Heartbreaking news out of Georgia today, where it is being reported that former M-1 heavyweight champion Guram Gugenishvili has been killed in a car accident at the far too young age of 28. The announcement was made public on M-1’s Facebook page last night, along with a statement that read, “He was going to fight in Japan at the end of 2014 and come back to M-1 Global in 2015. He was a great athlete and a kind, open-hearted person.”
With a career record of 12-2, Gugenishvili fought almost exclusively under the M-1 banner, with his lone outside appearance being his most recent — a first round TKO over Tony Bonello at Inoki Genome Fight 1 back in April. The win followed a 16-month injury-related absence from the ring.
No immediate details have been available about the collision or Gugenishvili’s injuries, but we will keep you updated as information is made available. After the jump: A video of Guram’s aforementioned win over Bonello.
Heartbreaking news out of Georgia today, where it is being reported that former M-1 heavyweight champion Guram Gugenishvili has been killed in a car accident at the far too young age of 28. The announcement was made public on M-1′s Facebook page last night, along with a statement that read, “He was going to fight in Japan at the end of 2014 and come back to M-1 Global in 2015. He was a great athlete and a kind, open-hearted person.”
With a career record of 12-2, Gugenishvili fought almost exclusively under the M-1 banner, with his lone outside appearance being his most recent — a first round TKO over Tony Bonello at Inoki Genome Fight 1 back in April. The win followed a 16-month injury-related absence from the ring.
No immediate details have been available about the collision or Gugenishvili’s injuries, but we will keep you updated as information is made available. After the jump: A video of Guram’s aforementioned win over Bonello.
Yes, it’s 2014 and whispers about this “dream fight” from ages past are still happening.
“That’s a fight I would personally love to see,” Coker said after Bellator 123. “But I just don’t know if it’s going to happen.”
When pressed as to why he was pessimistic, Coker cited Couture’s appearance on Dancing with the Stars. However, Coker did not that he was currently talking with M-1 and was going to be speaking with Couture next.
“All I can say is that we’re in dialogue with M-1, but that’s all I have to say at this time about that,” he said about bringing the retired Fedor Emelianenko into Bellator.
And regarding Couture, Coker was equally mum.
“We’ll see him next. We’ll talk to him and see what he has to say.”
For the record, Couture is 51 years old and Emelianenko is 37. The UFC attempted to book this fight in 2007 and failed. Affliction tried to book this fight as well but ended up going out of business.
It seems that this fight is just one of MMA’s great “what-ifs.” And now that it’s 2014, it should stay that way.
Bellator seems to be obsessed with recreating MMA from 2007. While that seems like a smart goal–MMA in 2007 was great–you can’t recreate 2007 in MMA with 2007′s fighters. They’re all too old now. Recreating the MMA boom won’t come from recycling faded stars until they’re in their late 40s (or older in Couture’s case). While names are certainly important for Bellator, new talent is even more important. They obviously need to hire some names to draw attention to the product, but this attention should then be used to highlight younger prospects in the company, not some pipe dream from seven years ago or a some ridiculous, pro wrestling-like stunt.
Although Jeff Monson wisely avoided his go-to strategy of fucking dudes for free when he met Aleksander “Patient Zero” Emelianenko at M-1 Challenge 35 yesterday, he was able to come away with another one of his signature North-South submission victories. We wouldn’t exactly call the events leading up to said finish pretty — Monson’s wild, looping punches in the early going only looked passable when compared to the half-assed takedown attempts that followed them, but “The Snowman” did manage to sweep Emelianenko once things hit the ground in the first round and controlled the Russian for the rest of the fight thereafter.
Although Jeff Monson wisely avoided his go-to strategy of fucking dudes for free when he met Aleksander “Patient Zero” Emelianenko at M-1 Challenge 35 yesterday, he was able to come away with another one of his signature North-South submission victories. We wouldn’t exactly call the events leading up to said finish pretty — Monson’s wild, looping punches in the early going only looked passable when compared to the half-assed takedown attempts that followed them, but “The Snowman” did manage to sweep Emelianenko once things hit the ground in the first round and controlled the Russian for the rest of the fight thereafter.
