M-1 Challenge 93 takes place Friday, June 1 at Traktor Sport Palace in Chelyabinski, Russia. The Euro sportsbooks recently opened up odds for some of the evening’s top bouts and here they are along with my initial thoughts on them.
M-1 Challenge 93 Opening Odds
Alexander Shlemenko -945
Bruno Silva +515
Artem Frolov -430
Joe Riggs +310
And my initial thoughts:
– The main event sees Shlemenko (57-10) return to M-1 after losing a controversial decision to Gegard Mousasi in Bellator. Many believe that Shlemenko deserved to win a decision in that fight and prior to that he had won seven-straight fights, so Shlemenko enters this bout against Silva with a lot of momentum. We know Shlemenko fights really well on home soil from past performances which should help him here as well. Silva (17-6) is coming off of two-straight knockout wins but is generally a complete unknown. Silva does have a lot of knockouts on his resume and he’s six years younger than Shlemenko, but he’s still very much an unproven fighter. The line reflects the stylistic matchup in this fight as Shlemenko is just the all-around better fighter, and he should have no problem finding a way to dispatch of Silva in this fight. I’m going with Shlemenko via TKO and would say it likely goes under.
– Frolov (10-0) is the M-1 middleweight champion as he defeated UFC veteran Caio Magalhaes in his last fight to win the title. Frolov is only 28 and he’s looked great as of late as he’s transformed himself from prospect to champion under the M-1 banner. His level of competition to this point could be better, but it’s not bad as well. Riggs (48-17-1) is unbeaten in his last eight fights since being released by the UFC, including seven-straight knockout wins before a draw against Boris Polezhay in his last fight. Riggs, who is now 35, has been around the game forever and it’s a credit to him that he went on that nice winning streak, but I don’t know how anyone could trust a guy that’s been finished as many times as he has to beat a young prospect. At the same time, though, Riggs does have enough knockout power that it wouldn’t totally surprise me to see him catch Frolov. Most likely Frolov is going to defend his belt here with a stoppage win of his own, but there’s something about Riggs that scares me enough into not playing Frolov at this sort of line.
