The WWE superstar Vladimir Kozlov was born in the Ukraine at July 4, 1972.  Born Oleg Prodius, he is currently a professional wrestler on the WWE Smackdown brand.  In the past, he has trained in rugby, American football, judo, mixed martial arts, sambo and kickboxing.  He has also appeared in several movies, including 25^th Hour and Grindhouse.

Before joining a pro wrestling group, Kozlov was the 2005 USA Open Heavyweight Sambo champion and held the International Heavyweight Grappling title in the United States Kick Boxing Association.  In 2005, Jerry Jarrett convinced Kozlov to accompany him to the ring at the Slammiversary event.  This was Kozlov’s first introduction to professional wrestling.

In 2006, Kozlov signed a developmental contract with the WWE and began training at Deep South Wrestling.  He wrestled as Oleg Prudius while with DSW.  Later that year, in May, he had his first house show with the WWE. 

In December of 2006, Kozlov made his debut performance on Raw as Vladimir Kozlov.  He was neither a face nor a heel at first, and he wasn’t on the show for long.  He was sent back to the developmental circuit for a year.  While there, he won the Ohio Valley Wrestling heavyweight title.

In April 2008, Kozlov made his Smackdown debut as a hell. He was unique in that he had no intro music or video at first. Kozlov easily won most of his early matches but began asking for better competition. In September 2008, he began attacking Jeff Hardy and Triple H and that began a feud the three of them for the WWE Championship. He went onto not win the the title at Survivor Series but was not pinned and did suffer his first pinfall lost  until Shawn Michaels beat him in March 2009.

He was drafted to ECW in April 2009 and began to team up with Ezekiel Jackson and William Regal as "The Ruthless Roundtable" and helped Regal gain a ECW Championship shot against Christian, which Regal lost.