Nikolai Volkoff
Josip Hrvoje Peruzović (October 14, 1947 – July 29, 2018),[4][5] better known by his ring name Nikolai Volkoff, was a Croatian-American professional wrestler from Yugoslavia, best known for his time in the World Wrestling Federation where he usually played a Soviet heel.
Nikolai Volkoff
Josip Hrvoje Peruzović
October 14, 1947[1]
Split, PR Croatia, FPR Yugoslavia[2]
July 29, 2018 (aged 70)
Glen Arm, Maryland, U.S.
2
6 ft 4 in (193 cm)[3]
313 lb (142 kg)[3]
1967
In the 1970s, Peruzović was Bepo of the Mongols tag team, one of the masked Executioners and feuded with Bruno Sammartino over the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship as Volkoff. In the 1980s, he tag teamed with the Iron Sheik and won the WWF Tag Team Championship at the inaugural WrestleMania event, and then with Boris Zhukov as The Bolsheviks.
In 1990, Volkoff turned face and defected to America, briefly feuding with Zhukov and newly-heel Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter. In 1994, after a hiatus, he returned as a destitute and desperate character, exploited by Ted DiBiase as the first member of his Million Dollar Corporation. He continued to wrestle in various promotions until his death in 2018.
Early life[edit]
Peruzović grew up in the Socialist Republic of Croatia, which was then part of Yugoslavia.[6] His parents were Ivan and Dragica (née Tomašević). His brother is Croatian footballer Luka Peruzović. Despite what he sometimes claimed, his actual middle name was not Nikolai but Hrvoje, and his mother's maiden name was not Volkoff but Tomašević. These inconsistencies cast doubt on his ethnic background and seem to indicate a Croat ethnicity.[7][8] His maternal grandfather Ante Tomašević was world champion in the Greco-Roman wrestling style at the turn of the 20th century.[9][8] Ante was born in Cetina, a small village near Sinj, Croatia to Croatian parents Stipe and Katerina in 1872.
Peruzović was on the Yugoslavian weightlifting team until 1967, when he emigrated to Canada after a weightlifting tournament in Vienna, Austria.[10] He received training in Calgary from Stu Hart, followed by his arrival in the United States in 1970.[7] A fellow Croatian-native played the first Soviet Volkoff character in American pro-wrestling. Steve Gobb, born Gobrokovich, wrestled as USSR's Nicoli Volkoff in the 1960s before the character was picked up by Josip.
Professional wrestling career[edit]
Early years (1967–1970)[edit]
While trying his luck as a wrestler in Calgary, Alberta, in 1967, he met the wrestler Newton Tattrie, who was wrestling for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling. During his 1963–1968 tour, Tattrie took Peruzovic under his wing as a protégé and trained the non-English speaking, 315-pound man to become a professional wrestler and tag team partner. When Tattrie left the territory in 1968 for the US, Peruzovic left with him, working in various territories for the National Wrestling Alliance including NWA Detroit, the International Wrestling Association and the National Wrestling Federation where they won tag gold.