Oleg “The Russian Bear” Taktarov was born in Sarov, Gorky state, Russia. Gorky was a closed town in Russia which was off-limits for foreigners due to its links with Russian nuclear programs. Growing up in the Soviet Union, Taktarov was able to take advantage of the strong martial arts training programs at the time. He says “Training in the Soviet Union was very very tough, you need a strong body and a strong mind”. He also brings up that he would run through the mountains as a recovery program for his body after many hours of intense grappling training, this is what helped his body recover.
Taktarov was around 11 years old when he began training martial arts. He first started with Judo, followed by Sambo, it is in Sambo where he began to focus more on groundwork. Taktarov credits his instructor’s small stature for learning grappling on the ground since if you are smaller it is harder to win a stand up confrontation. Obviously, at this time there was no BJJ in Russia, so he only began training this when he moved to the USA, although by this time he was already a very seasoned grappler.
After a successful MMA career, Taktarov is now a professional actor with movie roles in well known movies such as Bad Boys 2, Predators & Miami Vice. He has also trained Jiu-Jitsu with famous director and BJJ black belt Guy Ritchie.
Move To America
Strangely enough, it was neither grappling nor MMA that brought Taktarov to America. The young Taktarov had aspirations of becoming an actor. When his visa was due to expire he was offered an extension, if he was to become a professional fighter. Since he was already a high level grappler and had some professional fights under his belt, this was an offer he couldn’t refuse and was signed to fight in UFC 5.
Whilst his UFC 5 hopes were ended by legendary MMA fighter Dan Severn, it was UFC 6 where Taktarov really made a name for himself beating Dave Beneteau, Anthony Macias & Tank Abbott all in one night. The fight against Anthony Macias is still relevant today as it still holds the fastest submission of all time, recorded at just 9 seconds. Due to the high altitude of UFC 6, Abbot and Taktarov were exhausted, with Taktarov having to go to hospital after the fight because he could not get enough oxygen.
Before UFC 6, Taktarov should have had the chance to compete in some of the earlier events, but was kept out by the Gracie family because they knew about his dangerous leg locks. Taktarov would sometimes train at Rorion Gracie’s academy in Torrance where he would regularly get them into leg lock positions. He wouldn’t tap them from here because it was bad etiquette at the time, BJJ was very anti-leg locks in the early 1990s.
Taktarov recalls a promoter coming to the gym to scout fighters at the time. He was told “He’s no good” when he asked the Gracie’s if Taktarov would be a good fighter for the UFC. The Gracie’s knew, if he were to face off against Royce and there was a leg lock entry then UFC history may look very different than it does today.
Q&A
What is your greatest achievement?
“Staying calm and not punching assholes in the face”
Taktarov is referencing the recent drama in the Russian media about who was the 1st Russian UFC champion. Whilst he won UFC 6, with 3 fights on the same night, there have been some Russian journalists trying to stir up trouble between Dagestani fighter Khabib Nurmagomdov and himself as UFC did not have lots of belts and champions in the ’90s as they do today.
In modern day BJJ we see a lot of fighters have their whole game based around heel hooks. What do you think of this?
“I do not like to do [or teach] this submission. The heel hook is illegal in sambo”
Taktarov mentions that if a heel hook breaks the opponent’s knee ligaments then it is a long road to recovery. With an 8+ month recovery time for some of the worst knee injuries, it is clear to see why he is opposed to this. Certainly for the casual practitioner heel hooks are not worth the risk to train.
On His Former MMA Manager
“He was a drug addict and took advantage of me. I didn’t know a lot about drugs at the time so I would ask him why his nose was running and why he had bloodshot eyes. He would tell me “I am sick”.
At one time his manager didn’t complete his visa when flying to Japan.
“I was stuck in the airport for 3 days because he didn’t complete my visa, I had to live in the airport for 3 days and then on the 4th day I had to fight”.
Overall Taktarov believes that there was a hidden positive of his manager treating him so badly, it was this that got him into movies quicker, whilst not sustaining more damage to his body from fighting.
Other fighters questioned his transition to movies and would say “What are you doing this for? You can earn good money.” “I would say OK”, now there are some of these fighters who are dead, cannot walk or have brain injuries.
Other Leg Locks in BJJ
“Rickson was on the cover of a magazine saying leg locks in BJJ are OK, I could see in the picture he was doing a straight ankle lock. I counted 7 or 8 mistakes in the photo. It was only a photograph but there were still so many mistakes”
Taktarov goes on to say that people make a lot of mistakes when they try leglocks. This is most likely due to that leg locks are quite new in BJJ, whereas Sambo has been training them for a very long time. Perhaps most famous for his rolling kneebar, he goes on to say that people make a lot of crucial errors when attempting this submission.
Do you still train?
“Yes [in Russia]. Where I live none of the guys challenge me. Maybe one day they give me some trouble. The next day I can think about things and then there is not any problems, so I will play football instead”.
Rematch With Dan Severn
“I wanted revenge for when he cut me in the previous fight. I was 27 and still relatively at the time, I didn’t want to tap him, I wanted to break his knee. It was wrong, it was spiritually wrong“.
Oleg does not like to injure his opponents, as mentioned, he will not attempt heel hooks because he believes the injury is too devastating for the knee. He admits he shouldn’t have tried to break knees, but he was angry at this time and age.
His Toughest Opponent
“This is the most common question. It is 4 or 5 guys, if I say it is one guy, it is disrespectful to the other opponents”
The Story Of Fabio Gurgel “Choking The Russian Pimp”
Taktarov mentions that this story is known in Brazil where people are affectionate towards him due to him helping Gurgel reach the hospital. Gurgel’s friend Roberto Traven had broken his collar bone in Russia and the language barrier had stopped Gurgel from finding him.
“It was around 2am and I was in my hotel room and I heard Gurgel outside, I don’t know why I was awake but I went outside to see him”
Due to the language barrier of Russian to English to Portuguese, it was difficult for him to understand what Gurgel wanted, but he eventually understood he wanted to get a taxi to see his friend Traven in hospital.
They went outside and it was snowing, there was only 1 taxi available and somebody was already getting in to it.
“The guy had a big hat on and I knew from the way he was speaking to me he was probably a pimp, he was very disrespectful”.
Taktarov asked the pimp if he could try and get them another taxi but the pimp was very rude and said [about Gurgel] “he looks like a dark hairy Russian from the mountains”.
At this point, Gurgel had enough of the pimps behavior, pulled him out of the car and choked him unconscious. The pimps prostitutes ran away which allowed Taktarov and Gurgel to take the taxi to the hospital.
On arrival Traven was very happy and relieved to see his training partner Gurgel and the story had a happy ending.
You can find Oleg on instagram here and his Sambo DVD here.
