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Best of Russian MMA
By Chris Leslie on January 23, 2013
Best of Russia
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For many years, it was easy to name the best Russian fighter with the reign of "The Last Emperor" Fedor Emelianenko. While Emelianenko has retired, Russia has seen a new influx of talent the last few years that is sure to carry on the proud MMA tradition of Russian fighters. With combatants like UFC on FX 7's Khabib Nurmagomedov bringing more attention to the nation, MMAFrenzy breaks down the current and future talent in the region.
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@ChrisL
Thanks Chris! Who is going to do it if not you :-)
Just few things to add: In Kavkaz region, the only sports that considered the sports are wrestling and boxing and if you are the men, and you have to be a men in these places this only sports you do and because you have not much else to do, they “sleep” in the gym and the results you getting best athletes from this region of Russia. I just wish it some Olympic level wrestlers come over to MMA, it’s not time, yet , because the MMA is not as popular/prestige as wrestling, but I’m confident this time will come and one day we would see somebody like Fedor who would be dominant champion for the long time.
Few more names to watch:
1)Vitaly Minakov: 10 – 0 in MMA (1 – 0 ) at Bellator and Sambo World Champion (4-time)
2)Yana Kunitskaya: 8 -1 in MMA, Multi time champion/international tournament winner in MA disciplines such as: Muay Thai, Grappling, Taekwondo and etc.
@vasya thank you my friend. Found some other fighters while researching this piece. Just had to make the cut off somewhere!
@ChrisL
I’m sure it’s few more, but from these who is currently fighting in a NA stage I think you covered everyone, anyways would like to know all the names you found, for the last 6 moth I had no time for Russian MMA :-( (not that too much changed), but before I knew most of the talent either who is shinning already and who has some potential to shine later. I think the best place to put your list is over the forum sections, we already have a topic open: “russian-fighters-in-modern-mma”, but if you have to put it on the main page, just do part 2. Thanks again for always providing interesting information. You and Jesse both doing great job and it’s always interesting to read everything that comes from both of you.