Oleg Taktarov

At 56 years old, Oleg Taktarov has this physical status:

Oleg Nikolaevich Taktarov (born 26 August 1967) is a Russian actor and former mixed martial artist.

He competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Pride Fighting Championships as a practitioner of sambo and judo.

He was the winner of the UFC 6 tournament.

Marco Ruas, Tank Abbott, Mark Kerr, and Anthony Macias all win over Marco Ruas, Tank Abbott, Mark Kerr, and Anthony Macias.

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Mixed martial arts career

At 12, Taktarov began his martial arts training, winning both Judo and Sambo. He started competing in those fields during his compulsory military service, at one point becoming a hands-to-hand tutor for the KGB until he retired at 22 years old in order to become a businessman. However, Taktarov said in 1989 he would be attracted to Jujutsu Full Contact, whose four first editions he championed in dominant style. Around this time, he also trained in Jujutsu, becoming a four-time European champion. In October 1993, Taktarov and a training partner competed in the White Dragon MMA tournament in Latvia, but they were forced to leave the country due to political uncertainties. He would land in the United States if he wanted to pursue a film acting career, but this would be slowed due to his lack of fluency in English words.

Originally planning to fly to North America, Taktarov set out to become an actor, but in order to obtain a visa extension, he turned to become a professional combater. Taktarov called the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in 1994, offering to instruct Royce Gracie in sambo leglocks in order to get in touch with Hollywood celebrities and having attended the Ultimate Fighting Championship event UFC 2. Despite being accepted as a training partner after demonstrating his expertise against several teachers, he was eventually refused due to his inability to pay the fee. Taktarov then called the UFC to register himself for the award money after being told that he was already familiar with the game and had a chance of winning. He was finally accepted into the UFC 5 tournament in April, but it would later learn that the Gracie family had tried to keep him out of the game. Taktarov dislocated his knee during the tournament, but he did not pull out of the tournament a week ahead of time.

Taktarov was billed as "The Russian Bear," a stereotypical term devised by his owner's designer and hailed as a Sambo representative, as this was the most exotic martial art in Taktarov's history. However, he made a strong comeback by his amiable demeanor when introducing himself rather than the intimidating faces and postures that other combatants were attacking. Ernie Verdicia, a Kempo Karate specialist, was knocked out by a guard, sweeping him between his strikes, and locking an arm triangle choke for the tapout. He advanced to the quarters to face Greco-Roman wrestler Dan Severn, but Taktarov's injured knee limited his results, who was already disadvantaged by 55 pounds. Severn escorted the Russian down, handed over his guard, and barred him from the cage wall, where Taktarov was repeatedly struck with knee strikes and headbutts when trying to find submissions. The referee brought the match in Severn's favor as the strike began a deep cut on Oleg's face.

Following the case, Taktarov began to train with Ken Shamrock in his Lion's Den combat team. "For a month Ken and I fought together," he said. Frank Shamrock or Guy Mezger, for example, were not a good fighter at the time. Ken was the only one I trained with, and we had wars behind closed doors. "No one was allowed to watch them."

Taktarov returned to UFC 6 in the first round, when he was thrown against Wrestler and Judoka Dave Beneteau. Though Beneteau brought Oleg down and stunned him momentarily with punches, Taktarov responded with his own takedown and knocking him out with a guillotine choke in the scramble. Patrick Smith was supposed to be injured in his next match, but Anthony Macias, who shared the promoter and training ground with Taktarov, was pushed to be replaced by him. In nine seconds, the Russian dominated the world with his second guillotine choke, becoming the fastest submission in UFC history. The fighters were booed vociferously by the crowd, who believed the match to be a work done to remove Taktarov's from the finals. In any case, Taktarov made it to the night's main event, facing much larger fighter Tank Abbott in a "kill vs. power" match, according to commentators. Both Taktarov and Abbott were already drained and dehydrated by the high altitude of Casper, Wyoming, where the festival was taking place.

The match was fierce, with Abbott dominating the grappling exchanges and scoring punches, while Taktarov remained patient and counterattacked with a variety of strikes and submission attempts. Taktarov locked a rear naked choke for the tournament's win after 17 minutes of back-and-forth combat, with both fighters looking devoid of energy. With an oxygen mask on, he had to be admitted to the hospital right away. "When I went to the hospital after the war, they said I barely had enough water in my system, only about one gallon."

Taktarov, the reigning champion of the tournament, was lined up in UFC 7 to face reigning UFC Champion Ken Shamrock in UFC 7. Taktarov dreadfully accepted the challenge and tried to find a way to avoid hurting him, but he was uncertain if Shamrock would do the same. Taktarov demonstrated a lot of tenacity when fighting from the bottom of the game, spending the majority of the match laying defensively on his guard when receiving punishment. The fight had a 30-minute time limit and went into three minutes of overtime, but the end was the same, with Shamrock scoring strikes both standing and walking his guard. The contest was a draw, as there were no judges.

