ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (January 20, 2016) – M-1 Global President Vadim Finkelchtein recently announced the relaunching of its popular series, M-1 Grand Prix Tournament.

“We’ve been preparing this a long time and now we’re happy to officially announce our 2016 M-1 Grand Prix Tournament,” Finkelchtein said.  “This has been a very popular format and fans are always excited about it.  This time we will feature a 4-man tournament, rather than the usual 8-man pairings, because the 4-man version is faster and more entertaining.  We don’t want to bore people with long expectation periods and lessen the risk of occasional injuries and fighter changes in the tournament.”

The first M-1 Grand Prix match of 2016 is set in the middleweight division as three-time Bellator champion Alexander “Storm” Shlemenko (51-9-0, M-1: 2-0-0) takes on former M-1 Challenge middleweight and light heavyweight titlist Vyacheslav Vasilevsky (27-3-0, M-1: 10-1-0)at M-1 Challenge 64, February 19 at Olympic Stadium in Moscow.

“Well, we were choosing between several offers from different promotions,” explained Shlemenoko’s manager Alexey Zhernakov.  “In the end, we came to the conclusion that M-1 Grand Prix participation is the most interesting option for us at the moment.  Alexander is still under Bellator’s exclusive contract.  Therefore, we had to negotiate with Bellator, which kindly allowed us to sign with M-1 Global.  We expect Alexander Shlemenko to take part in major M-1 Challenge events as they are always organized at a high level and broadly covered by the media.”