Oleg Taktarov

Oleg Nikolaevich Taktarov (Оле́г Никола́евич Такта́ров; born 26 August 1967) is a Russian actor and retired mixed martial artist.

He was a practitioner of Sambo and Judo and competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Pride Fighting Championships.

He won the UFC 6 tournament.

He holds notable wins over Marco Ruas, Tank Abbott, Mark Kerr, and Anthony Macias.

Taktarov is of mixed Mari and Russian background.

Taktarov started his experience in martial arts at 12, when he took up both judo and sambo.

He started competing in those disciplines during his obligatory military service, at one point also becoming a hand-to-hand instructor for the KGB, until he retired at 22 in order to become a businessman.

However, according to Taktarov, in 1989 he would find himself attracted to a jacketed mixed martial arts event called Jujutsu Full Contact, whose four first editions he won in dominant fashion.

He also trained in jujutsu around this time, becoming a four time European champion.

In October 1993, Taktarov and a training partner participated in the White Dragon MMA tournament in Latvia, but were forced to flee from the country due to political tensions.

He would land in United States, as he planned to pursue a film acting career, though this would be delayed by his lack of fluency in English language.

Originally travelling to North America, the goal of Taktarov was originally to become an actor but he decided to become a professional fighter in order to gain a visa extension.

In order to get in touch with Hollywood actors, and having watched the Ultimate Fighting Championship event UFC 2, Taktarov contacted the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in 1994, offering himself to train Royce Gracie in sambo leglocks.

Although he was accepted as a training partner after proving his skill against several instructors, he was ultimately rejected due to his inability to pay the fee.

Taktarov next contacted the UFC management in order to participate himself for the prize money, being advised that he was already familiar with that kind of competition and had a chance of winning.

He was finally accepted into the UFC 5 tournament in April, and would later find out that the Gracie family had previously pressed to keep him out of the UFC.

A week before the event, Taktarov dislocated his knee, but he decided not to pull out of the tournament.

Taktarov was billed in the event as "The Russian Bear," a stereotypical nickname invented by his manager, and hailed as a Sambo representative, as this was the most exotic martial art in Taktarov's background.

However, he stood out for his friendly demeanor, showing an infectious smile to the camera while introducing himself instead of the intimidating faces and postures other fighters were striking.

His first fight was against Kempo Karate expert Ernie Verdicia, whom Oleg quickly submitted by pulling guard, sweeping him between his strikes, and locking an arm triangle choke for the tapout.

He advanced round to meet Greco-Roman wrestler Dan Severn, but Taktarov's injured knee limited his performance, already disadvantaged by 55 lbs.

Severn took the Russian down, passed his guard and blocked him against the cage wall, where Taktarov was repeatedly hit with knee strikes and headbutts while he tried to look for submissions.

As the strikes opened a deep cut on Oleg's face, the referee stopped the fight in Severn's favor.

After the event, Taktarov went to train with Ken Shamrock in his Lion's Den fighting team.

He described this time as: "For a month Ken and I fought together. The guys who later became good fighters, like Frank Shamrock or Guy Mezger, were not any competition for me at the time. The only guy I trained with was Ken, and we had battles behind closed doors. Nobody was allowed to watch them."

Taktarov returned at UFC 6, whose first round saw him facing Wrestler and Judoka Dave Beneteau.

Although Beneteau took Oleg down and stunned him momentarily with punches, Taktarov answered by scoring his own takedown and tapping him out with a guillotine choke in the scramble.

His next bout was originally against Patrick Smith, but an injury forced the latter to be replaced by Anthony Macias, who shared promoter and training ground with Taktarov.

The Russian submitted him in with another guillotine choke in nine seconds, becoming the fastest submission in UFC history in the process.

The fighters were unusually booed by the crowd, who suspected the fight to be a work executed to ease Taktarov's way to the finals.

In any case, Taktarov went to the main event of the night, being pitted against the much larger fighter Tank Abbott in what commentators called a "skill vs. strength" match.

Both Taktarov and Abbott were already tired and dehydrated by the high altitude of Casper, Wyoming, where the event was taking place.

The bout was hard-fought, with Abbott dominating the grappling exchanges and scoring punches while Taktarov remained patient and counterattacked with a variety of strikes and submission attempts.

After 17 minutes of back and forth action, with both fighters looking devoid of energy, Taktarov locked a rear naked choke for the tournament victory.

He had to be taken to the hospital right after with an oxygen mask on.

He was later quoted as, "when I went to the hospital after the fight, they said I barely had enough water in my system, only about one gallon."

Being the reigning tournament champion, Taktarov was set up to fight reigning UFC Champion Ken Shamrock in UFC 7 for the UFC Superfight Championship.

Due to his friendship with Shamrock, Taktarov accepted the fight reluctantly and tried to find a way to win without hurting him, although he was unsure whether Shamrock would do the same.

As with the previous fight, Taktarov displayed an important amount of toughness while defending from the bottom, spending most of the match laying defensively on his guard while receiving punishment.

The fight had a 30-minute time limit and went into three minutes of overtime, but the result was the same, with Shamrock scoring strikes both standing and through his guard.