Tim Leidecker over at Sherdog has an article revolving around M-1 Global's plans to move into Germany as part of a strategy to build a fighter base for the promotion and bring MMA to the country. We haven't heard much from M-1 as of late regarding their expansion plans. We've only heard of their support for Yarennoka and the "pimping" of Fedor Emelianenko to the event by Vadim Finkelstein. With the NYE event coming up and a U.S. debut in February, it looks like M-1 Global will focus on beating UFC to the European market.

Plans in Germany

According to the article, groundandpound.de reported that M-1 Global had scheduled their first event for April in Germany. The key statistic in the news is that the event is a trial run at a 2,000 seat Wandsbeker Sporthalle or the 7,000 seat Sporthalle Hamburg. Both venues are fairly small for any type of big event that would draw huge revenues, but the article mentions that this will be a trial run. It is also mentioned that a second show would be at a much larger arena, possibly in Cologne or Oberhausen.

The local promoter, Human Nikmaslak, revealed a lot of information as well. Apparently, the promotion will hold 6 Russian shows, 6 Japanese shows, and 4 shows in the Netherlands, all MMA havens in Europe and Asia. For these smaller shows, it was revealed that the plan was to create teams by country, much like Echteld's format in the 2 Hot 2 Handle promotion.

There are some other interesting comments as well regarding how the organization will run these shows to feed their bigger promotions. The team concept shows will be much like a tryout. If fighters impress, they will be moved to the bigger shows in Russia, Holland, or Japan. Outstanding talent would be allowed to train at the Red Devil training center in St. Petersburg with Fedor. This all could lead to a contract with a promotion. Read all about it in the highly informative article at Sherdog.com

Thoughts on the news

Finally, we see a picture of what M-1 Global is trying to do in the European and Asian MMA markets. Since the UFC has relatively left the market untapped, M-1 Global is looking to move into those areas and put on multiple shows to find talent quickly. The concept of having smaller shows in smaller venues and then enabling great performers to move up to the bigger shows is an interesting concept because this is all being done under one roof.

In the States, smaller promotions are usually all independent of each other. ProElite has somewhat changed this idealogy by buying up various organizations. For the most part however, the biggest promotion in the world doesn't have a smaller promotion feeding it. They have the money to offer to take better talent away from other promotions. The WEC, according to Zuffa, is supposed to compete with the UFC eventually.

With that said, will this idea work? At first glance, it's a very interesting idea because it is tapping into smaller markets to find some talent in the woodwork. Germany isn't known as a MMA powerhouse, so I wonder if they can find some names there as well as in the surrounding countries. France hasn't had unbelievable talent coming out of the country, but Holland always creates great kickboxers, and Eastern Block countries seem to have a lot of explosive standup fighters.

I think to obtain talent, this isn't a bad format. It's incentive-based in that if you perform well on the lower levels events, you can move up to where the money, exposure, and sponsors will be at. You can also get the opportunity to train with some world class athletes at the Red Devil camp, which will increase your skills substantially. As Leidecker said, this seems like a TUF without the cameras.

Will M-1 succeed in this plan?

To be honest, I thought we'd see a much bigger effort from M-1 Global, but I did not expect to see smaller shows along side bigger shows. It's still not known as to how big these Russian, Japanese, and Dutch shows will be, but I imagine some mid-sized shows with the possibility of some super shows at some point. It seems that M-1 may be trying to simply tap unfound talent to hit the jackpot. Is Europe a goldmine for MMA fighters? I guess we'll find out.