Combate Americas announces South American debut in Lima, Peru

Combate Americas is heading into new territory.

The New York-based MMA promotion, which has long featured Latin American fighters and had a strong focus on that audience, announced Tuesday that it will make its debut in South America on May 31 when it hosts a show at Coliseo Manuel Bonilla in Lima, Peru.

Per a release, officials are describing the event as “the largest-scale MMA live television event in Peru history.” This will also be the second continent and third country to host a Combate Americas show, following the United States and Mexico.

“Since establishing the Combate Americas live television event series as a force in both the U.S. and Mexico, we have had our eyes on Peru, a proven hotbed for avid fight fans and fight talent and are looking forward to bringing to Lima the biggest MMA show the country has ever seen,” Combate Americas CEO Campbell McLaren said in the release.

The show will be headlined by a lightweight bout between Lima’s own Rolando Bedoya (11-1) and Mexico’s Daniel Zellhuber (7-0.) It will air live in Spanish in the U.S. on Univision and UDN (12 a.m. ET) and in English in the U.S. and Canada on the DAZN streaming service (10 p.m. ET).

Also announced for the card, a featherweight co-main event between Marlon Gonzales (Peru, 14-4-2, 1 NC) and Pablo Villaseca (Chile, 14-5), strawweight bout between Maria Paola Buzaglo (Peru, 1-1) and Alitzel Mariscal (Mexico, 2-0), a bantamweight bout between Andres Ayala (Colombia, 12-7) and Renzo Mendez (Peru, 12-6), a bantamweight bout between Eduardo Torres (Chile, 9-0) and Rodrigo Vera (Peru, 8-0-1), a 120-pound catchweight bout between Dana Zighelboim Grau (Peru, 2-0) and Jennifer Gonzalez (Chile, 10-5), and a bantamweight bout between Kevin Moreyra (Peru, 4-2) and David Martinez (Mexico, 2-0).