WWW – Muscle was his ticket out. Two hundred and sixty pounds of it. His ticket out of former Yugoslavia. His ticket out of the country where Communists killed his grandfather, then-reigning World Champion of Wrestling.Muscle was the only reason authorities granted him permission to leave. Muscle was the means by which he could get a passport and never return.
A portrait of his grandfather hung on the wall of his boyhood home as inspiration. Relentless determination and six hours of daily training sculpted him into Yugoslavia’s weight lifting champion. After a competition in Vienna, the 18-year-old fled Communist rule with just $60 and a single suit to embark on a professional wrestling career that would take him to America.
Nikolai Volkoff still has the suit and says he can still fit in it.
Notorious as a Cold War villain in the World Wide Wrestling Federation and its later versions, Volkoff helped fill Madison Square Garden and arenas across the country for decades. In 2005, the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame inducted Volkoff as a member with the likes of Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant.
But for Volkoff, the desire to entertain didn’t end with the accolades.
On a recent Friday night, more than 100 people gathered inside the Liberty Fire Company station in North York to watch Volkoff and other World Wide Wrestling Alliance wrestlers battle it out. Before the match began, he stood before a crew of 20 to 30 wrestlers, ranging from first-timers to long-time veterans, and gave them a bit of advice.
“Tell the story,” he says, reminding them that the times and their industry are changing.
“It’s like the movie industry,” he said later. “Today, all they want is just fast-moving action. Zoom. Boom, boom! They never stop.”
“Wrestling used to have a good guy and a bad guy,” he said. “Now it’s just two guys fighting.”
Volkoff spent the majority of his career as that bad guy. In fact, he was one of the most hated wrestlers. He has since shed that role, choosing to extend his support of the United States beyond wrestling and into government work. Volkoff, who is a code enforcement inspector for Baltimore County, is now running as a Republican for a state delegate seat in Maryland.
“Justice, honesty, and decency come very, very slow in wrestling. It is the same in politics,” he said. After escaping Yugoslavia and achieving the American dream, Volkoff said he would now like to give something back.
To the wrestlers gathered in North York recently, Volkoff offered these final words – “Let’s give the people what they’ve come to see!”