Roman Zentsov began to engage in various types of martial arts at a young age. He achieved good success doing sambo. Subsequently, Roman switched to mixed martial arts. His fighting career included both wins and losses and was not very stable. In the end, leaving the fight in the ring, Zentsov joined the ranks of the fighters for the Russian national idea.
From the biography of Roman Pavlovich Zentsov
The future master of mixed martial arts was born in Bryansk on September 10, 1973. As a child, Roman was fond of freestyle wrestling, and then switched to sambo wrestling. More than once he performed at junior championships, where he showed good results. Zentsov is the silver medalist of the USSR Sambo Championship.
In 1992, Roman moved to St. Petersburg, where he decided to get an education, becoming a medical student. In the northern capital, Zentsov developed new hobbies: kickboxing and karate. The athlete has a significant number of kickboxing fights, including international ones.
Mixed martial arts career
Zentsov began taking part in mixed martial arts in 2000. The first years of the fighter's results were very modest: out of a dozen fights, he won only four. However, Roman continued to work on himself and over time began to show more impressive results.
In 2004, Zentsov's fighting career began to decline. During the year he was defeated in three battles he fought. In the same period, Roman began training with the famous Fedor Emelianenko, the world champion in mixed martial arts.
A streak of failures followed Zentsov in 2005 as well. The beginning of a new career success came in 2006. In the first half of the year, Roman knocked out two famous fighters in turn: Brazilian Pedro Rizza and Dutchman Gilbert Ivel. The specialists understood, of course, that at that time both of these opponents of Zentsov were on the decline. And yet, victories over them raised the name of the Russian fighter in the world rankings.
A new decline in the results covered Zentsov in 2007. On his account there were three defeats and only one victory, which caused a lot of controversy regarding the fairness of the judge's decision.
Since this year, Zentsov temporarily dropped out of sight of journalists. In 2010, Roman made a statement: he told the public that he was no longer interested in professional sports.
At the end of his career, Zentsov still takes part in martial arts tournaments, but mostly only as an organizer or an invited guest.
Leader of Russian nationalists
After completing his career as a professional fighter, Zentsov became famous as the leader of the nationalist organization Resistance. The ideology of this movement is a mixture of socialist, nationalist and anarchist views.
Experts characterize this socio-political movement as a right-wing radical. However, Zentsov himself does not accept such epithets. Resistance itself emerged on the public horizon in 2008. It uses various methods to promote its ideas, including the possibilities of the Internet.
"Resistance" has characteristic symbolism: the emblem in the form of a wolf and a flag in white, red and black, which depicts a falcon. Such symbols, according to the adherents of the movement, reflect the desire for work, struggle, justice and spirituality.
