Q&A With Koloff- #133

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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. Today on the show with me, Ronnie Coleman.

Welcome to Q&A with Kolov. It's good to be with you, brother. Well, it's good to have you with me, Ronnie, and I'm looking forward to hearing what kind of questions you have for me.

But before we get there, let's touch on who for our listeners, who Ronnie Coleman is. Give us a little insight about your family, where you're living, and what you are doing. Well, my name is Ronnie Coleman, and I am married. I've been married 33 years. I have a son who's in the ministry. He's a pastor in Knoxville, Tennessee, at Heart and Soul Church. And my daughter, Madison, is married, and she's my worship leader at Soul Quest Church.

I have five grandchildren. I have three boys and three grandsons and three and two granddaughters, and so God has been super good to us. I started a church here in Jackson, Tennessee, nine years ago at Soul Quest Church. I left a church in Florida where I was pastoring, and I just felt really led by God to plant this church to reach lost people.

I mean, really lost people, not transfer growth from other churches, but to go after the hurting and those that felt helpless. And God has just done some big, big things in our midst. So I'm a blessed man, brother.

Well, indeed you are. Congratulations, by the way, on 33 years of marriage. You know, in today's world, those types of stories are milestones, and so congratulations on that. How did you and your bride meet? Just tell us real quick how you and your bride met. Well, actually, in a small town in West Tennessee called Milan, Tennessee, there was a Shoney's restaurant. Now, you can't find many of them anymore, but she went to one church in town. I went to another church in town, and the youth groups got together after church on Wednesday nights, and they both came to Shoney's, and we kind of, you know, just kind of fellowshiped together two different churches, which is pretty cool.

You don't see that a lot anymore either. And she caught my eye, and I'm like, hello, hello, hello, hello. And the rest is history. As the old cliché goes, the rest is history, and children and grandchildren later, the rest is history, right? Yeah, and people ask all the time, how do you, you know, how do you do it? 33 years, I say, yes, ma'am. You know, whatever she wants. I've got a buddy who says it this way, happy wife, happy life, you know. That's it, that's it. As a matter of fact, right now, I dropped her off in a shopping center and showed her to get spent, you know, well, she's going to tell me what she's going to spend, but anyway, she's having fun. Shopping while I'm talking to you. You gave her the credit card, or did you give her cash?

Yeah, no, she's got a, well, she's got a debit card, so if she comes out saying that it wouldn't take it, she spent too much. It got denied. That's awesome. Well, good for you, bless you guys. Now, listen, now you also, in addition to having the church there in Jackson, Tennessee, the Soul Quest Church, which, follow you on social media, love what you guys are doing. And I love what you said about, you know, reaching the loss, the downtrodden, the brokenhearted, right?

The forgotten man and woman, right? That, you know, honestly, some churches aren't interested in having in, right? Let's just be honest.

But you guys are. Yeah, I mean, we have a church, we average 20 to 30 first-time guests every Sunday. And many of them, you know, we have people come in that are high, that are still buzzed and hung over from the night before. You know, on Friday and Saturday night, they're in the club, and Sunday morning, they're invited to our church and they give their life to Christ. I can count in nine years on one hand how many Sundays we've had where somebody did not get saved. You know, maybe five Sundays in nine years and we had a Sunday where nobody got saved. People get saved every Sunday. Every Sunday.

And people ask, yeah, and they ask, pastors ask me, how is that possible? I say, well, you just preach the gospel. I don't care if you preach it on giving or the family or marriage or whatever you preach it on, you always come back to the cross.

Right. When you come back to the cross and you give people an opportunity to respond to the message of the gospel. You know, the Bible says if you call upon the name of the Lord, you will be saved.

People are convicted. When you give people, yeah, when the Holy Spirit of God convicts hearts, people get saved. Yeah.

That's just the way it works. That's amazing. Well, praise the Lord for that. And before we get to your questions, I do want to ask you, too, because I know you have more recently had a real heart for Africa, more specifically Ethiopia. Take a minute and tell us about that experience. Well, you know, my pastor has been after me for years. I say my pastor, he was my pastor growing up. Now he's a full-time evangelist, but he's been after me for years. He's been 20 times to Ethiopia.

