President of the League of mixed martial arts MIXFIGHT M-1, Vadim Finkelstein told about the birth of mixed martial in Russia.
Vadim Dyachenko, in childhood and youth, you did not go in for any sport. How is it that you came to mixed martial arts and now you dedicate the most of your time to it?
Rather, i didn’t come to fighting, but it came to me. In 1995, I began to work in market promotion of the energy drink Red Devil, which formula was developed by Dutch experts.
The organizers of mixed martial arts came to my office, the president of the International Association of mixed martial arts Api Ehteld with his partner, and they offered to sponsor the tournament.
At that time I knew nothing about this area of combat.
New friends told me about the mixed fighting, and I thought that a brand new drink might be interesting to the amateurs of fights, find its audience.
One could, of course, apply to a specialized advertising agency and pay for product promotion, but the distribution must be rebuilt, as well as logistics and partner network.
I had nothing like that. So I decided to use an unusual marketing way. Moreover, it required not much money. So Dutch ring discovered the name Red Devil.
So, mixed fighting must implement a business idea its appearance in Russia?
Not exactly. Indeed, at first I was going to sponsor only competitions, but when I saw fighting itself, they truly interested me.
The hall where they were held, was small, for 1,5-2 thousand spectators, but the situation there, the organization of fights made a very good impression.
In addition, the battles interested me with its readability.
To watch competitions on various types of combat is interesting only to those who went in for them and understand what is happening on the carpet.
The same is true, for example, about fencing.
To understand what is happening on the track, how this or that athlete receives the points, is impossible for a profane.
In mixed martial arts all is clear, even for not a specialist, minimal intervention of referee also makes them more spectacular.
When Russian fighters first came to the ring?
In 1996, we have assembled a team that included Sergei Bychkov, Nikolay Kudryashov and other fighters, which we took to Holland, at match meeting Holland-Russia.
The boys were successful, and in autumn 1997 we had a tournament at the Palace of Sports “Jubileyniy” at the level of the European Championship.
Such the stars of mixed martial arts as Bob Schreiber, Gilbert Ivel and others were involved.
Competitions gathered then more than four thousand spectators.
Petersburg was represented by Sergey Bychkov, Ruslan Kerselyan, Nikolay Kudryashov and others. Then most of our fighters were defeated, but it became clear that they were able to resist the best foreign representatives of mixed martial arts.
Then mixed martial arts were more often called the fighting without rules, and the first tournament got a mixed assessment by the press and many viewers …
Do not forget that this was the first championship organized by us and certainly there were some mistakes.
As regards the title “ultimate fighting”, I did not like it from the very beginning and actually it did not correspond to the reality – the rules were and still are, and they are quite strict.
Nevertheless, the name was caught on in Russia, although in recent times, we try to escape it. In 1998, Red Devil club was opened, the League “Mix-Fight Championships on fights without rules of M-1″ was registered.
