MONTE CARLO, Monaco (October 28, 2016)- World Mixed Martial Arts Association (WMMAA) president Vadim Finkelchtein has formally announced that the 2016 World MMA Championships will be held November 26-27 in Macau, China.

“The recent European MMA Championships went very well,” Finkelchtein said. “The Russian National Team once again demonstrated the highest results of competition. In Russia, the fighters are real strong fighters, who repeatedly prove their highest level at the European and World Championships, winning a very difficult competition. The bar has been set significantly high. We have seen athletes from Germany, Ukraine, and Belarus participating at these events. Ukrainians are no longer that far behind the Russians and German fighters have become much stronger in a relatively short time. In addition to The Championships, we held a judicial seminar, where we discussed many important issues regarding the development of our sport. Overall, I think everything was great.

“We’re looking forward to the World MMA Championship in Macau on November 26-27. We expect the participation of athletes to represent 40 to 50 countries around the world. Many have already applied; despite the long distance they must travel to fight. The World MMA Championship will be held at a new venue in Macao Studio City. This is a huge, new complex that is entirely covered in marble with construction costs reaching about $3 billion. I have examined it and the scope of the building is stunning.

“Now, we can say that the championship will have a lot of representatives from Latin America, Asia and Europe. The African region is under developed right now, so only a few countries are participating from there, but Australia and New Zealand are competing. We expect spectacular, competitive fights. We will also be arranging the next WMMAA Congress, where a lot of MMA issues relative to children and women will be discussed. We will decide what countries will host the European, Asian and World MMA Championships next year, as well as create a judicial committee. We shall discuss the time of the mandatory reference date of sport by each country, considering all the athletes, and then fix it. We will solve the issue of holding seminars that are mandatory for coaches, judges and medical specialists in each country. We are still a relatively young organization, so there are still shortcomings. But we are moving forward and working hard to improve.”

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