Heavyweight titles to them, which a lot of that, some of that had never been done before. Some of what we did with them, like drop their first night, basically their first night in the territory, and they win the World Tag Team Belts.

I mean, who does that? But Jim Crockett saw so much potential with them that, and we were business guys, so we just agreed that's what we're going to do. Now, we, a few months later, win them back. Ivan and I would win them back. But them winning the tag team title matches that night on television, I think we were in Shelby, North Carolina.

I mean, just put them over the top, put them on the map, you might say. And then, of course, all the gals fell in love with Ricky and Robert, and we did massive, massive gates, massive audiences in return matches and everything else until we finally won them back from them. But, yeah, and Ricky's got some great stories.

For the sake of time, I won't go into them. Maybe people will hear those interviews, or maybe I'll interview him one day on this show, but he's got a great interview of kind of one of our first matches in the ring when I about knocked him out. Head-butted him and about knocked him out, and he went over to Robert, and he goes, he goes, watch this, Robert. And Robert's like, what are you going to do? He goes, just watch.

And he about knocked me out, believe it or not, with his elbow, with his elbow. So, anyway, I'll just leave that as a cliffhanger, but certainly easy to work with. So, anyway. Well, thank you, and thank you for all your wonderful questions today, and I appreciate your friendship, Helmy. Yours too, sir.

Always. Well, and thank you. Thank you and the listening audience out there tuning in week after week after week, and just leave your comments for the Q&A and go over to The Man Up Show. Make sure you're listening to The Man Up Show with Nikita Kolov as well. And I do ask you to help spread the word to all your friends and family to download, subscribe, and catch this podcast week in and week out. God bless you.

Have an amazing day. Hi, Nikita Kolov. 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. If you are enjoying Q&A with Kolov, would you help us spread the word?

Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe, and leave a comment. I want to challenge every man to attend and every dad and granddad out there to bring your son or grandson of any age. We're going to do something special just for you.

It is Father's Day weekend. So get registered today. You don't want to miss a champion summit. Why?

Because it's time to man up. Go to NikitaKolov.com for more information or to sign up today. Nikita Kolov here.

If you're needing to buy a car and have marginal credit and considering using buy here, pay here, that's worse than taking the Russian sickle. Winston-Salem motor cars will put you behind the wheel of a car you can rely on while helping rebuild, repair, or establish your credit score. Conveniently located on Silas Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem. Be sure to check them out today. at wsmc1.com because you are number one.