M-1 Global held its press-conference dedicated to the upcoming fourth installment of team tournament M-1 Challenge. Russian media got the details announced by M-1 Global and Mix-Fight M-1 league president Vadim Finkelstein, league vice-president Sergey Matvienko, culture and sports committee of Saint Petersburg chairman deputy Konstantin Zheludkov. Of course Red Devil's Alexander Emelianenko, Roman Zentsov and Mikhail Malyutin were present, too.
This time around 5 channels visited the conference which lasted about 1,5 hour. During the conference an infmercial trailer of an upcoming M-1 Gobal's project Fighting Fedor, which is due to start this summer, was presented to the media.
Below are some of the quotes stated yesterday:
Sergey Matvienko: "This is our second "Battle on the Neva" and we tend to make this event more and more spectacular every time. As far as sport developing is concerned, we opened a sports school last year which helps adolescents develop themselves. This all is made in the context of a big campaign in St.Petersburg. In the future we plan to open a Martial Arts Academy here."
Vadim Finkelstein: Battle on the Neva 2 is combined with M-1 Challenge 4 and the next M-1 Challenge events will be held in Japan and Korea...
As for Fighting Fedor, the show will consist of 15 episodes, the shooting will take place in Saint Petersburg based Red Devil academy. At the moment an agreement is reached with a major korean SBS network about broadcasting of the show. The negotiations with other major networks are ongoing...
We intend to broadcast all of our events LIVE in the future. This year we tune everything in but beginning from the next year everybody will get an opportunity of watching our shows on-line...
Fedor and Aleksander will star in a movie produced by Jean-Claude Van Damme. The shooting will commence this August...
For the first time in history of the sport the USA will witness the fight for the right of possessing an international organization's belt come July, 19-th. Until this very moment there were lots of MMA organizations and now we'll try to discover one champion among all the promotions. It's got to be somebody from top-ten who beats top-ten fighters. On July, 19-th this be;t will be handed to the winner of the Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia battle...
I'm extremely sorry but Russian major networks seem reluctant to world top level events of such a caliber. Although we run out of time we have still a month to go befor July, 19 event. We still hope that the situations changes and Russian audience will get an opportunity to enjoy thismegaevent live. Anyway sooneror later we'll give them such an opportunity.
Alexander Emelianenko: "I'm impatiently waiting for the fight to begin. At the moment I train and spar very hard to be very well prepared when time comes. I'm relieved to finally get a strong and a hard opponent. While being in the US I want to ask Affliction and M-1 to put me against the strongest opponents they can get for me. I want to fight the best in order to prove I'm the best."
NB: The Battle on the Neva 2 will commence at 20:00 (Moscow time) on June, 27 in Saint Petersburg. Just like the first Battle on the Neva this show will be held on the floating ponton moored to a ship "Flying Dutchman". Every citizen of Saint Petersburg will be able to watch the show LIVE near Vasilievsky Island where two huge plasme screens will be placed with live broadcast from the stage.
The weigh-ins are scheduled for June, 26.
