Date:July 1st, 2004Time:Thursday morning sometime here.
Location:Minsk, Belarus - Russia
Today, Monday, June 28th, four fighters from the United States will travel to Belarus to fight under Muay Thai rules. The team, organized by MMA and Muay Thai promoter Sven Bean, is made of athletes coming from 4 different states. TEAM USA:World Champion Raul Llopis59 kg - 130 lbs, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, USA, 27-3World Champion Dan Rawlings63 kg- 140 lbs, Brooksville, Florida, USA, 30-6-1US Champion Jeremy Harminson72 kg - 158 lbs, Lerna, Illinois, USA, 21-2-1K-1 Veteran Andre Walker, Denver100 kg - 220 lbs, Colorado, USA, 18-3TEAM BELARUS:Intercontinental Champion Andrei Kulebin 58kgEuropean Champion Andrei Kotsur 62kg Belarus Champion Yuri Bulat 72kg K-1 Veteran Alexander Ustinov 118kg The international event will take place July 1st in the capitol city of Minsk. There will be two World Titles on the line. These matches will be fought under full Muay Thai rules. The two prestige bouts will be fought under 'modified Muay Thai' with no elbows being permitted. There will also be a 5 round Muay Thai SUPER FIGHT on the card featuring Alexander Talentov (Belarus) vs Patrick Carta (Italy) in the 57 kg division. All matches are sanctioned by the WKN (http://www.worldkickboxingnetwork.com/). These fights will be shown on Eurosport and on Belarus national TV. On a positive note the Griffonrawl Team met one of the Team USA fighters (not Dan Rawlings of course) at the ECC fights this weekend while Jason was warming up Raul could tell he had good Muay Thai skills and asked who he had trained under. His name was Raul Llopis and he held pads for Jason and gave him some punching pointers before his fight, so that was also an experience. It's amazing what a small world this is after all.GOOD LUCK TEAM USA !!!
