Taktarov Takes Aim At Abdulmanap
UFC 6 tournament winner Oleg Taktarov made some controversial remarks towards lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov’s father Abdulmanap last week.
Speaking during an Instagram Live session, Taktarov expressed his frustration with when asked if he should be considered the first UFC champion from Russia instead of Nurmagomedov.
“I can tell you a story,” Taktarov said (via Bloody Elbow). “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. 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 [Khabib] himself doesn’t repeat it already, and you repeat everything like monkeys after him.”
Taktarov appears to be aiming his “Wahhabi” comments at Abdulmanap. It was notably Abdulmanap who said in the past that Taktarov was not technically a UFC champion. Him and his son Khabib are also natives of the Tsumadinsky district in Dagestan.
Taktarov won the UFC 6 tournament in 1995 when he defeated the likes of Dave Beneteau, Anthony Macias and Tank Abbott all on the same night. Though he is not technically a UFC champion, he clearly believes differently.
The 52-year-old was notably friends with the Nurmagomedov family but that seems to have changed in recent years and even more so after these comments. When Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor at UFC 229 back in October 2018, Taktarov notably criticized the fight and reportedly called Nurmagomedov “typical mountain man” with “cautious genes.”
Despite those comments, the Nurmagomedovs invited him to Dagestan. Taktarov would later complain of his stay and question Nurmagomedov’s priorities since becoming champion.
Abdulmanap would hit back at him by telling fans of his son not to target him.
“You can’t answer an insult to a fool,” Abdulmanap said. “He is a fool, after all.”
