Combat sports pioneers Jeff Monson and Oleg Taktarov are making a comeback. Per a report on social media, Monson and Taktarov will step into the squared circle for a three-round boxing match in Moscow on August 18. Monson, a veteran of multiple combat sports promotions, including the UFC, Strikeforce, and M-1, has remained fairly active, […]
Combat sports pioneers Jeff Monson and Oleg Taktarov are making a comeback.
Per a report on social media, Monson and Taktarov will step into the squared circle for a three-round boxing match in Moscow on August 18. Monson, a veteran of multiple combat sports promotions, including the UFC, Strikeforce, and M-1, has remained fairly active, last competing in October 2021 while Taktarov will be stepping inside the ring for the first time since 2008.
According to the report, Monson and Takarov will compete in a boxing bout that consists of three two-minute rounds. Despite the bout being less than a week away, there is little promotion to be found. Monson had been radio silent on social media, though Taktarov did offer up some info on how the fight can be streamed via Instagram.
Oleg Taktarov vs. Jeff Monson boxing match taking place on the 18th of August in Moscow. 3×2 minutes rounds. Taktarov is 55 years old, Monson is 52. pic.twitter.com/fDm6zGu68V
Oleg Taktarov and Jeff Monson Made Their Mark in the Early Days of the UFC
While both men have competed for a plethora of promotions during their combat sports careers, most fans will remember them in the early days of the UFC. Particularly Oleg Taktarov who made his debut at UFC 5 in 1995. Taktarov came up short in the tournament semi-final, suffering a TKO loss against Dan Severn. He bounced back at UFC 6, winning the tournament with a rear-naked choke submission against Tank Abbott in the final.
UC 7 saw Taktarov return and compete against another legend of the sport, Ken Shamrock, for the UFC superfight championship. Taktarov would finish his UFC tenure at the Ultimate Ultimate ’95, two years before heading to Japan to take part in the first-ever PRIDE FC event in Tokyo.
Making his mixed martial arts debut in 1997, Jeff Monson has stayed active, regularly competing in boxing, bare-knuckle, and grappling matches in more recent years. However, his fight with Oleg Taktarov will be Monson’s first time competing in nearly two years.
Oleg Taktarov says he, not Khabib Nurmagomedov was the first UFC champion from Russia. Former fighter Taktarov won the sixth UFC tournament all the way back in 1995. The Russian fought three times in one night to emerge from the tournament victorious. Although he technically didn’t win a UFC championship Taktarov continues to view himself […]
Oleg Taktarov says he, not Khabib Nurmagomedov was the first UFC champion from Russia.
Former fighter Taktarov won the sixth UFC tournament all the way back in 1995. The Russian fought three times in one night to emerge from the tournament victorious. Although he technically didn’t win a UFC championship Taktarov continues to view himself as Russia’s first UFC champion. Speaking on a recent Instagram Q&A about current lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, he said.
“I can tell you a story. First champion Royce Gracie. Then he won again. The third championship was won by Steve Jennum, because everyone was injured.
“The fourth championship Royce Gracie who strangled Dan Severn. Then Dan Severn won the fifth championship. There were three champions. The sixth championship I won. Where do you see someone else?”
“This is the year 1995,” Taktarov continued. “This is a story – how can you rewrite it? How can you remake it? Let’s say that it was not Royce Gracie who won the first two and fourth championships, but your fighter whom you want to enter.
“If one Wahhabi from the Tsumadinsky district said this, why should all fools repeat this? He himself doesn’t repeat it already, and you repeat everything like monkeys after him.” (Transcribed by Talk Sport)
The “Wahhabi” Taktarov is referring to appears to be Khabib’s father Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, who has previously pointed out Taktarov wasn’t technically a UFC champion. Taktarov has spoken out to defend his place in MMA history, in an interview with Sports RU, he said.
”To become UFC 6 Champion I had to (take part in) three fights in one evening,”. “Just imagine that you have to win in 1st fight, then second, and save power to stand in the last one. And the weight difference could be incredible between fighters. I might come to the cage at 90kg and the opponent at 120kg.
