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Apparently in Russia, MMA fighters sometimes wear full chain-link armor and wield swords. This bizarre spin on traditional MMA was the brainchild of M1-Global—a leading Russian MMA promotion that birthed the likes of UFC stars Shavkat Rakhmonov and Ale…
Apparently in Russia, MMA fighters sometimes wear full chain-link armor and wield swords. This bizarre spin on traditional MMA was the brainchild of M1-Global—a leading Russian MMA promotion that birthed the likes of UFC stars Shavkat Rakhmonov and Alexander Volkov. In 2015, M1 began staging full-contact jousting matches—or “knight fights”—to keep the crowd entertained in…
Continue Reading Only In Russia: The Bizarre World of Medieval MMA at MMA News.
European MMA promotions have for years proved fertile breeding ground for some of MMA’s biggest stars. The likes of Conor McGregor, Michael Bisping and Jan Blachowicz cut their teeth in the region’s top promotions prior to gaining mainstream success. And now more than ever, we’re seeing an increasing number of European fighters funnel through these…
Continue Reading Top 4 European MMA Promotions Right Now at MMA News.
European MMA promotions have for years proved fertile breeding ground for some of MMA’s biggest stars. The likes of Conor McGregor, Michael Bisping and Jan Blachowicz cut their teeth in the region’s top promotions prior to gaining mainstream success. And now more than ever, we’re seeing an increasing number of European fighters funnel through these promotions into the UFC, Bellator and the PFL.
Here we rank the top 4 European MMA promotions right now.
No other European MMA promotion has produced such a star-studded list of fighters than Cage Warriors. The likes of Conor McGregor, Michael Bisping, Joanna J?drzejczyk and Dan Hardy all rose through the promotion’s ranks prior to achieving global success. So too current UFC stars Paddy Pimblett, Ian Garry, Jack Hermansson and Molly McCann, among others. Bellator’s Gegard Mousasi also cut his teeth in Cage Warriors.
Since its founding in 2001, Cage Warriors has hosted over 150 events across the United Kingdom, Ireland and continental Europe. The Irish-owned, London-based promotion has even made its way onto US shores, having staged three events in San Diego, California in the past year.
Formally known as Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki, which translates from Polish into “Martial Arts Confrontation,” KSW rose from the humblest beginnings to become one of the biggest European MMA promotions.
The Poland based outfit was founded in the early 2000’s by Martin Lewandowski, at the time a manager at the Hotel Marriot in Warsaw, and friend Maciej Kawulski. Back then, MMA was a little-known sport in Poland, and the duo quickly realized that there was an untapped opportunity to bring MMA to the Eastern European country.
“My personal goal was to find new sports which weren’t so well known and try to grow them in the country,” Lewandowski told Bloody Elbow in 2019. “I tried with Formula 1 and American Football, but those efforts didn’t really come to anything. Myself and Maciej thought we saw a gap in the market for MMA so that is when KSW was born.”
In 2004, KSW held its first event in a sports bar within the Warsaw Marriot Hotel, before just 300 fans. Fast forward to 2017, and the promotion broke the then record for the largest live attendance at a European MMA event, and achieved the second largest in history, with over 57,000 attending KSW 39 in Warsaw. KSW has now held over seventy events in Poland, the UK and even in the US.
Like other European promotions, KSW was also the old stomping ground for some of the best talent in the UFC. Former UFC light heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz is the most famous KSW alum. Surging lightweight Mateusz Gamrot, middleweight Dricus Du Plessis, and women’s flyweight Karolina Kowalkiewicz also once plied their trade in KSW.
Even UFC heavyweight Alexander Gustafson once graced the KSW ring early in his career, so too all-round combat sports icon and TV personality Butterbean.
If you’re wondering why so much top talent from the former Soviet states has entered the UFC in recent years, part of the reason is M1-Global. Since 2018, the St. Petersburg, Russia based promotion has been in partnership with the UFC, serving as a farm league for the world’s premier MMA outfit to scout fighters.
Most recently, we’ve seen surging welterweight prospect Shavkat Rakhmonov and featherweight Movsar Evloev enter the UFC via M1-Global. Heavyweights Alexander Volkov, Marcin Tybura and Alexey Oliynyk also travelled the same path. And MMA greats Khabib Nurmagomedov and Fedor Emelianenko also briefly fought in M1-Global.
M1-Global is one of the oldest European MMA promotions, with a history stretching back to 1997. It’s also one of the more unconventional. In 2015, the promotion debuted M1-Medieval, which features full-contact jousting matches between “knights” dressed in chain mail and wielding swords. Surely there can’t be a more European take on MMA than this.
The talent that has sprung forth from Absolute Championship Akhmat (ACB) over the years surely warrants its inclusion among the top European MMA promotions. However, the Russian based outfit is also notorious for its close ties to one of the region’s most ruthless dictators, the MMA-obsessed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Petr Yan, Askar Askarov and the recently retired Zabit Magomedsharapov were all ACB champions prior to entering the UFC. The promotion also boasts Artem Lobov and UFC light heavyweight contender Magomed Ankalaev as alums.
Since 2012, ACB has held over 140 MMA, kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu events in Russia, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Australia and the US. But since late 2020, the promotion has been forced to remain within Russia due to US sanctions imposed on Kadyrov. Russia’s pariah status since its invasion of Ukraine also hasn’t helped ACB’s cause.
In years past, the promotion stuck to a regular schedule of monthly events, but it’s now been over a year since its last. It’s likely that difficulties securing visas for foreign fighters, and the reluctance of international partners willing to do business, are key contributors to ACB’s present troubles.
What do you think? Are there any other top European MMA promotions worthy of a mention?
