Combate Americas today announced that it will bring Mucha Más Acción – its brand of Hispanic world-class Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) action to Puerto Rico for the first time ever with a star-studded, live television event at Arena Coliseo in San Juan on Saturday, Jan 25.
The historic event will mark the first time that a live television event takes place on the island since Combate Americas CEO Campbell McLaren, a co-founder of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), executive produced UFC 8 in November 1996.
Priced from $50, tickets for the Combate Americas event are on sale at TicketeraPR.com.
“Not since I brought the UFC to San Juan almost two and a half decades ago, has there been a major MMA television event in Puerto Rico. Combate Americas is going to change that at the beginning of the New Year,” said McLaren.
Returning to her birthplace in a featured bout will be seven-division world boxing champion and MMA upstart Amanda “The Real Deal” Serrano (1-0-1 MMA; 37-1-1 (27 KO’s), boxing), who will face off again with former boxing adversary Dahianna “La Cobra” Santana (0-0 MMA; 36-12 (15 KO’s), boxing) in a 130-pound catchweight attraction and rematch to the pair’s world championship boxing showdown in 2017.
Born in Catalina, the 31-year-old Serrano, who fights out of Brooklyn, N.Y., is the only Puerto Rican and only female fighter to win seven world titles in seven different weight classes, a feat matched only by fellow icons Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya.
Serrano’s latest victory in the squared circle – a unanimous decision over Heather Hardy at Madison Square Garden Theater on September 13 – earned her the World Boxing Organization (WBO) and interim World Boxing Council (WBC) featherweight championships.
In her last MMA start on October 13, 2018, Serrano became the first world boxing champion in history to claim a victory by submission (standing rear-naked choke) when she stopped Erendira Ordoñez in the first round (4:23) of action in a Combate Americas main event bout.
Hailing from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Santana is a former International Boxing Federation (IBF) world featherweight champion.
The 35-year-old will make her MMA rules debut, looking to exact revenge after Serrano’s TKO victory over Santana in a WBO world bantamweight championship bout at Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn on April 22, 2017.
Santana has been preparing for her crossover to MMA since earlier this year at Team Mordan in Santo Domingo.
Additional fights for Combate Americas’ debut event in Puerto Rico will be announced soon.