from GoldenGlory.com:
"This month August 2007 promoter George Kobyliansky obtained the exclusive rights for Golden Glory Russia. Mr Kobyliansky is one of the best known promoters from Russia. In 1995 he started working together with Bas Boon and promoted the Absolute Fighting Championships (AFC) and Russian No Holds Barred (RNHB) series. Many known fighters were promoted by Mr. Kobyliansky as Igor Vovchanchin made his debut in the AFC as well as Sergey Kharitonov and Mikhail I. (Mikhail who fought Ricardo Morais in the finals of the first AFC32 men tournament in Moscow). As pride no longer exist, Sergei Kharitonov got in contact again with his old friend and promoter George Kobyliansky. Today this Sunday August 5th Sergey Kharitonov officially joined the Golden Glory team. Bringing Mikhail, Russians nbr1 wrestler and combat sambo trainer as well to the team. The combination of Sergey traning in Holland with master trainer Cor Hemmers is a very promising development. Sergey has good boxing skills and with the best stand up sparring partners available - Stefan Leko, Chalid Arrab, Gokan Saki, Alistair Overeem, Semmy Schilt and many more! We can expect fireworks from this young Russian talent. Even better, Russian master trainer wrestler Mikhail Ilyuhin will be traveling with Sergey to Holland, the Golden Glory team will benefit a lot from this great Russian trainer. Sergey should have fought in the last Pride show, but refused because his injury was still not healed. According Sergey he was injured when he fought against Alistair last time. Sergey had a bad shoulder injury and was not ready, this caused two loses, he would like to have a revenge match first with Alistair before training with him in Holland. From what we have heard and read Sergey has a lot of pride and wants to prove that he is one of the youngest heavyweight talents of the world. His old team mate Fedor prepared as well in Holland many times and this resulted in Fedor beating stand up specialist Mirko Cro Cop. If Kharitonov sharpens his Muay Thai skills as fast as Fedor did in Holland, we can expect Kharitonov to become a serious challenger for the heavyweight title, with wins over Schilt, Werdrum, Rizzo, Ninja, Sergey has a great future ahead of him."
Story by Bas Boon and Lindsay Muro photo's by Bas Boon (c) golden glory
