Hockey Tournament Forces Rescheduling of M-1 Challenge 65

M-1 Challenge 65 will be put on ice for a month after a scheduling conflict bumped the show from its original date.

M-1 Global on Monday announced that the event, which was slated to take place March 4, has been moved to April 8 at Ice Palace Sports Center in St. Petersburg, Russia. The promoter cited the upcoming 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship as the reason for the switch.

“The Ice Hockey World Championships will be held this May in St. Petersburg and Moscow,” read the company’s official release. “Many sports venues in St. Petersburg are closed in March due to renovations, resulting in the switched date for M-1 Challenge 65.”

The card will retain its main event, a middleweight fight between reigning champion Ramazan Emeev and former Bellator fighter Maiquel Falcao. That matchup is part of the 2016 M-1 Grand Prix, the first fixture of which will go down Friday at M-1 Challenge 64 when Alexander Shlemenko faces Vyacheslav Vasilevsky.

In addition, a title bout pitting lightweight ace Mansour Barnaoui against former champ Artiom Damkovsky has been shifted to the rescheduled April bill after originally being announced for M-1 Challenge 64.