Continue Reading Top 4 European MMA Promotions Right Now at MMA News.
(Just so you know, Rolles is the one on the bottom.)
Sad news for those of you who were still clinging to the insane hope that Fedor Emelianenko would be the man to challenge Junior Dos Santos for the UFC Heavyweight title –all six of you– as the rumor currently circulating the MMA blogosphere has “The Last Emperor’s” potential opponent bar set a little…lower. Go figure.
Yes, according to none other than Rolles Gracie himself, via his Twitter, it looks like the other member of the Gracie clan to go one-and-done in the UFC is currently negotiating with M-1 Global to put the fight together this summer, stating:
Where there is smoke there is fire. My manager is under negotiation with M1. We’re really close to make this fight against Fedor to happen.
Don’t get too excited, Rolles, we all know how tasking the typical M-1 negotiation can be.
(Just so you know, Rolles is the one on the bottom.)
Sad news for those of you who were still clinging to the insane hope that Fedor Emelianenko would be the man to challenge Junior Dos Santos for the UFC Heavyweight title –all six of you– as the rumor currently circulating the MMA blogosphere has “The Last Emperor’s” potential opponent bar set a little…lower. Go figure.
Yes, according to none other than Rolles Gracie himself, via his Twitter, it looks like the other member of the Gracie clan to go one-and-done in the UFC is currently negotiating with M-1 Global to put the fight together this summer, stating:
Where there is smoke there is fire. My manager is under negotiation with M1. We’re really close to make this fight against Fedor to happen.
Don’t get too excited, Rolles, we all know how tasking the typical M-1 negotiation can be.
Fedor was previously rumored to be fighting in St. Petersberg, Russia on June 21st against an unnamed opponent; we’re going to assume that this will be the location that hosts their showdown.
Emelianenko last fought at Dream: Fight for Japan on New Year’s Eve, where he picked up a quick and violent first round KO over former Olympic gold medalist Satoshi Ishii. Prior to that, he scored a unanimous decision over UFC veteran Jeff Monson in November, a win which snapped a three fight losing streak under the Strikeforce banner.
Since getting bounced from the UFC following a disastrous first round TKO at the hands of Joey Beltran at UFC 109, Gracie has scored 2 and 1/3 wins in a row against opponents with a combined record of 23-34. That 1/3rd we’re referring to would be his most recent win, a first round submission via punches over Bob “Gunna Tap” Sapp at One FC 2. At this point in Sapp’s career, a win over him should not be considered an entire victory, because that would assume that he actually fought back.
In case you aren’t exactly picking up what we’re putting down, Rolles Gracie is a dead man.
We’re not even going to talk up Gracie’s incredible ground game like it would present some possible outlet for victory. Citing Fedor’s loss to Fabricio Werdum as further proof that Gracie stood a chance would be an insult to your intelligence. Fedor is going to steamroll Gracie, probably inside of three minutes, and the world will halfheartedly watch with disappointment as Emelianenko continues to fight beneath his level.
Sigh…
-J. Jones
(Gentlemen, gentlemen, I’m just here for the aspic.)
Chalk up another win for anarchists everywhere. According to a Russian website, former UFC heavyweight title contender and renowned political actvist Jeff Monson was in a subway station just hours before his fight with Fedor Emelianenko when he witnessed two Moscow police officers aggressively badgering a poor, drunken homeless man, likely wearing a shawl and holding a baby, and decided to intervene. We’ll let “RT” explain how things went down:
One of the LifeJournal users was shocked when he met Monson in the city’s Metro, which he decided to take in order to make the 40-minute trip to the Moscow outskirts, where he was to hold a master class the day before the fight. He was dressed in hooded top and wearing flip-flops. The temperature on that day was around zero degrees.
On one of the stations he noticed two policemen trying to calm down a drunken man. Their methods seemed too aggressive to the American and he rushed to calm down the policemen. Monson’s escort decided not to wait until the American, known for his penchant for anarchism, beat up the surprised law-enforcers and stopped the scuffle.
(Gentlemen, gentlemen, I’m just here for the aspic.)
Chalk up another win for anarchists everywhere. According to a Russian website, former UFC heavyweight title contender and renowned political actvist Jeff Monson was in a subway station just hours before his fight with Fedor Emelianenko when he witnessed two Moscow police officers aggressively badgering a poor, drunken homeless man, likely wearing a shawl and holding a baby, and decided to intervene. We’ll let “RT” explain how things went down:
One of the LifeJournal users was shocked when he met Monson in the city’s Metro, which he decided to take in order to make the 40-minute trip to the Moscow outskirts, where he was to hold a master class the day before the fight. He was dressed in hooded top and wearing flip-flops. The temperature on that day was around zero degrees.
On one of the stations he noticed two policemen trying to calm down a drunken man. Their methods seemed too aggressive to the American and he rushed to calm down the policemen. Monson’s escort decided not to wait until the American, known for his penchant for anarchism, beat up the surprised law-enforcers and stopped the scuffle.
Now, we can only assume that this story was fabricated by the Russians to cover up the real story – Monson caught them spying on his training regimen, as they’ve been known to do, and decided to lay a good old fashioned American ass-whooping on those commie bastards. It’s no wonder he looked so worn out in his unanimous decision loss to Fedor that night, the man had already used up all of his best combinations saving one of the 99 percent. But if you think about it, Monson went 2-1 on the evening, whereas Mother Russia only went 1-2. What we’re trying to say is…AMERICA!! FUCK YEAH!
On a side note, flip flops?! In zero degree weather?! Really Jeff? And here we thought his “Snowman” nickname came from his short, stocky physique.
-Danga
