Oleg Taktarov

Oleg Nikolaevich Taktarov (; 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.

Early life Taktarov is of mixed Mari and Russian background. He 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 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.

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."

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."

Taktarov then entered the UFC's Ultimate Ultimate 1995 tournament. He rematched Dave Beneteau, who according to Taktarov came to the match having greased himself to difficult the Russian's grip.

Taktarov ended his UFC career after Ultimate Ultimate, according to him because the management was focused on Shamrock over any other fighter.

Return to mixed martial arts Prior to making a successful comeback to the sport in 2007, Taktarov's last bout was in 2001. Taktarov announced in an online radio interview in November 2007 his plans to return to MMA with BodogFight. He won his debut match against John Marsh at 33 seconds into the 2nd round of the match by submission (kneebar). His last fight was against UFC 14 and UFC 15 heavyweight champion Mark Kerr, again winning by kneebar.

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

Submission grappling career In 1998, Taktarov competed at the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship. He had previously trained with Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners Wallid Ismail, Ricardo Libório and Carlos Barreto. Taktarov fought a "superfight" with multiple champion Mário Sperry, who ultimately defeated Taktarov by points after passing his guard.

Acting career After temporarily retiring from mixed martial arts, Taktarov focused on his acting career and starred in the movies Air Force One, Righteous Kill, Bad Boys II, National Treasure, Dead Trigger, 15 Minutes, 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out and the 2002 version of Rollerball. He also appeared in the first episode of season 3 of Alias entitled The Two and in the NCIS season 5 finale Judgment Day. He has also appeared in a few Russian productions, and was cast in a few releases from 2007, such as We Own the Night. Taktarov also released several instructional Sambo videos and has made an instructional video with Vladimir Vasiliev entitled Russian Mega Fighting. Taktarov more recently starred in Den of Thieves (as Alexi), Robert Rodriguez's franchise sequel, Predators, directed by Nimród Antal.

He is a leading actor in the Russian television series Ex-Wife.

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

Filmography Year Title RoleNotes 1997 Total Force Boris 1997 Absolute Force Boris Checkniov 1997 JAG Russian Officer Episode: "Cowboys & Cossacks" 1997 Air Force One Russian Prison Guard #2 1998 Counter Measures Dmitri, The Engineer 2001 15 Minutes Oleg Razgul 2001 My Friend's Love Affair Boris 2001 The Quickie Boris 2002 Rollerball Oleg "Denny" Denekin 2003 Red Serpent Sergei Popov 2003 Bad Boys II Josef Kuninskovich 2003 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out Emil Mătăsăreanu TV film 2003 Alias Gordei Volkov Episode: "The Two" 2004 National Treasure Viktor Shippen 2005 Call me Genie Ufa 2005 Law of Corruption Skala 2005 To Hunt an Elk Kamaz 12 episodes 2006 Shift Fetisov 2006 Miami Vice Russian FBI Agent 2007 We Own the Night Pavel Lubyarsky 2007 The Death and Life of Bobby Z Oleg 2007 Rockaway Ivan 2007 A Second Before... Oleg, The Trainer 2008 Montana Nikolai 2008 NCIS Viggo Dratnyev Episode: "Judgment Day: Part I & II" 2008 Righteous Kill Yevgeny Mugalat 2010 Predators Nikolai 2011 Generation P Vovchik 2011 Battlefield 3 Dmitri "Dima" Mayakovsky Video game 2013 Officer Down Oleg Emelyanenko 2013 Viy Gritsko 2017 Battle Drone Grigori Romanov 2017 Dead Trigger Lieutenant Martinov 2018 Den of Thieves Alexi 2022 The Man from Toronto "The Man from Moscow" 2023 The Machine Train Igor 2023 Kvest

Championships and accomplishments Ultimate Fighting Championship UFC 5 tournament semi-finalist First Russian UFC champion UFC 6 tournament winner UFC Viewer's Choice Awardee (one of ten) Ultimate Ultimate 1995 runner-up UFC Encyclopedia Awards Fight of the Night (Two times) vs. Ernie Verdicia and Tank Abbott Submission of the Night (Two times) vs. Ernie Verdicia and Dave Beneteau Iron Gladiators 1994 Iron Gladiators Competition winner (twice)

Mixed martial arts record Win

Mark Kerr Submission (kneebar) YAMMA Pit Fighting

Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States Win

John Marsh Submission (kneebar) BodogFIGHT: USA vs. Russia

Moscow, Russia Win

Aaron Salinas Submission (armbar) Total Kombat

McAllen, Texas, United States Win

Moti Horenstein Submission (kneebar)

Win

Mick Tierney Submission (kneebar)

Loss

Gary Goodridge KO (punch) Pride 1

Tokyo, Japan Win

Sean Alvarez KO (punches) Pentagon Combat

Brazil Win

Chuck Kim Submission (guillotine choke) World Fighting Federation

Birmingham, Alabama, United States Loss

Renzo Gracie KO (upkick and punch) Martial Arts Reality Superfighting

Birmingham, Alabama, United States Draw

Marco Ruas Draw World Vale Tudo Championship 2

Brazil Win

Joe Charles Submission (kneebar) World Vale Tudo Championship 1

Tokyo, Japan Loss

Ryushi Yanagisawa Decision (lost points) Pancrase - Truth 5

Tokyo, Japan Loss

Dan Severn Decision (unanimous)

Win

Marco Ruas Decision (unanimous)

Win

Dave Beneteau Submission (achilles hold)

Draw

Ken Shamrock Draw UFC 7

Buffalo, New York, United States Win

Tank Abbott Submission (rear-naked choke)

Win

Anthony Macias Submission (guillotine choke)

Win

Dave Beneteau Submission (guillotine choke)

Loss

Dan Severn TKO (cut)

Win

Ernie Verdicia Submission (choke)

Win

Maxim Kuzin Submission (choke) White Dragon: Day Three

Riga, Latvia Win

Artur Almaev TKO (corner stoppage)

Win

Vaskas Hilma Submission (choke)

Exhibition boxing record

Submission grappling record Result Opponent Method Event Date Round Time