In fact, Monson would use the same half guard sweep in the second stanza to eventually secure a takedown again, much to the chagrin of brother Fedor and emperor Vadim, who were watching stoically from ringside. Emelianenko would not be so lucky this round, and after an ankle lock attempt failed, he would succumb to the death traps that are Monson’s armpits at the 3:17 mark.
With the win, Monson improved to 47-13 as a pro and has put together 4 wins and a draw since losing to Fedor almost a year ago to the day. Say what you want about Monson, but inactive is something the dude is not. As for Aleks, it was a tough loss that snapped a four fight win streak, but hey, at least he found an opponent who was actually willing to fight back this time.
There may be nothing worse for an MMA promotion than a lackluster title fight. If you’re promoting two fighters as the best fighters your promotion has to offer at their respective weight class and they fail to deliver an entertaining fight, everyone looks bad. The promotion looks foolish for claiming that a sub-par fighter is the best it has to offer, all of the other fighters in that weight class look laughably incompetent by default (after all, they weren’t skilled enough to challenge for the title), and fans in attendance feel cheated. Just in case you can’t figure out where this is going: Kenny Garner vs. Maxim Grishin as an interim heavyweight championship fight all but canceled out the rest M-1 Challenge 27.
This isn’t to say that last night’s M-1 event didn’t deliver the exciting finishes we’ve come to expect from them. In fact, none of the fights from the main card went the distance. The night started off with three first round submissions from Daniel Madrid, Yasubey Enomoto and Arthur Guseinov, respectively. The combined amount of time it took these three to submit their opponents? Two minutes and forty five seconds. Very nice, gentlemen.
There may be nothing worse for an MMA promotion than a lackluster title fight. If you’re promoting two fighters as the best fighters your promotion has to offer at their respective weight class and they fail to deliver an entertaining fight, everyone looks bad. The promotion looks foolish for claiming that a sub-par fighter is the best it has to offer, all of the other fighters in that weight class look laughably incompetent by default (after all, they weren’t skilled enough to challenge for the title), and fans in attendance feel cheated. Just in case you can’t figure out where this is going: Kenny Garner vs. Maxim Grishin as an interim heavyweight championship fight all but canceled out the rest M-1 Challenge 27.
This isn’t to say that last night’s M-1 event didn’t deliver the exciting finishes we’ve come to expect from them. In fact, none of the fights from the main card went the distance. The night started off with three first round submissions from Daniel Madrid, Yasubey Enomoto and Arthur Guseinov, respectively. The combined amount of time it took these three to submit their opponents? Two minutes and forty five seconds. Very nice, gentlemen.
But then it was time for Garner vs. Grishin. In a fight between two heavyweights who have never heard of a treadmill, Garner’s game plan involved some occasional strikes in order set up the clinch against the ropes with Grishin. Despite a lack of action, both men were exhausted by the end of the first round, leading to even more stalling and even slower punches as the fight continued. Because this was a title fight, fans were punished for whatever sins they have committed with two additional rounds. Despite almost finishing Garner with an armbar and a triangle choke in the championship rounds, Grishin tapped out from strikes during the fifth round. Kenny Garner is now the M-1 Global Interim Heavyweight champion, and coincidentally, I no longer consider interim championships significant. If you thought that fight was boring to read about, just imagine actually watching it.
In the main event, Light Heavyweight Champion Vinny Magalhaes took a break from training with Fedor for his upcoming clash with Jeff Monson in order to defend the title against Mikhail Zayats. Throughout the fight, Zayats was actually getting the better of Magalhaes. Zayats outstruck Magalhaes, and managed to stuff the ADCC gold medalist’s takedown attempts. But Mikhail Zayats picked the wrong time to drop his hands, and was dropped by the champion with a right head kick. Vinny Magalhaes now improves to 9-5-1 with the victory.
Filed under: M-1 Global, NewsIt didn’t come the way most expected, but M-1 Global light-heavyweight champion Vinny Magalhaes successfully defended his championship, scoring a third-round TKO at 3:13 of the third round.
