Introduction of the staff

Hello everybody! This site has grown very fast and because of all the materials, gossips and exclusive insider's information, I think it's time to introduce myself, so you would know who to blame for all this. :)

My name is Mikko Vedru and I am the creater of this news site/blog. I was born in the USSR/Russia, but am currently living in Finland, the country of Santa Claus, saunas and Nokia (no, it's not Japanese company).

My last year was spent in the USA, studying and getting to know American people and their culture. To be honest, I was truly astonished by the low level of Mixed Martial Arts knowledge of local people. Sure, they knew about UFC and many even watched it regularly, but they knew little or nothing about the non-UFC MMA organizations and fighters. They knew nothing about such great Russian fighters as Emelianenko brothers, Igor Vovchanchin, Sergei Kharitonov, and others. Andrei Arlovsky and even Oleg Taktarov, the old UFC legend, who recently decided to make a comeback, are much better known. The majority of the people never even heard about PrideFC, let alone other MMA organizations...

But can you really blame them for not knowing Russian fighters, if there is no way of getting this kind of information? Can you blame Americans for not speaking Russian and not being familiar with the Russian culture? I don't think so. It would be easy for me to blame "stupid Americans" and be happy with that. But I chose the pro-active position. I decided to create this site, which would provide English-speaking MMA fans with the information about Russian Mixed Martial Arts scene and about Russian MMA fighters.

I hope to give you regular updates on the Russian MMA, with interesting news, trustworthy rumours and insightful analytics.

I am very careful with the information and sources it come from. If I am telling you that the information came from a very reliable source, it also means that. It is not my way to present my own crazy ideas or the unconfirmed information I read from the Sherdog, as a reliable information. I am very picky about that!

And to make it clear: I am in no way associated with M-1 Global or any other MMA organization. All opinions presented in the articles are the personal views of their authors. At this moment, I am the only author of the site, so everything you can read here, represents my own personal opinions.

I would also like to ask you a few things:

• Participate in discussion. Don't hesitate to comment my articles of rumours, to tell me your opinion about something, or criticize me for something I didn't do well. If you found some interesting information/article, please, share it with me! I am not a Google to crawl every single site on the Internet and I need your help!
  
• If you liked the site or an article, tell your friends and people you know about it, and give them a link.
  
• If you really liked my page, please add the link to it in your blog/links-area (if you have a "My favorite MMA sites" section or alike).
  
• Want to contribute to this site or just need to ask something? Write: russianmma@gmail.com . I will answer as soon as possible.

I have heard that having a picture with the ladies works extremely well in this thingie called Internet. This trick is not forbidden by the Nevada Athletic Commission, so I decided to give it a try! So let's rock it!

I want to wish you welcome! It's going to be fun, trust me! :)