Oleg Taktarov
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Oleg Taktarov Оле́г Такта́ров |
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Taktarov in 2010
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| Born | Oleg Nikolaevich Taktarov 26 August 1967 Arzamas-16, Russian SFSR, USSR |
| Native name | Оле́г Такта́ров |
| Other names | The Russian Bear |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) |
| Weight | 95 kg (209 lb; 14 st 13 lb) |
| Division | Heavyweight |
| Style | Sambo, Judo, Jujitsu, Boxing, |
| Rank |
Master of Sport & 3rd Dan black belt in Judo Master of Sport in Sambo Black belt in Ju-Jitsu |
| Years active | 1993 - 1998, 2001, 2007 - 2008 (MMA) |
| Mixed martial arts record | |
| Total | 24 |
| Wins | 17 |
| By knockout | 2 |
| By submission | 14 |
| By decision | 1 |
| Losses | 5 |
| By knockout | 3 |
| By decision | 2 |
| Draws | 2 |
| Other information | |
| Website | www |
| Mixed martial arts record from Sherdog | |
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Oleg Nikolaevich Taktarov (Russian: Оле́г Никола́евич Такта́ров; born 26 August 1967) is a retired Russian mixed martial artist and actor. He is a practitioner of Sambo and Judo and has competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Pride Fighting Championships. Taktarov was the UFC 6 tournament champion and holds notable wins over Marco Ruas, Tank Abbott, Mark Kerr, and Anthony Macias. Taktarov is known for being exceptionally calm during fights and for using a variety of rarely seen, acrobatic Sambo take-downs. All of Taktarov's losses were by knockout or decision; he has never submitted in an MMA fight.
On 12 November 1993, the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was held in Denver, Colorado, where fighters from all martial arts codes were invited to compete for a purse of US$50,000, in a no-holds-barred elimination tournament billed as being, "not for the faint-hearted". The show-down was held inside the eight-sided ring, known as the Octagon, that measures 32 feet across, and is surrounded by a five-foot-high chain fence.
In April, 1995, Oleg entered UFC 5 in Charlotte, North Carolina, billed as "The Russian Bear". "It (the title) sounds alright to me now, but before.....I was called this by the manager I had then, who was from Texas. He thought that Texas was the capital of the world," laughs Oleg. "He didn’t know any other places existed. He just knew that Russia had bears and vodka, and he couldn’t call me ‘The Russian Vodka’." When Oleg entered UFC 5 he was regarded by the organizers as "The X-Factor". His friend and Lion's Den fighter, Guy Mezger, had spoken highly of Taktarov, but the Russian was an unknown quantity. Before the tournament, competitors were interviewed pulling macho faces and growling, whilst boasting how they were going to win the event and destroy their opponents. By contrast, Oleg coolly said he was from Gorky, Russia, and smiled an infectious smile at the cameras. Held in Charlotte, North Carolina, the competition claimed to have eight contenders representing eight different martial arts, but as Royce Gracie had previously stated, many of the UFC competitors were now abandoning their own arts to copy his grappling techniques. The fact that a fighter was listed as representing the art of Tae Kwon Do did not mean he would be using TKD striking techniques against his opponent.
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Wikipedia