And before that, it was South Africa. But he's been after me, and I never could find it in my schedule to be away for 14 days. That's a long time to be away when you're a pastor. But three years ago, I went for the first time, and I'm hooked. I'm just hooked.

And I just got back from my third trip. We just saw over 100,000 people publicly respond to the gospel. This last trip, the first trip, we saw over 130,000 people respond to the gospel. And it's just amazing, the hunger that's there. You start preaching the gospel, they just flood in. I mean, they just come in attentive, tears flowing down their face, just broken. You know, the Spirit of God is just working in Ethiopia like really nowhere else on the planet right now.

It's just amazing. So out of curiosity, so over 100,000 coming to Christ. So obviously the gospel message, but I mean, they're coming through a personal invitation from family and friends. What would you say is the main draw to bring that size of crowds together?

Well, here's what we're bringing. We have scheduled crusades at night, and this is where the church has put together crusades. But during the day, we go to them. We rent trucks and the big flatbed trucks with side walls on them.

We put big speakers in the trucks, sound systems with our translators. We go into the markets. When I say market, I'm talking about where you go and you buy your produce or you go and you buy chickens or goats or whatever. I mean, this is old school markets. And when you go into these markets, there could be 10,000 to 20,000 people in these markets at one time.

And when you go in, they see this guy from America come in. They flock around the truck by the thousands. And with this big, huge, amplified sound system, we preach the gospel and we see people responding to the gospel. It's just amazing. It's really amazing.

So last question, so are many of these people most likely hearing the gospel for the very first time? Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yes. Wow. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're going way out in the unreached, you know.

Out in the bush. As a matter of fact, yeah, this last time, Haile told me, Haile Tefera is the guy that organizes all our trips for us. He's Ethiopian.

But he said, where we're going today, they have never heard a white man preach. Wow. And so it's just amazing, you know. And they're great people. I mean, you always have some, you know, that would either be demon-possessed or crazy or a little bit of both or whatever. You know, I've had rockstone at me, and this last trip I had was some fruit thrown at us. But for the most part, they're just like sponges, like please, please give me the gospel.

Tell me about Jesus. Give me hope. Boy, that's refreshing, isn't it? Absolutely. It's a different picture than America, but anyway. Yeah.

For the most part. But, well, hey, let's segue to, I want to get to your questions. It is Q&A with Kolov. So let's fire away your, what do you got for me today, Ronnie?

What questions? Well, I mean, for me, I mean, I've followed you on social media for a while now. And mutual friend Frank Shelton kind of introduced me to you, and he said, you need to go check this guy out.

And so I've been watching you, and I feel like that I know you, even though, you know, we just haven't really officially met other than talking on the phone or what have you. But I don't know your story about how you came to Christ. And I would just be interested in hearing, you know, where that was, when that was in your life. At what point did you feel the convicting power of the Holy Spirit of God and how that, how you segue from the wrestling world into, and that's another question, I guess, from the wrestling world into ministry where you are today. Yeah, the tug on my heart. Well, the short answer is, it's funny because people ask me, you know, whether it's in an interview like this or face to face and in person, you know, variety of different questions.

I'm like, well, you know, you're just going to have to go buy the book, you know, but ha ha ha. But no, the short answer, you know, didn't grow up in church and just like I didn't grow up in Russia. A lot of people have finally figured that out. There's still a few out there, though, who have not. I hope that didn't burst your bubble just now, Ronnie. No, no, no.

I know, I know. But, you know, yeah, so I didn't grow up in church, didn't grow up, you know, you know, the Russian persona is something I built, you know, that character into the wrestling world over the years. And it was successful, but was really unfulfilled when I walked away from wrestling, my last match against Big Van Vader in November 1992.

And just searching, you know, what's life hold next for Nikita Koloff? I had some health clubs. I'm like, I don't want to do this the rest of my life.