It didn’t come the way most expected, but M-1 Global light-heavyweight champion Vinny Magalhaes successfully defended his championship, scoring a third-round TKO at 3:13 of the third round.
Magalhaes, a jiu-jitsu star who just last month won the gold medal at the Abu Dhabi Combat Club submission wrestling world championships in his weight class, came into the fight with seven of his eight career victories by way of submission. And though he threatened at several moments of the fight, the end came after he slammed opponent Mikhail Zayats with a head kick, then finished him with ground strikes to force a referee stoppage.
It was the fifth straight win for Magalhaes, who is now 9-5-1.
Zayats had his moments, particularly in the standup, where he nailed Magalhaes with a series of leg kicks throughout the duration of the bout. But Magalhaes came alive in the third to pull out the win in the main event of a show held at Grand Canyon University Arena in Phoenix.
In an interim heavyweight championship fight, Kenny Garner outlasted Maxim Grishin in a fifth-round submission due to strikes. It was a bout that saw both men battle through exhaustion before Grishin could take no more with just 53 seconds left in the five-round affair.
The fight was somewhat marred by some bizarre problems, including a shortened round when the ringside clock operator did not heed the referee’s timeout signal, referee positioning errors on restarts from under the ropes, and Grishin’s near-refusal to get back to his feet near the end of round four.
Amazingly, Grishin nearly came back to win, nearly locking Garner in an armbar before Garner pulled free and blasted his way tot the victory. Garner (8-3) is expected to next face current heavyweight champion Guram Gugenishvili, who injured his elbow just last week. Gugenishvili is undefeated at 11-0.
The other three main card fights all ended in a flash. In the opener, Daniel Madrid defeated Tom Gallichio via armbar in just 48 seconds. Then, Yasubey Enomoto topped Josh Thorpe with a triangle in 67 seconds, and not to be outdone, Arthur Guseinov finished off Eddie Arizmendi with a heel hook submission in just 50 seconds.
Main Card Results
Vinny Magalhaes def. Mikhail Zayats via TKO (strikes) – Round 3 (1:13)
Kenny Garner def. Maxim Grishin via submission (strikes) – Round 5 (4:07)
Arthur Guseinov def. Eddie Arizmendi via submission (heel hook) – Round 1 (0:50)
Yasubey Enomoto def. Josh Thorpe via submission (triangle) – Round 1 (1:07)
Daniel Madrid def. Tom Gallicchio via submission (armbar) – Round 1 (0:48)
(Yeah, Putin’s gonna get a big kick out of that, buddy. / Photo via hookedonmma)
Nursing a three-fight losing streak following his shockingly unsuccessful run in Strikeforce, Fedor Emelianenko will reportedly return to action against heavyweight veteran Jeff Monson on November 12th in Russia. Monson announced the matchup last night on Twitter, adding that the fight will be promoted by M-1 Global and there will be a press conference on September 16th. (“Putin will be there. Gonna try and get pic with him in my ‘Communist’ t-shirt.”)
Following his unsuccessful UFC title challenge against Tim Sylvia in November 2006, Monson left the UFC to pursue a bout with Emelianenko for BodogFIGHT. Though the match was scheduled for March 2007, negotiations fell apart and Emelianenko wound up fighting Matt Lindland instead.
(Yeah, Putin’s gonna get a big kick out of that, buddy. / Photo via hookedonmma)
Nursing a three-fight losing streak following his shockingly unsuccessful run in Strikeforce, Fedor Emelianenko will reportedly return to action against heavyweight veteran Jeff Monson on November 12th in Russia. Monson announced the matchup last night on Twitter, adding that the fight will be promoted by M-1 Global and there will be a press conference on September 16th. (“Putin will be there. Gonna try and get pic with him in my ‘Communist’ t-shirt.”)
Following his unsuccessful UFC title challenge against Tim Sylvia in November 2006, Monson left the UFC to pursue a bout with Emelianenko for BodogFIGHT. Though the match was scheduled for March 2007, negotiations fell apart and Emelianenko wound up fighting Matt Lindland instead.
It didn’t come the way most expected, but M-1 Global light-heavyweight champion 