M-1 Global Extends Contracts with Buchinger, Puetz and Morrison

Russian MMA promotion M-1 Global announced Wednesday afternoon that it is locking up three of its prominent fighters -- Ivan Buchinger, Stephan Puetz and Lee Morrison -- to contract extensions.

The most notable of the extensions is M-1 featherweight champion Ivan Buchinger, who captured the organization’s vacant title in 2014 when he knocked out Tural Raginov in the fourth at M-1 Challenge 52. Buchinger defended his crown at M-1 Challenge 62 by unanimous decision over current M-1 Challenge lightweight titlist Mansour Barnaoui.

Puetz won the M-1 light heavyweight title in 2014 when he decisioned Viktor Nemkov at M-1 Challenge 46. After defending the crown twice, he lost to M-1 heavyweight champ Marcin Tybura when Puetz suffered a broken nose in the third of a non-title affair. However, he lost his 205-pound strap to Nemkov via decision at M-1 Challenge 63 last December.

Morrison is a featherweight who holds wins over M-1 veterans Pavel Vitruk and Mikhail Malyutin.

No details on any of the three combatants’ contract extensions were revealed. The next M-1 Challenge event will be M-1 Challenge 64 on Feb. 19 in St. Petersburg, Russia, slated to be headlined by a showdown between Alexander Shlemenko and Vyacheslav Vasilevsky in the first bout of the M-1 Challenge Grand Prix middleweight tournament.