Mikhail “Pitbull” Turkanov is a Russian far-right MMA fighter and a member of Española all-fan combat unit. His professional record is 7-6.
Short bio
In 2011, Mikhail Turkanov was nicknamed Pitbull and became one of the first people in the Russian-speaking Internet segment to make a breakthrough in the “fights on YouTube” genre. Fights with his participation collected millions of views. So began the legendary “Strelka”, where not always well-trained people fought each other on the sand. In 2012, Turkanov went to prison in an extortion case, where he spent five years. He sat in the same cell with another far-right MMA fighter Vyacheslav Datsik. After prison, Pitbull returned to the sport. In 2019, he was detained and fined in Moscow for swastikas on his body, which he called “pagan symbols”. In February 2023, he received the Order of Courage for carrying a wounded fighter. After the start of the invasion of Ukraine, he became the Commander of the assault company of the Española unit, which is made up of far-right football hooligans. Pitbull himself was also caught as a football hooligan in 2004, where his body with Nazi tattoos made it into police reports