ST. PETERSBURG, Rusland (Januar 19, 2017) – M-1 Global has announced that 2016 M-1 Grand Prix mellemvægt mester Alexander “Storm” Shlemenko vilje overskrift M-1 Challenge 75 i Moskva.

It has also been announced that American lightweight Keon “The Black Assassin” Caldwell will make his M-1 Global debut versus former M-1 Challenge lightweight champion Maxim Divnich.

M-1 Challenge 75 vil blive streamet live fra Moskva i high definition på www.M1Global.TV. Seerne vil være i stand til at se de indledende kampe og hovedkortet ved at logge på registrere på www.M1Global.TV. Fans kan se alle de foranstaltninger på deres computere, samt på Android og Apple smartphones og tabletter.

Shlemenko (54-9-0. 1 NC, M-1: 4-0-0), a three-time Bellator champion, besejrede den tidligere M-1 Challenge mester Vyacheslav Vasilevsky (see picture above with Shlemenko on right) sidste år i M-1 Grand Prix mellemvægt Championship semifinalen og mesterskabet endelig, henholdsvis, ved tre-runde flertalsbeslutning og tredje-runde indsendelse (choker). Shlemenko vs. Vasilevsky I & II were the M-1 Challenge 68 & 64 Kampe i nat.

In a much-anticipated All-Russian middleweight showdown, Shlemenko was supposed to fight reigning M-1 Challenge middleweight champion Ramadan Emeev, who was unfortunately injured during training camp, forcing him out of that match. Vasilevsky replaced Emeev against Shlemenko in the championship final.

I sin sidste handling, Shlemenko stopped Kendall Grove in the second round of their main event fight on Bellator 162 last October in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Alexander Shlemenko fighting in Russia is always a significant event,” M-1 Global præsident Vadim Finkelchtein sagde, “as he is a true legend of Russian MMA. His fights always sellout arenas, no matter who his opponent. We all know that the story we started last year at M<-1 Grand Prix 2016 isn’t over, endnu. The whole country is waiting for the fight between Russia’s two best middleweights – Alexander Shlemenko and Ramazan Emeev.

“Ramazan was injured and Shlemenko had contractual obligations with Bellator. Så, throughout the past month, we were waiting for Shlemenko to receive permission to fight in Russia. Nu, we have arranged for him to fight on M-1 Challenge 75. We’ve done a great job to make this possible and now hope that, denne gang, we will be able to complete this exciting story.”

Undefeated M-1 Udfordring weltervægt mester Alexey Kunchenko (15-0-0, M-1: 7-0-0), Rusland, will defend his title against an opponent to be announced, due to originally announced Kazakh challenger, ubesejret Shaukat Rakhmonov (7-0-0, M-1: 4-0-0), withdrawing due to a knee injury.

Russisk weltervægt udsigten Sergey “streetfighter” Romanov (10-1-0, M-1: 3-0-0) faces Russian veteran Magomed “The White Wolf” Sultanakhmedov (18-5-0, M-1: 10-1-0) på den M-1 Challenge 75 kort.

Caldwell (11-3-0, M-1: 0-0-0), fighting out of Georgia, is the US-based Island Fights champion. A powerful puncher who has nine knockouts in his 11 pro victories, Caldwell was supposed to compete in the 13^th season of The Ultimate Fighter, but he withdrew due to personal reasons. He has had several fights in World Series of Fighting.

A Ukrainian fighting out of Moscow, Divnich captured the vacant M-1 Challenge lightweight title in 2014 på M-1 Challenge 54, standsning Dzhambulat Kurbanov in the third round on punches in the Fight of the Night. I 2015, Divnich lost his first title defense by third-round knockout to Mansour Barnaoui på M-1 Challenge 57. I sin sidste kamp, Artiom Damkovsky knocked out Divnich with a kick in the second-round of their fight this past September at M-1 Challenge 70.

INFORMATION:

www.M1Global.tv

@ M1GlobalNews

VFinkelchtein

@ M1Global

M-1 Challenge 74 – Februar. 18, 2017 – St. Petersburg, Rusland

M-1 Challenge 75 – Marts 3, 2017 – Moskva, Rusland