A press conference was held at the Flying Dutchman restaurant in St. Petersburg, Russia on Tuesday in anticipation of the third installment of the M-1 Selection fight series set to emanate from St. Petersburg on Thursday.
The M-1 Selection is a year long fight series promoted by M-1 Global intended to determine which Russian gyms will be given the opportunity to represent its home country in the 2010 M-1 Challenge.
M-1 Selection free stream
The event will be streamed live at www.Mixfight.ru and the Boets (Fighter) channel for Russian and European fans and will be available several days later to U.S. fight fans on a video-on-demand basis on Sherdog.com.
Russian scouting
With Vasily Tyutin (head of M-1 Russia), Alexey Zhernakov (Rusfighters Sports Club Vice President), Vladimir Voronov (Imperial Team assistant head coach and Red Devil fight gym trainer), Alexander Michkov (Imperial Team assistant head coach and Red Devil fight gym striking coach), and Tatiana Maslova (International Martial Arts Academy manager) all in attendance, the lineup for Thursday’s M-1 Selection was revealed.
Three best-of-five challenge matchups between Russia Red Devil (St. Petersburg) vs. the Crazy Bears of Perm, Team Moscow vs. Team Anapa, and Action Force (St. Petersburg) vs. Rusfighters (St. Petersburg) are all slated to take place.
Rule change
In addition to the announcement of lineups, which includes several changes to the Red Devil lineup (Military Forces hand-to-hand combat champion Alexey Nazarov steps in to replace of Radmir Gabdullin at -84 kg), a rule change was also discussed. Voronov indicated that weight class restrictions will be enforced in a much more strict fashion, with fighters weighing in over their required weight only be giving an hour for their second weigh-in attempt if they are over in their first attempt.
St. Petersburg birthday
Additionally, Thursday is also the birthday for the city of St. Petersburg and to show just how important MMA has become in Russian culture, the M-1 Selection has become an official part of tomorrow’s sports activities schedule set up to commemorate the city’s birth. A major part of the press conference was also dedicated to discussion to just how far MMA has grown as a sport in Russia.
Tyutin stated that the first two M-1 Selection events were a great success and have served to help MMA’s growth in Russia. He went on to add that the current state of MMA in the country is a major departure from MMA’s past history as an underground “no holds barred” fighting sport that consisted of bare knuckle fighting. With the first two M-1 Selection events having sold out, Tyutin also revealed that a larger venue to support the event is currently being sought out.
Michkov, who also serves as one of Fedor Emelianenko’s trainers in addition to his role as Red Devil’s striking coach, stated that “MMA is the pinnacle of combat, this is the only way of incorporating every single fighting technique and skills. A fighter has to know everything. That’s the only place where highly touted fighters and Russian, European and World champions compete against each other.”
As the press conference came to a close, it was also announced that the Committee of Sports will hand out awards following Thursday’s M-1 Selection to honor the “Best Team” on the show as well as the show’s “Best Fighter.”
