M-1 GLOBAL and Affliction Entertainment joined forces to promote the Mixed Martial Arts all over the world…

Vadim Finkelchtein and Sergey Matvienko are the tycoons of M-1 and Donald Trump is one of the names of Affliction entertainment.

No need to say that this alliance means serious business.

Vadim:”I expected the Challenge of 2008 to be a success, but this came sooner than expected. The first TV broadcastings have been on air by HD-Net and they were well received.

From now on the Challenge can be seen weekly in more than eighty countries.

At the moment we are working towards the finals of 2008 in Russia in which the poule winners will fight for the Challenge Championship and the numbers two of the poules will face each other for the 3th place. The whole show will be covered by NTV, Russia’s largest National TV network.`

He continues: “ I’m very pleased with the high level of fighting that was showed in the Challenge up to now and I expect some of the fighters to become the future MMA-champions worldwide.

With Fedor and Alexander Emilianenko and Gegard Mousasi, M-1 already has some of the most spectacular MMA fighters in the world contracted and fighters like Jason Jones, Bogdan Christea en Jessie Gibbs from the Dutch team, Kirril Sidelnikov, Mikhail Zayats and Mikhail Malyutin from Russia, from France Karl Amoussou and Malik `Komodo`N´Diaye, Juan Manuel Suarez from Spain, Nakamura and Shirai from Japan, Puhakka, Tullerinta and Nurminene from Finland are ready to compete on the highest level and so are quite a few of the other teams.

Finally I want to say that for 2009 we will have sixteen participating teams divided over four poules and I´m sure that the 2009 Challenge will be even more thrilling than this year´s.

Golden boys is the production company of Oscar de la Hoya and is the biggest moneymaking machine in the boxing business.

This means that mixed MMA and Boxing shows are no longer futuristic fiction.

So who knows; In the future we might see Fedor and Oscar in the same show.

It makes no sense to think that Fedor will ever do a boxing match, but M-1 is working to realize a fight for Andrey Orlovsky. Next to him, Gegard Mousasi and Alexander Emilianenko are eager to resume their boxing training also.

Gegard Mousasi started his MMA career five years ago whit Ino and Tayari Alberga. His standup skills were honed by Ino and with Tayari he trained groundwork. Nowadays he is training in the gym of Goksel Sahinbas. At the start of the M-1 Challenge he was still part of the Dutch team but after the first match against the World team he was invited to take part in the Dream Middle Weight Grand Prix which he eventually won. With only 23 years of age the young champion has a bright future in MMA and he is the only non Russian in the world who is allowed to train with the team of world’s best MMA fighter Fedor Emilianenko.

Mousasi: “ First I want to thank everybody that supported me to reach my goal of becoming the Dream Grand Prix Champion. I see this title as the stepping stone to accomplish my real desire and that is to also become the world champion in boxing.

Because M-1 is nowadays cooperating with Affliction and Golden Boys, I think this dream can come true.

In MMA I will go up to -93 kg. Not only to increase my strength, but if I fight between 85 an 93 kg in boxing, I have quite a wide range to test my skills before I decide in which weight class I enter boxing competition. Next to fighting I want to educate myself so I can understand the things that are happening in the world in a better way. By doing so I also hope that I can help and serve the people around me. Once again I want thank everybody that helped me to reach my goal. I thank God, my trainers, M-1 management and Fedor Emilianenko for helping me.”

Fate is a mysterious thing that has its own ways and even if you’re not religious you will have to agree that there is more between heaven and earth then the human mind can comprehend, How else could you explain that Alexander and Red Devil’s Mikhail Malyutin after being invited to some kind of combat Sambo tournament, were not on the plane that crashed near Perm in Russia early September. Everybody aboard was killed, but because the budget of the organizers was too small Alexander and Mikhail were called and told that they could not be afforded and that the tickets for the airplane had to be cancelled.

Sportel is the most prestigious international sports convention for Television and New media.

Joost Raimond from M-1: “For us this is a unique opportunity to come in contact with the best broadcasters across the globe. This will allow us to present our unique MMA content which includes the M-1 Challenge and the unique reality series “Fighting Fedor”.

It is common knowledge that M-1 adopted the MMA rules of the International Mixfight Association and recruits the officials of this association for their events.

In 2009 The IMA will aim to get worldwide licenses in all the participating countries for their referees and judges. This means not only a lot of paperwork, but also the actual training in the ring and behind the judges table in the M-1 shows.