MONTE CARLO, Monaco (July 4, 2016) — The World Mixed Martial Arts Association (WMMAA) has received an appeal from Stefano Sartori, manager of Brazilian fighter Fabio Maldonado, to reassess the result of his June 17^thfight with Fedor Emelianenko, which headlined Fight Nights Global 50 in Saint Petersburgh, Russia.

Emelianenko was awarded a win by majority decision, which Team Malondado has appealed, claiming a conflict of interest because all of the judges are employed by the Russian MMA Union, of which Emelianenko serves as president.

Team Maldonado believes Maldonando should have won the decision, or the fight declared a draw at the very least, in their opinion, as the Brazilian clearly won the first round, 10-8, Emelianenko came back to take the second round, 10-9, and the third round was a toss-up.

Because Russian MMA Union vice president Radmir Gabdullin was the head judge for the aforementioned bout, Team Maldonando feels that a fair judgement regarding its appeal can be rendered only by independent, international judges reviewing the fight.

Team Maldonando has appealed the decision on grounds that there was an obvious conflict of interest in terms of the Russian MMA Union judges and their close association with Fedor, as well as the quality of decisions they rendered.  Rather than appeal the decision to the Russian MMA Union, which they claimed would place Russian judges under intense pressure, Team Maldonando made the appeal directly to the WMMAA because the Russian MMA Union is a sanctioned member of the worldwide sanctioning body WMMAA.

WMMAA president Vadim Finkelchtein has announced the following sequence of actions:

Aug.3-8 – Asian MMA Championship in Hwasun, South Korea

Sept. 14-16 – European MMA Championship in Tbilisi, Georgia

Oct. 7-9 – Inaugural Pan-American Championships in Santiago, Chile

Nov. 18-20 – World MMM Championship in Macau, China

Twitter:  @theWMMAA

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