“Recently, I read some ‘expert’ who said that ‘Oleg Taktarov wasn’t a real UFC Champion. What does the UFC mean? The Ultimate Fighting Championship; the winner of Championship is the champion. Later they started to hold ‘super-fights’ and there would be super-fight champions. The real championships ended in 90s. One fight is just one fight now.”
Who do you see as Russia’s first UFC champion? Oleg Taktarov or Khabib Nurmagomedov?
From time to time, allegations of fight fixing have reared their ugly head in mixed martial arts (MMA) over the years, but in the vast majority of occasions, it’s been little more than wishful thinking. After all, you only need to look at the medical suspension lists after any major event to see that the […]
From time to time, allegations of fight fixing have reared their ugly head in mixed martial arts (MMA) over the years, but in the vast majority of occasions, it’s been little more than wishful thinking.
After all, you only need to look at the medical suspension lists after any major event to see that the only fixes going on are to the broken bones and other assorted ailments that are part of a full-contact sport that lives up to the mantra of being ‘As Real As It Gets’.
That being said, particularly in the early years of the sport, and more often than not in Japan, there have been serious allegations of fight fixing that go beyond the realms of just baseless speculation.
In this article we’ll home in on 10 instances of such scandals, seeking to avoid guesswork where possible by focusing on firsthand accounts of shameful behind-the-scenes corruption that led to the line between reality and fiction becoming distorted and threatened to tarnish the sport’s credbility.
Ken Shamrock vs. Minoru Suzuki II
In 1995, Ken Shamrock was the ‘King Of Pancrase’ titleholder, but was also about to fight Dan Severn for the UFC 6 superfight championship title.
Rumors suggest that Pancrase’s head honcho’s were concerned that it would reflect badly on their promotion if he lost in the Octagon while still being their champion as so asked him to throw his next fight with Pancrase co-owner Minoru Suzuki.
In the fight at Pancrase: Eye Of The beast 4, Suzuki miraculously escapes a fully extended armbar, gets on top and then submits Shamrock soon after with a kneebar just 2:14 minutes into the fight.
There’s no official proof that the fight was fixed, but when asked point-blank to confirm long-standing rumors that it was a fix during an interview by ugo.com, Shamrock’s non-answer told fans all they needed to know.
”I can’t really talk about those things because of agreements and things that were set down by the organization,” Shamrock stated.
Tournaments seem like a great way to determine the best competitor from a group of athletes. You have 8 (or 16 or 32 or whatever the number) fighters, put them in a bracket, and then let them fight it out. The last dude standing clearly must be the best because he survived the tournament, right?
Tournaments — like the ones the UFC used to run — are heavily dependent on how the bracket is organized. Some fighters get an easy run, others get a gauntlet.
This got us at Cage Potato thinking: What if some of the early UFC tournament brackets were re-organized or even shuffled just a little bit? Who would end up becoming the “Ultimate Fighters” of the 1990s? Let’s find out!
UFC 2
UFC 2 was the first and only 16-man tournament run by the UFC. The first round of the tournament — save for Royce Gracie’s fight (of course)—didn’t air on the PPV and aren’t on the DVD either. These “lost fights” from UFC 2 have quite a few interesting characters such as the enigmatic Pencak Silat master Alberto Cerro Leon and the chubby, sweatpants-clad Robert Lucarelli.
Look at the complete bracket and see how many names you recognize. Most of these guys from the UFC 2 dark matches had no chance in the tournament, save for a man named Freek (or Frank) Hamaker. We’re going to stick with Freek because it rhymes with Reek. A fighter like Hamaker was a rarity in the early days. He wasn’t a hapless striker fated to be embarrassed. He was a sambo practitioner who trained under legendary European grappler Chris Dolman.
Hamaker’s first (and only) fight was at UFC 2 against the mysterious San Soo Kung Fu man Thaddeus Luster. The fight went like the typical early UFC fight. The guy with grappling immediately took down the guy without grappling and won shortly afterwards. Hamaker withdrew from the tournament after defeating Luster and disappeared to the pornography theater from whence he came.
(And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why history must be re-written.)
Tournaments seem like a great way to determine the best competitor from a group of athletes. You have 8 (or 16 or 32 or whatever the number) fighters, put them in a bracket, and then let them fight it out. The last dude standing clearly must be the best because he survived the tournament, right?
