White Trash in Russia to Fight Red Devil For The Belt

Milwaukee’s own, Jon “White Trash” Friedland is in Russia and will fight against Red Devil team member Mikhail Malutin, in a city near St. Petersburg in the main event tonight. Freidland will be fighting for the title in the event which is to take place at a weight of 71kg or 156.2lbs. For those of you not familiar with the Red Devil fight team, that is the world renown fight camp that Pride Heavyweight Champion Fedor Emelianenko trains out of. Emelianenko is widely considered to be the greatest heavyweight champion and pound for pound fighter of all time.



Mikhail Malutin

Combining the fight records of M-1 Global (6-2) and Sherdog (2-3) Malutin sports a MMA record of (7-3). Of Malutin’s ten fights, seven have gone to decision including two majority decisions. He also has two wins via knockout and a triangle choke submission win. He is a Russian Ushu-Sanda Champion and a two-time International Mixfight Tournament Champion.

Jon “White Trash” Friedland

Jon Friedland is one of only two black belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Wisconsin. Friedland has an MMA record of (15-3) according to Sherdog and is coming off a first round TKO against Derek Abram at Combat USA: Season’s Beatings last month. Prior to that, he had been on a five-fight win streak until running into a tough Jesse Lennox at Gladiators 47 in October of 2007.

Matchup

This looks to be a tough matchup for Friedland who will have to deal with a variety of factors in this fight. Friedland normally fights at 170lbs and will have to cut a lot of weight that he normally doesn’t do for fights. How will the cut affect his performance?

Jet lag may be a factor, although he left almost a week ago and should be acclimated to any time and environmental changes.

The crowd will be unlike anything Friedland has fought in front of. How will the Russian fans take to Friedland’s “White Trash” ring persona and the fact that an American is coming in to attempt to take the belt back to the Neutral Ground Gym in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Lastly, Mikhail Malutin is a tough challenger from a world-class fight camp in Team Red Devil. Like I said earlier, most of Malutin’s fights have gone to decisions and on the other hand, 13 of Friedland’s 15 wins have come in the first round. Will Friedland get a quick submission in the first round? If not, Friedland better be ready for a gut wrenching three round battle if he wants to become the champion and continue to return to Russia to defend the belt.

Wisconsin Combat Sports would like to wish Jon Friedland best of luck in his match and hopefully he returns to the states with the belt.

Literal line-by-line translation of the poster

International Championship
Russian Warrior
USA Russian
Fight Without Rules
Between Professionals
For The Championship Title Of
The Southern Russia
The Best Fighters Of Southern Russia
Against Alex’s Extreme Team USA
The Star Of American MMA
Jon Friedland
26 January 2008 11pm
Menvida (city)
Nightclub: Night Flight
Don’t Miss This Event

Thanks goes out Hanna Rutouskaya for the translation and Luke Summerfield for digging up the information.