Several Stars Pay Tribute To Nikolai Volkoff

What’s Russian for goodbye? Wrestling had a rough day on Sunday with the passing of three names. In one day, Brian Lawler (Grandmaster Sexay), Brickhouse Brown and, arguably, the biggest name of them all, Nikolai Volkoff, passed away. These three deaths were shocks to the wrestling world and almost immediately, WWE paid tribute to one of the deceased wrestlers.

There’s a bigger version too.

A tribute to the life and career of Nikolai Volkoff

Several WWE names and wrestling personalities have taken to Twitter to share their final thoughts on Volkoff, who passed away on Sunday at age 70 after a recent bout of illness. Volkoff began wrestling in 1968 and wrestled as recently as last June. He was a one time World Tag Team Champion and three time International Tag Team Champion in WWE. Here are some of the Tweets:

Nikolai entertained while inciting anger in fans all across the @WWE Universe as an in-ring competitor, but backstage he was a gentle and thoughtful family man. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time. https://t.co/ItHtCpA1KU

— Triple H (@TripleH) July 29, 2018

MY BEST FRIEND. MY PARTNER. MY BROTHER. WE GET MORE HEAT THAN ANYONE ON EARTH. I TRUST HIM WITH MY LIFE. HE TAKE CARE OF ME WHEN I WAS DOWN. I MISS YOU FOREVER ? pic.twitter.com/pp7ZgQRDnb

— The Iron Sheik (@the_ironsheik) July 29, 2018

Nikolai Volkoff, One Of The Really Nice Men In The History Of Our Business. Rest In Peace ?? pic.twitter.com/gdhv7z8URC

— Ric Flair® (@RicFlairNatrBoy) July 29, 2018

https://twitter.com/real_steamboat/status/1023624119697530882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Nikolai Volkoff was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, in this industry or otherwise. Always brought a smile to my face to see him when we were in Baltimore. Condolences to his loved ones.

— Ettore “Big E” Ewen (@WWEBigE) July 29, 2018

I did many road trips with Nikolai Volkoff. As we only lived 15 minutes from each other.

I learned so much from him. He was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.

I’ll miss him dearly #RIPNikolaiVolkoff pic.twitter.com/lJG2h01Lto

— James Ellsworth (@realellsworth) July 29, 2018

Opinion: I remember Volkoff as one of the bigger heels on a lot of the Coliseum Videos that I watched as a kid so there’s definitely a soft spot there. Volkoff didn’t have a complex character but he had a great look and was someone who could go and get beaten up by an American hero. That’s going to work every time and it’s something Volkoff did for the better part of fifty years. He’s a name I’ll always remember and I’m sad to see him go.

What did you think of Volkoff? Did you like the evil Russian character? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the the Complete 2003 Monday Night Raw Reviews.

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