You know, what am I going to do? And, you know, I met a Christian couple through some Dick and Charlotte Elston, through some other business ventures that I was involved in as well. And they would eventually invite me to their church. I would eventually accept that invitation. And that very first service, I walked in 17 October 1993. Looking back, I just sensed something different walking in. And, of course, at the end of that service, an invitation was given.

And I will say this. It's not like I was oblivious to the story. It's not like I had never heard the story of the man Jesus, you know, who lived and was crucified and died and rose again.

But that story never made the 18 inch trip from my head down to my heart. And it was on that day I had kind of an aha moment in knowing why I was unfulfilled. And so I was the first one to the altar, got on my knees, repented, asked the Lord Jesus into my heart. And I could truthfully say, if I had died that day, I would have died a fulfilled man.

Because the sense where there was unfulfillment, all of a sudden that sense of unfulfillment was filled. And from there, you know, I just dove in head first. And then from there, I don't know if you want me to address the other part of the question then how from wrestling into ministry, if you want me to address that or not.

Yeah, yeah, I'm interested in that. Yeah, so, and I didn't just dive right into ministry. And fortunately, I had some good mentors who discipled me. In fact, it was about a five year window there from October of 1993 till the latter part, the last quarter of 1998. So there was a five year window there where I just went out and got my hands dirty. Like, I just wanted to learn to serve.

And, you know, I'd never done any kind of construction or anything. But we had these men's groups that would go out overseas and help build churches and help build a Bible school and all sorts of things. And so, you know, I went to the island of Trinidad and helped build a church. I went to the island of Tobago, the sister island, and helped build a Bible school. And then I had my first trip to Africa, Angola, Africa, and went for three weeks to help build a church over there. And then they wanted me to dedicate the church before we left. And I'm like, I'm not a preacher, what do I say? But the Lord had deposited some things in my heart and my spirit the month leading up to that. And the Lord's like, hello, remember all those things you've been jotting in your journal?

I'm like, oh, okay, I'll say that, right? Had two interpreters and so that kind of made that somewhat easy. And then I went on some mission trips with my oldest daughter, Taryn, her youth group as a chaperone and kind of a, quote, security guy, to South America, to Colombia, and to Moldova, my former motherland.

Wink, wink, Singapore. And so five years I just did all of these international trips and in the meantime was being discipled by my pastor, Jay Stewart, and other men of God that were mentoring and discipling me. And then in 1998, the Lord just opened the door really wide open through a five-minute prophetic word, called out of a crowd of 600, had a five-minute prophetic word spoke over me, and the doors just swung wide open. Now fast forward to today, I've been to 36 different countries and territories, all 50 states. I've stopped counting at 1,200 churches that I've preached in.

Lex Luger and I do conferences and camps and got a radio show, TV show, books, and I never in a million years would have dreamed of most of that. So God is good. Yep. Wow. That's awesome.

Yeah, so pretty amazing, pretty amazing journey as I look at it now looking back. And of course, all that, you know, the wrestling part of it, Ronnie, just became a, you might say, a platform or, you know, Jesus said, I'm going to make you fishers of men, right? Which you're so good at. Anyone who follows you on social media will figure out you are good at fishing for men, right? And so the bait, I'm not a fisherman.

I know you do things with a very famous fisherman, right? What's his name? 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 Declan. 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. You're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com. Yeah, Hank Parker. Hank Parker, right? So Hank knows all the kinds… One of the best. Right.

He knows all the right bait, right, to catch any particular fish. And so in our case, you know, what's cool about the Lord is, you know, whether it's a Ronnie Coleman, you know, a pastor Ronnie Coleman or evangelist Nikita Koloff or a Robbie Dilmore who's sitting in front of me here or anyone else, you know, the Christian car guy. God will use, you know, a Harley Davidson rider, you know, a motorcycle, you know, who gets radically saved to save guys in motorcycle clubs, right? That's right.

That's right. I say this, let me just… My son has a… Yeah, go ahead. Well, let me just finish that. So I like to say this, and I'll throw it back to you. God spoke through a burning bush. He spoke through a donkey. Now he's speaking through a professional former wrestler. So there you go.