Tournaments — like the ones the UFC used to run — are heavily dependent on how the bracket is organized. Some fighters get an easy run, others get a gauntlet.
This got us at Cage Potato thinking: What if some of the early UFC tournament brackets were re-organized or even shuffled just a little bit? Who would end up becoming the “Ultimate Fighters” of the 1990s? Let’s find out!
UFC 2
UFC 2 was the first and only 16-man tournament run by the UFC. The first round of the tournament — save for Royce Gracie’s fight (of course)—didn’t air on the PPV and aren’t on the DVD either. These “lost fights” from UFC 2 have quite a few interesting characters such as the enigmatic Pencak Silat master Alberto Cerro Leon and the chubby, sweatpants-clad Robert Lucarelli.
Look at the complete bracket and see how many names you recognize. Most of these guys from the UFC 2 dark matches had no chance in the tournament, save for a man named Freek (or Frank) Hamaker. We’re going to stick with Freek because it rhymes with Reek. A fighter like Hamaker was a rarity in the early days. He wasn’t a hapless striker fated to be embarrassed. He was a sambo practitioner who trained under legendary European grappler Chris Dolman.
Hamaker’s first (and only) fight was at UFC 2 against the mysterious San Soo Kung Fu man Thaddeus Luster. The fight went like the typical early UFC fight. The guy with grappling immediately took down the guy without grappling and won shortly afterwards. Hamaker withdrew from the tournament after defeating Luster and disappeared to the pornography theater from whence he came.
Hamaker had tremendous potential given his background in an effective martial art and given that having any kind of grappling ability in the early UFCs was tantamount to bringing a taser into the cage with you.
We don’t need to re-imagine the UFC 2 bracket much to have a more interesting outcome.
Let’s just pretend that Hamaker never got injured and consequently never withdrew.
After defeating Luster, he’d take on kickboxer Johnny Rhodes. Judging by the fact that Patrick Smith submitted Rhodes in a little over a minute, a more qualified grappler in Hamaker probably wouldn’t need much more time to do the same.
That would bring Hamaker into the semifinals against Pat Smith, who was previously submitted by Ken Shamrock at UFC 1 in short order, and was destroyed in the UFC 2 finals by Royce Gracie. Smith may have had enough grappling to beat the Ray Wizards and Rudyard Moncayos of the world but he likely wouldn’t have enough submission acumen to beat Hamaker. So in CagePotato’s alternate reality version of events, The “Freak” — that wasn’t his nickname, but it should’ve been. Freek “The Freak” Hamaker? You don’t like it? Fine. — therefore gets his hand raised for third time that night.
Could Hamaker really have taken out Royce Gracie in the finals?
Probably not, but keep in mind that Gracie initially struggled against Keith Hackney at UFC 5, a karate guy who had added just a smattering of BJJ into his arsenal. So, Gracie still would probably have won UFC 2 but he would’ve looked mortal doing it — and that’s the important thing.
At UFC 1, Royce Gracie looked like an unstoppable killer; maybe not a Che Mills-level killer, but a killer nonetheless. He took martial arts “experts” down and submitted them without breaking a sweat. Gracie did much of the same at UFC 2.
It’s unlikely that Hamaker would’ve beaten Gracie (pre-drug-testing Ken Shamrock lost to Gracie the first time and the skilled Judoka Remco Pardoel also lost to Gracie as well), but he had a good chance of at least making Gracie look like a regular, fallible fighter.
A Hamaker-Gracie finale would’ve shown the world that BJJ (or, more specifically “Gracie” Jiu-Jitsu) wasn’t a martial arts panacea and that Royce Gracie wasn’t some kind of god. It took Jesus-freak, motivational speaker, and meth enthusiast Kimo Leopoldo to do that.
Oleg Taktarov says he, not Khabib Nurmagomedov was the first UFC champion from Russia. Former fighter Taktarov won the sixth UFC tournament all the way back in 1995. The Russian fought three times in one night to emerge from the tournament victorious. Although he technically didn’t win a UFC championship Taktarov continues to view himself […]
