Nikolai Volkoff would have turned 79 today. The WWE Hall of Famer was born October 14, 1947, in Split, Croatia, as Josip Peruzović, and died on July 29, 2018.
Volkoff's WWE.com biography says his first match came in 1968 against Bruno Sammartino. In the early 1970s he was a major player as part of the Mongols tag team under Captain Lou Albano. He later wrestled as one of the Executioners alongside Hall of Famers Big John Studd and Killer Kowalski.
His best-known partnership was with The Iron Sheik, a duo WWE.com calls one of the most hated tag teams in WWE history. They won the WWF Tag Team Championship in 1985, and WWE.com credits them with defeating the U.S. Express at the first WrestleMania for the titles. The two reunited briefly later in his career, according to the same biography.
Volkoff's trademark was singing the Soviet national anthem before his matches, a pre-match routine that anchored his heel character. The persona was a gimmick: Volkoff himself was Croatian-American, and the Soviet character was part of the act. His WWE.com biography sums up the legacy this way: "Although Volkoff's actions can be imitated, they will never be duplicated."
WWE inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2005, 13 years before his death in 2018. His signature moves, per WWE.com, were the Russian Backbreaker and the Bear Hug. His career, as WWE.com lays it out, ran from his 1968 debut against Sammartino through the 1985 tag team title win and into the Hall of Fame.
