Oleg Nikolaevich Taktarov 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.
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.
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, 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 Judgement 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.
| Country | United States of America |
|---|---|
| Current City | Sarov |
| Language | Russian |
| Reference | IMDB |
| Height | 183 |
|---|