That's exactly right. I was just going to say, my son has a tattoo across his chest, and it says, nothing is wasted. And it's, you know, it's the whole idea of, you know, God uses whatever, wherever we've been to open up doors, you know, once he's redeemed us and saved us, to be a platform or whatever to get the gospel to other people. I got a church full of former drug addicts. Matter of fact, we were having our first mission trip, and everybody had to get a passport. Well, half the people that wanted to go on the trip couldn't get one because they're felons. They didn't qualify, right?

They didn't even qualify. I have one guy, literally there was a 33-year meth addict, and he was in a hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, about to end his life. His sister goes to our church, sent a sermon that was on YouTube that I preached entitled, Don't Go Down Without a Fight. He listened to that sermon, gave his life to Jesus in the floor of the hotel room, and this doesn't happen in the real world except for God. You don't get over being a meth addict immediately. God did it in his life. He delivered him, set him free immediately. And I'm not saying, sometimes it takes time for people or whatever, but set him free immediately. And now, this guy has been saved to two years. He's already got a 501c3. He's got a heart for reaching people. His 12-step programs are okay, he says, but if that's all it is, if you have that without Jesus, it hardly ever works.

Yeah, you just need that one step. Jesus has got to be there. And so he is now forming this. And what I'm saying is, he uses wherever we've been. Nothing's wasted. Wherever we've been, in your case it was wrestling, and in his case it was a 33-year meth addict. And God now has given him platforms to speak.

It's just amazing. Well, two things you'll appreciate. One, the Nothing is Wasted, I have an acronym for now, No Opportunity Wasted, right? Now. Do it now. Do it now.

Don't procrastinate, don't wait, do it now. No Opportunity Wasted. The other thing you'll appreciate is Uncle Ivan. Remember Uncle Ivan Kolov?

The Russian better. And invited him to a revival. I didn't know he was there until I saw him at the altar. And I traveled with the man, and I can testify and tell you that night he went to the altar and was touched by the power of God, as you said, but God. He was set free and delivered from tobacco addiction, alcohol, drugs.

I don't know another cuss word even came out of his mouth after that night at the altar, but that's part of Ivan's story. We've got time for one more question, Ronnie, if you've got one more for me. Yeah, I had one question. I've seen on Facebook and Instagram a younger guy with your last name. Is that your son? No, no. Let me go back to Ivan for a moment. It's Kolov, isn't it?

Am I remembering correctly? You are, you are. I'll give you a little quick back story on that, okay?

Okay. Before I get to that, let me tell you what somebody just the other day said about Ivan and I. They're like, man, you look so much like your uncle. I'm like, well, I appreciate that.

Thank you so much. You know, not realizing Ivan wasn't a relative of mine, although we were connected by the blood of Christ. So we became brothers in that regard. And he was, you know, as much an uncle as any uncle I ever had and became one of my best friends, you know, from the wrestling career, wrestling business.

But it was funny how they talk about the resemblance. You look so much like Ivan. And even back in the, Ronnie, even back in the wrestling days, people would say that. They'd go to Ivan and go, man, Ivan, you and Nikita look so much alike. Well, Alexander Kolov, okay, here's the quick backstory on that. Alexander Kolov has had a 15 plus year career in pro wrestling and came to me. We connected a few years back and had the idea.

He like, man, I really like him. And another guy, I really like to extend the Kolov name and the dynasty of Kolov. And I'm like, all right.

So I studied these guys and put them through the grind and I'm like, okay, yeah, yeah, maybe. So what we did is we did our own little kind of like video vignettes of that, of that journey. And at the end, surprised them by saying, okay, you've, you've earned the right to adopt, you know, the Kolov name. So you are my quote adopted nephews. Right. And so Alexander became an adopted nephew, actually wearing a championship belt right now for one of the, one of the organizations in, in, in Georgia. But, and so anyway, awesome.

Yeah. So, well, that's not a real spiritual question, but I was just curious. Well, well, and for the record, so, so he is, he's walking with the Lord. He came to our camp, our man camp.

It was impacted, came back and staffed our man camp a couple of times and has served. And he's become just such a dear, dear friend. Alexander has, and, and I sometimes, occasionally I'll frequent his corner. Not, not that he needs any, any better, any aid from the Russian nightmare, but hey, anything can happen in a pro wrestling match. Right.

