I don’t know if you realize, but M-1 Challenge 26 goes down tonight, and is live on Showtime at 11PM ET. The Russian promotion is straying from their typical European circuit to hit up California and I don’t blame them, European weather is about as consistent as my Blackberry, which seems to have a life of its own. This card is headlined with a rematch between American heavyweights Pat Bennett and Kenny Garner, who claimed after the weigh ins that he would end the fight in six punches. The rest of the card is packed with ambitious and hungry Europeans looking to make a name for themselves in America.
The show kicks off with U.S. Army’s Captain ‘G.I.’ Jason Norwood taking on Eddie Arzimendi who has cut from 225lbs to middleweight and is unbeaten in three years. Following this, the talented German submission machine Daniel Weichel will square off with former NCAA Div. I wrestler and all round scary dude Beau Baker, who is so intimidating that his mean mug caused a guy to jump out the window of the second story of a building. The promising Mairbek Taisumov and M-1 Selection veteran Josh Bacallao will look to light up the arena with their youthful exuberance, as both are only 23. A good showing here could catapult either man to the next level and with both also sharing a background in wrestling we could well see a fifteen minute slugfest.
MMA math is probably the most useless and arbitrary idea of all time, right up there with cheese in a tube. At least, that’s the opinion of Arthur Guseinov who holds a win over M-1 Challenge’s middleweight champion Magomed Sultanakhmedov. His opponent, Tyson Jeffries lost to Magomed in March by TKO. MMA math tells you that Guseinov will win, but MMA math is stupid. Truth is, Jeffries has stepped up his training for this fight and was recently a sparring partner for Rampage Jackson for his fight with Lyoto Machida. As we all know, MMA is crazy and we’ll just have to tune in to find out how it all pans out. Watch it tonight!
