Nikolai "Nicolai" Ivanovich Koloff (Russian: Николай Иванович Колофф; January 13, 1938-April 10, 2010) was a Soviet and the secondary antagonist of Rocky IV. He is even credited in Rocky V by mistake.
He was portrayed by the late Michael Pataki. In the film, he played Ivan Drago's patriotic manager, and believed Drago was undefeatable. He showed no remorse after Drago killed the American boxer Apollo Creed in an exhibition bout. A fight was scheduled for Drago on December 25, 1985 in Moscow against the reigning heavyweight champion, Rocky Balboa. On the day of the fight, Koloff was seated next to the Soviet dictator, Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet embassy's booth. In the twelfth round, he noticed most of the spectators were cheering for Rocky. Before the fifteenth round, Koloff was so infuriated, he went to Drago's corner and scolded him for not beating Rocky earlier in the fight, and allowing the spectators to cheer for him. This made Drago angry, and he grabbed him by the throat and throws him angrily to the crowd, saying:
"I fight to win. I fight for me. FOR ME!"
Rocky knocked Drago out towards the end of the fifteenth round, which infuriated Gorbachev. After Rocky's victory speech (which arguably ended the Cold War) he won the support of Koloff, Gorbachev, and all the spectators in the spectrum.
On May 11th 2004 Koloff was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he went into remission in December 2007.His cancer returned on July 16th 2009.Koloff died on April 10th 2010 age 72 from prostate cance.