Ronnie. That's right. You never know.

You never know. Well, I appreciate you. Well, I know in Tennessee there, I'm sure you probably grew up watching Jerry, the King Lawler and, and, uh, many of the greats, uh, over there. Sting, I think started there in the Memphis area, I believe.

Um, don't quote me on that, but, uh, I think Tennessee Sting had a certain. The Moondogs. The Moondogs. It wasn't like the Rex and who's a Rex and who's, do you remember the other one? I can't remember their names, but yeah, the Moondogs and Coco Beware who turned, who changed his name.

He was a nice, uh, what did he go from Coco Beware to, um. The Birdman or something. The Birdman. Yeah. The Birdman.

Yeah. When he was with WWF and Vince McMahon was famous for doing that. He was famous for, for, you know, changing, you know, somebody's character or whatever. I remember when, uh, Barry Darsel, we, you know, I went to high school with Barry. He was down in Louisiana wrestling with Nikolai Volkov. Uh, people confuse me with him sometimes. And then we brought him into the Carolinas as crusher, cruise chef, and we became the six man champions. And then he let me know he was going to the WWF at the time and was going to form this demolition tag team and wanted me to be his partner. And I'm like, Barry, man, I, you know how hard I worked on Nikita Kolov getting this character over.

I don't want to just, you know, just abandon that character. Right. And so, and so, you know, he went and of course he teamed up with, with Bill Eady, uh, who had been like the mass superstar in the past. And, and, uh, of course they became acts, acts and smash and had a great career up there.

Uh, and, and, but, and Coco was up there with them. And, and of course the King Lawler and many other guys up there in, in, in the WWE. No wrestling every now and then. You know, I think I've heard that rumor. You know, some guys, Ronnie just don't seem to know how to give it up.

Do they? So it's probably difficult to do. Well, no, I, one last little caveat to that note. So when I first broke in, I told Ivan and Don Curnodle, who was his partner at the time, uh, they were the, the NWA tag team champions. And I informed them, I'd be out of active wrestling, out of in-ring wrestling by the time I was 35 and we'd argue back and forth for like two weeks. And finally I just gave it up, stop arguing with them. Fast forward, I was 33 getting ready to turn 34. When I made the, the, uh, executive decision, you might say under my own terms to just walk away, no fanfare, no nothing.

Just walk away. And so achieved the goal I had set for myself, little knowing that 11 months later, I'd find myself at an altar surrendered in my life to Jesus Christ. Amen.

Wow. Well, Ronnie Coleman one more time, tell folks how they can learn more about Soul Quest Ministries. Well, you can find us on Facebook and also our website is soulquestchurch.com or soulquest.church, either one. And you can find me on, on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram at Ronnie Coleman Ministries. There's another real famous guy named Ronnie Coleman. I'm not him.

Mr. Olympia, like 11 or 12 times. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You're, you're the white version of him. That's all you are.

I'm not him. I promise. We both are. We both are.

You are, but you, and you're pretty jacked. So I'm just saying, so you may not have won Mr. Olympia, but anyway, Hey, I look forward to, to, to the men's conferences that we're going to tag team on. And thank you so much for, for being with me today.

Ronnie Coleman, Jackson Tessie. Thank you, sir. And thank all of you.

Thank you brother. And I'm going to have you also at Soul Quest soon. Okay. I will. I accept that invitation.

I look forward to it. And so, and thank all of you for tuning in every week, Q and A with Koloff. God bless you. Go out and live a God filled day today.

Thank you, Jesus. 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. Go to 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. If you are enjoying Q and A with Koloff, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe, and leave a comment. Are you looking for the perfect gift for your pastor?

Well, look no further. Bless him with a trip to the Holy Land with yours truly, Nikita Koloff, the Russian nightmare. I'll be hosting this once in a lifetime trip, December 27th, 2023 to January 5th, 2024.

Your pastor will never be the same. Go to koloff.net to get registered today. Nikita Koloff here.

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