There are not many sports leagues who are holding events around the entire Global due to the ongoing spread of the coronavirus.
Russian MMA promotion M-1 Global is not of them as they recently hosted a live MMA event in Minsk, Belarus on Wednesday. The promotion’s official Instagram channel stated that the behind-closed-doors event, named “Heroes of the Black Square” was to be run “under the most stringent conditions as determined by trained medical doctors,” with “all fighters and participants tested and monitored for COVID-19 by trained medical professionals.”
During the event, black face masks could be seen worn by everyone in the arena except for the two fighters in the ring.
Even the ring girls were masked up.
In the main event, Belarusian middleweight Denis Maher came out victorious with a first-round submission over Valijon Serdarov.
Vladislav Novitzky defeated Maxim Rzheusky via first-round armbar in the co-main event.
Here is the full live session:
M-1 Global founder Vadim Finkelchtein explained that he wanted to fill a void in the sports world left after the coronavirus pandemic, and that’s despite the backlash he has received.
“You all know what the situation is now in the country and in the world,” Finkelchtein said. “People are forced to sit at home. In the field of music and art, online concerts and performances have gained popularity, for art lovers there is a large selection of such broadcasts, but for sports lovers there is nothing at all. We can see from the comments how boys who are not interested in concerts missed out on sporting events. Gyms are closed, even street sports are banned. That’s it for the sports audience, so we decided to make a gift and hold a closed online tournament.”
M-1 Global plans to hold up to four separate shows over the next ten days.
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