The Adventures of Saviya and Colin in Europe: M-1 Challenge

So as you all probably know, we are big fight fans. We watch every UFC together since UFC which we saw in person in Las Vegas back in 2006. We went to Cologne Germany in June for UFC 99 and to Manchester UK for UFC105. We have gone to local events and regional events such as Strikeforce at the Tacoma Dome with the ‘great’ Bob Sapp. But when I heard that M-1 Challenge was coming to town, I was pretty excited. Details came out that two previous events had been ‘postponed’ for the M-1 challenge in previous months, an those would be combined into a ‘Mega-Event’ in Hillversum, Netherlands. Hilversum is on south side of Amsterdam, just 15 minutes on the train from our apartment.

This event would be filmed for HDNet Fights in the US, and other shows around the globe. M-1 Global is partially owned by the greatest Russian fighter ever, and one of the best Mixed Martial Arts fighters pound for pound currently in the World - Fedor Emelianenko. M-1 would have 50 fights over a 2 day period for 40 Euro per person for the whole weekend. We had no other information than that. There was poor directions to the event, Studio 22 in the Media Park. For example, the wonderful signs they hung up to point us the right direction once we were on the main studio grounds

Day 1 we took food and drink not knowing what our options would be. But they had hot dogs and other garbage, and beer and soda, some chips and chocolate..the basics for a fight fan. Maybe 200 of us were there, which is mind boggling that they didn't do better to promote the event. But all the better for us. We took our seats on the bleachers, probably 4th row, dead center.

Here is Studio 22 with the giant M1 blow up logo out front…later there would be 190 out of the 200 fans out smoking around this monster..

This event is a team event. Japan vs US, England Vs Turkey, etc. Each city these teams fight 5 fights and which ever country wins the majority of the fights would move up the ladder. Amsterdam would server as the final eliminations before the quarterfinals. So they took time at the start of each day to introduce each team and fighter and got them all in the ring at once.

Out of the 50 fights, there were some duds, some ‘lay and pray’, but and equal number of KO’s and submissions. I would say at least 10 fights were two well matched fighters that put on a spectacle. It was for sure worth the money. Here are just a few shots of the fights, such a small venue making for some decent action shots.

So both days were a lot of fun. There was however horrible, absolutely mind bogglingly bad refereeing. One of the three refs had a clue of the sport they were officiating, the other two were tragic. And the three judges were even worse. So to do well this weekend you had to fight clean, win on your own, and not leave it up to the judges or refs, which is my favorite type!

The Master of Ceremonies for the weekend event was the great Ian Freeman. One of the pioneers of MMA, fought in the UFC and every great event in the 90’s.