Ivan Koloff

Oreal Perras ( born August 25, 1942 in Chrysler, Ontario, Canada ) is a retired Canadian professional wrestler, best known in his role as "The Russian Bear" Ivan Koloff. In his playing days, he worked for the three largest wrestling organizations in North America and was a regular on the TV formats.

Perras now lives in Greenville, North Carolina, with his wife, Renae, has four grown children and is now grandfather. He is involved in various charity organizations and joined in 1996 the Church of the " born-again Christians", where he now keeps even weddings.

  • 2.1 Achievements

Career

Growing up on a farm in Chrysler, Ontario, Canada, grew up in Perras early the desire to become a professional wrestler. At the age of 17 he left school and went to the wrestling school of Jack Wentworth in Hamilton; Ontario. There he began to train with weights and learned the necessary techniques. After a year he got the ring roller Red McNulty awarded, which was an originating in Dublin Irish bats with eye patch.

Breakthrough as " The Russian Bear"

In 1967 they finally changed his role. Perras should now portray a Soviet athlete. With its weight of just 130 kg, with a wrestler for a relatively low height of 1.77 m, Perras had a very strong and stocky. This constitution, which was reminiscent of a little bear, he finally brought the nickname " The Russian Bear".

His debut as such, he had then against Bruno Sammartino in a television recording in Pittsburgh. Perras wrestled three years in the Toronto area and the northwest of the USA, to gain experience. He received in 1967 already the Canadian Heavyweight Championship. Then he went for the first time in his career to Japan.

On January 18, 1971, the biggest success of his career followed. It should be clear and legally at Madison Square Garden defeat the record champion Bruno Sammartino, who had held almost 8 years, the title previously. The audience responded positively shocked, but now a " Russian" the local champion was in the midst of the Cold War, defeated. For fear of riots the title change on this evening was not even announced. But Perras not held the WWWF Heavyweight Championship long. Already on 8 February of the same year he had to give it back to Pedro Morales.

In the aftermath Perras toured the various organizations and also occurred in Europe, Japan, Australia, Puerto Rico.

In the 1980s Perras worked mainly for the NWA and Jim Crockett Promotions. In the NWA, he became World Tag Team Champion with Ray Stevens and Six - man tag team champion with Nikita Koloff and Don Kernodle Krusher Kruschev or who replaced the latter.

During this time, also the young wrestler Nelson Scott Simpson let him present as his nephew Nikita Koloff and together with him the tag team The Russians. Together they denied feud programs with the Road Warriors, the Rock 'n' Roll Express, Magnum TA, and with and Champion Ric Flair.

In 1986 they separated the team, Nikita had to turn against Perras and ally with Dusty Rhodes. Perras, however, sought to Dick Murdoch and Vladimir Petrov new partners to feuds against the two.

1988, after he was briefly a member of the wrestling grouping Paul Jones ' Army and the " Powers of Pain" in charge ( a 1:1 copy of the Road Warriors ), there was a reunion of the team with Nikita. You fehdeten with Paul Jones ' Army before they left the Jim Crockett Promotions in January 1989 final.

Then Perras was active in the independent promotions and entered into legend matches against Chief Wahoo McDaniel or wrestlers like Jimmy Valiant.

Find out more

  • Had six brothers and three sisters

Achievements

  • Championship Wrestling From Florida
  • 5x NWA Florida Tag Team Champion ( 1x with Pat Patterson, 3x with Masa Saito and 1x with Nikolai Volkoff )
  • Maple Leaf Wrestling
  • Jim Crockett Promotions
  • 4x NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion
  • 1x NWA Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Champion ( with Don Kernodle )
  • 2x NWA World Television Champion
  • 3x NWA World Television Champion
  • 2x NWA United States Tag Team Champion (1x with Krusher Khruschev and 1x Dick Murdoch )
  • 2x NWA World Six -Man Tag Team Champion (1x with Nikita Koloff & Krusher Khruschev and 1x with The Barbarian & The Warlord )
  • 4x NWA World Tag Team Championship ( Mid Atlantic version) (1x with Nikita Koloff, Nikita Koloff and Krusher 1x with Khruschev, 1x with Ray Stevens and 1x with Don Kernodle )
  • World Wide Wrestling Federation
  • World Wrestling Association ( Indianapolis )
  • World Wrestling Council
  • Other Items
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