Jerry Millen tells about the concept of Fighting Fedor and reveals why it's going to be exciting.
I was approached Vadim Finkelstein, manager of Fedor and president of M-1 Global to come work for them. I love Fedor, I know Fedor for a long time. Enormous person and a great fighter. I felt that Fedor needed a vehicle because the American audience doesn’t really know Fedor as the person. They might have seen him as a fighter but it is absolutely different.
So what would be a great vehicle for him? It’s hard to find a competition for Fedor because he pretty much smashes everybody. So why not give an average MMA fighter a chance to maybe fight Fedor. It’s like Rocky challenge of our time. You could see it at UFC, Pride or at M-1 Challenge for many times – nobody knows what can happen.
So, 16 guys we will compete and one guy will get a chance to fight Fedor. Is that a grand price? Yeah, because you could make a name for yourself if you could happen to beat Fedor.
How are we to expect an unknown fighter will challenge Fedor?
We actually know that in mixed martial arts anything can happen. It’s being proven time to time again. Ground – stand up – ground. Anything can happen.
Why not to give an average guy that trains that shot. There is always a better singer, actor, fighter and they need to be discovered. And how can we discover them? To give them a shot to fight the best. Maybe we will get eight great MMA heavyweight fighters and the goal is to create other heavyweights and put them into big shows of Affliction and M-1 Global.
When will the selection process begin?
Pretty shrotly. We have some guys in mind and we will also contact with quite a few people. Some names you’ll be surprised. So, if your want to get in it - we have the website www.m1mixfigt.com. You can send an e-mail there and who knows. It’s like MMA American Idol , but it’s international. So, if you have some fights you can send us a resume.
Will we be safe from drunken antics (see “The Ultimate Fighter”)?
It is a reality show and you’ll never know what can happen. These guys will be put in a situation. We’ll be shooting in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Russia is a great country, I’ve been there many times now. Americans don’t really understand Russia. Saint Petersburg is awesome. So it is a great chance to show what Russia is really like. The Russian people are great - Vadim and people that work for him from Red Devil and Fedor and so on. The Russian people are just like American people. Politics tend to get into the way. It’s gonna be very interesting because of the atmosphere of Russia.
When and where will the show air?
Honestly, it depends on the network. We will air internationally. There is a lot of interest in this show and that’s why we take international fighters in there. There are 5 countries right now in the M-1 Challenge and we already have interest from other countries for this show so we will take some big fighters that will fight at the show. M-1 Challenge is in about, I believe, 85 countries now…