Taktarov later entered the Ultimate Ultimate Ultimate 1995 tournament in the United States. He defeated Dave Beneteau, who, according to Taktarov, arrived late in the match having greased himself to a difficult grip on the Russians. Unable to throw him, Taktarov resorted to a flying kneebar and then transformed it into an ankle lock to present Beneteau. Marco Ruas, a Luta Livre fan and a highly regarded UFC 7 champion, then proceeded to face Luta Livre defender and UFC 7 champion Marco Ruas. The match was long and slow, with Taktarov trying to sack Ruas to the ground repeatedly, but Brazilian strikers and made Oleg bleed. Taktarov won the case for his superior offensive during the match, despite the time being out. When Ruas' boss Frederico Lapenda complained about the decision, controversies ensued. Despite Taktarov's exhaustion after the fight, he progressed to the finals and then met Dan Severn in the finals of their match at UFC 5. In the first few minutes, the Russian clamped another leglock combo, which he said Severn was going to tap out to before Taktarov was forced to release it out of exhaustion. The Wrestler then scored headbutts and knee strikes from top positions until the bout's end, with an overtime timedoutput that gave him the victory.

According to Taktarov, his UFC career came after Ultimate Ultimate, because the boss was focusing on Shamrock over every other fighter. However, the UFC held a poll amongst the followers on November 21, 2003, determining the most popular fighters in the UFC's history. The fans voted Oleg as one of the top ten most popular fighters in UFC history.

Taktarov played for Japanese promotion Pancrase, where he lost by points to Ryushi Yanagisawa after his UFC career. He then moved to Brazil, where he defeated Joe Charles by submission in the World Valu Tudo Championship. Taktarov accepted a rematch with Marco Ruas in upcoming talks. He even entertained the possibility of calling the match with a ringside brawl, which would draw more attention from the news media and allow them both to host an upcoming rubber match in UFC. Ruas' leadership seemed to get into the act of launching a third fight, with his boss Lapenda even encouraging Taktarov to fight purely standing. With one minute remaining on the clock, Taktarov brought Ruas down, but the contest was drawn. However, the cache was of no concern, and the rubber match never occurred.

Taktarov returned from Brazil with a broken hand only to discover that his boss had put him on a fight against Renzo Gracie for Martial Arts Reality Superfighting on ten days notice. Taktarov defeated Gracie down during the match, but the awaited grappling contest never took place. Taktarov's strained hand prevented him from grasping an opportune leglock on Gracie, who capitalized on the fact that he knocked down Taktarov. He attempted to continue fighting but a deep cut had opened and the fight was called off.

In 1997, Taktarov returned to Brazil to face former ADCC wrestler Sean Alvarez in the Pentagon Combat Challenge. Despite Alvarez's size, Taktarov knocked him out with his latest strike skills. However, he was sent to another match in short notice, this time to Japan, in the first ever Pride 1 show on October 11, 1997, against Canadian heavyweight and UFC veteran Gary Goodridge. Taktarov was humiliated to lose after being rendered unconscious, and he had to be carried out of the arena in a stretcher. In one of his recent interviews, Goodridge attributed his triumph to the anabolic steroid cycle that Goodridge reportedly went through before the fight. Goodridge's following results were also demonstrated by Taktarov, i.e. A sequence of losses) confirmed the steroid cycle's downtrend.

Oleg faced Dolph Lundgren in a celebrity Boxing match in Russia, who was awarded unanimously.

Taktarov's last match was in 2001, just before he returned to the sport in 2007. In an online radio interview in November 2007, Taktarov confirmed that he wants to return to MMA with BodogFight. Submission won his debut match against John Marsh at 33 seconds into the 2nd round of the match by submission (kneebar). Mark Kerr, the UFC 14 and UFC 15 heavyweight champion, defeated him by kneebar in his last fight.

Taktarov retired from mixed martial arts with a record of 17 victories, 5 losses, and 2 draws.

Submission grappling career

In 1998, Taktarov, who was known as a strong grappler in mixed martial arts, competed in the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship. Wallid Ismail, Ricardo Liborio, and Carlos Barreto had previously worked with Brazilian jitsu specialists Wallid Ismail, Ricardo Liborio and Carlos Barreto. Taktarov fought a "superfight" with multiple champion Mario Sperry, who eventually defeated Taktarov by points after passing his guard.

Acting career

After temporarily reserving from mixed martial arts, Taktarov concentrated on his acting career and appeared in the films Air Force One, Righteous Kill, Bad Boys II, National Treasure, 15 Minutes, 44 Minutes (2001): The North Hollywood Shoot-Out and the 2002 version of Rollerball. In addition, he appeared in the first episode of Alias' season 3 entitled The Twosome and also in the NCIS season 5 finale judgement episode. He has appeared in a few Russian productions, and he was also cast in a few, such as We Own the Night, in 2007. In addition, Taktarov has produced several instructional Sambo videos and produced an instructional video with Vladimir Vasiliev titled Russian Mega Combat. Taktarov appeared in Den of Thieves (as Alexi), Robert Rodriguez's franchise sequel, Predators directed by Nimród Antal, more recently.

In the Russian television series Ex-Wife, he is the leading actor.

In the film The Man from Moscow, he played The Man from Moscow in 2022.

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