valetudo.ru: Who was your strongest opponent?

OT: The tactically solid one was Severn, since he never went for exchange and was setting up a goal to win by points. It was hard to grapple with Ken Shamrock because he used steroids. It was especially noticeable when he couldn’t make it through 12 minutes on a practice, but before the fight with me he became much stronger and at the bout made it for 30 minutes. At that time, I realized that I can’t compete with guys on steroids. Over all steroids are dangerous because of slump after the end of the cycle. Coleman was on the slump when was KO’d by Pat Williams. I had the similar story with Gary Goodridge. I fought him when he was pumped by steroids and after that, he was losing to everyone. You can fight these guys, but should have a good cardio and patience. Every fighter on steroids had a short winning stream for about a season or two. But they couldn’t keep up with this pace. Kevin Randleman or Vitor Belford for example, who got under influence of Mr. Olympia at that time, used all you can imagine, and as a result he lost it after a series of great performances. Vitor had a great chance to build a solid grappling foundation by training with Carlson Gracie and other BJJ specialists, he had great training partners. If he worked for couple more years without steroids, he could utilize these skills for the rest of his life. It was very hard for him to recover both mentally and physically. Great example of the athlete who never used steroids is Nogeira.

read full interview...

tags: Oleg Taktarov (detail)