For those of you who have ever entertained even a moment's skepticism about the wise and savory crew surrounding the world's best heavyweight, Fedor Emelianenko, rest easy.
I'm kidding.
Sam Caplan has a very revealing interview with Bas Rutten's least favorite man in the MMA biz, Jerry Millen. Millen is now entering into an unholy alliance with Vadim Finkelstein, Fedor's manager and the genius behind M-1, the promotion that's already taken the world of MMA by storm.
Millen was the Vice President of PRIDE USA where he served a role similar to Saddam Hussein's information minister, denying the collapse of PRIDE up until the moment Dana and the Fertittas walked into his office and threw him out.
Now he's the American Vice-President of M-1, the promotion that has the #1 fighter in the world under contract. They have a deal with HDNet and are putting on an interesting event:
the M-1 Challenge consists of nine teams with five fighters on each team. We have nine countries represented. We have Team USA, which is Heath Sims out of Dan Henderson’s Team Quest gym in Temecula. We’ve got five guys through Heath and then Matt Lindland helped me out. We’ve got Team Japan. We’ve also got two teams from Russia: Russia Legion and also the Red Devil team, which is Fedor and Vadim’s gym in St. Petersburg. Korea, Spain, we have a World Team, Finland, France, and also Holland.
I’m telling you, some of the fighters that we have in the M-1 Challenge, I think they can jump right into any major promotion. We’ve got a guy from Holland by the name of Bogdan Christea and another guy from Team Holland, Jason Jones, who is a very tough fighter. There’s Jessie Gibson, a heavyweight from Holland. There’s also a guy by the name of Karl Amoussou. Even though MMA isn’t legal in France they have a lot of fighters and Karl Amoussou is a great fighter out of France. And then there’s a fighter named Kiril Sidelnikov. They call him "Baby Fedor." This kid is tough. He’s 19-years old and he can take a punch and he can deliver a punch. He is "Baby Fedor." One name to remember out of Russia is Kiril. He’s a tough, tough fighter. And on Team USA there’s also Jake Ellenberger, David Garner, and Mike Dolce, who was on the seventh season of "The Ultimate Fighter." There’s a lot of young up and comers but a lot of these guys are already good.
We have a website where you can learn more about the M-1 Challenge at M1Mixfight.com.
Read the whole interview it's filled with craziness, much dissing of Dana, many unlikely claims and a cameo by former Rampage Jackson manager Juanito Iberra.
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