Sydney heavyweight Peter Graham will face-off against former Bellator heavyweight champion Vitaly Minakov in Russia this weekend on Eurasia Fight Night 50.
The bout will serve as the semi-main event to heavyweight great Fedor Emelianenko who comes up against Fabio Maldonado. The main card will be shown live on UFC Fight Pass on Saturday morning.
Graham, a former Kyokushin karate and K-1 fighter, will bring a 11-9 mixed martial arts record into the bout and come into the contest following a TKO victory over former world strongman champion Mariusz Pudzianowski in late 2015. Studying busy across all combat disciplines, Graham in 2015 also captured the Australian heavyweight boxing title with a split decision win over Ben Edwards.
His opponent Russian Vitaly Minakov has an unblemished 17-0 MMA record which includes wins against the likes of Alexander Volkov, Cheick Kongo and Geronimo Dos Santos. Earlier this year Minakov was stripped of his Bellator heavyweight title however remains contracted to the promotion within North America, allowing him to compete in his native Russia. The 31 year-old goes into the contest as the heavy favourite.
- Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabio Maldonado
- Vitaly Minakov vs. Peter Graham (Australia)
- Abusupyan Alikhanov vs. Makhmud Muradov
- Kirill Sidelnikov vs. Ruben Wolf
- Georgiy Kichigan vs. Vladimir Tyurin
- Abdulla Dadaev vs. Jack McGann
- Sergey Pavlovich vs. Chaban Ka
- Rasul Mirzaev vs. Dioginis Souza
- Akhmet Aliev vs. Matej Truhan
- Anatoly Tokov vs. Vladimir Filipovic
- Vadim Nemkov vs. Mikolaj Rozanski
- Valentin Moldavsky vs. Daniel Dorrer
- Vasiliy Zubkov vs. Sergey Tovkan
- Marina Mokhnatkina vs. Ekaterina Torbeeva
