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COMBATE GLOBAL ANNOUNCES STAR-STUDDED, ALL-WOMEN’S MMA EVENT ON SATURDAY, JUNE 8, LIVE ON FUSE FROM MIAMI
STRAWWEIGHT MAIN EVENT: MELISSA “MAMBA” AMAYA VS. SAMANTHA “SPICY” JEAN-FRANCOIS
ATOMWEIGHT CO-MAIN EVENT: ANA “LA GUERRERA” PALACIOS VS. MELISSA GOMEZ
FUSE IS THE EXCLUSIVE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE BROADCAST HOME OF COMBATE GLOBAL MMA
LOS ANGELES AND NEW YORK – May 29, 2024 – COMBATE GLOBAL and Fuse Media today announced an all-women’s Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) event – ‘Combate Female’ - headlined by a strawweight (115 pounds) showdown between undefeated star Melissa “Mamba” Amaya (6-0) and battle-tested submission expert, Samantha “Spicy” Jean-Francois (8-7), live from Miami on Saturday, June 8, and airing exclusively in English on Fuse at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT.
The live show will mark the fourth all-women’s event in COMBATE GLOBAL history.
“Our women’s division is the most exciting in the world, so we are once again going to showcase some of our best female talent, all on the same card,” said COMBATE GLOBAL CEO Campbell McLaren.
Fighting out of Spokane, Wash. and training camp Sik Jitsu, the home of MMA superstar and former world champion Julianna Peña, the 29-year-old Amaya, who originally hails from El Paso, Texas, has been tearing through the competition in COMBATE GLOBAL since making her professional debut with the promotion in 2021, despite not having any amateur competition experience.
Amaya last saw action in La Jaula on April 1, 2023, defeating Gillian Noll by way of majority decision in a bout contested at flyweight (125 pounds).
The fight with Jean-Francois represents the second time in her professional career that Amaya will compete at strawweight after a run at flyweight.
Jean-Francois is a 37-year-old resident of Marseille, France, and the reigning strawweight champion of French MMA promotion, Hexagone, where she submitted Andressa Rocha with a rear-naked choke with just 26 seconds remaining in the fifth and final scheduled round of their title fight on March 11, 2023, to earn the title.
Jean-Francois successfully defended her crown last July 28, by submitting Laura Balin with a rear-naked choke in the second round (4:00) of their championship matchup. The victory over Balin was Jean-Francois’s fourth straight and fourth consecutive win via rear-naked choke submission.
To date, Jean-Francois, who has competed all over the world over the course of her 10-year professional career, has notched 6 of her 8 professional victories by way of submission.
In the atomweight (105 pounds) co-main event on June 8, world-ranked star Ana “La Guerrera” Palacios will collide with undefeated Melissa Gomez (4-0).
The 25-year-old Palacios of Mexico City, Mexico fights out of her country’s top MMA camp, Bonebreakers, and is looking to rebound from two straight losses she suffered in 2023, a recent downturn that has come after winning her five consecutive previous bouts.
Fighting out of Santiago, Chile, Gomez, 32, will return to COMBATE GLOBAL, where she has competed since her professional debut in 2022, for the fifth straight time.
In her last effort, Gomez defeated American Katie Perez via unanimous decision on August 19, 2023.
A featured flyweight contest on the June 8 card will pit undefeated, 19-year-old prospect Regina “Kill Bill” Tarin (2-0) of Mexico City against Fernanda “La Pit” Marrufo (1-1) of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
About Fuse Media
Fuse Media is a Latino-owned, global entertainment company, and the leader in creating and distributing inclusive, purpose-driven stories and experiences for and with culturally diverse young adults. With a portfolio of award-winning original content and a growing multiplatform global footprint, Fuse Media strives to authentically reflect the world of its young and diverse audience, pioneering a multicultural and creative destination. The Fuse Media family includes linear channels Fuse and FM (Fuse Music); subscription streaming service Fuse+; a rapidly growing roster of owned and operated diverse-focused FAST channels; Fuse Studios, its in-house production arm; Ignition Studios, a specialized production company defining the future of inclusive content; a growing branded content and live events business; and Fuse Media Culture Collective, a suite of partner-owned FAST channels that add to the company’s massive scale in reaching multicultural audiences.
About COMBATE GLOBAL
COMBATE GLOBAL is the premier Hispanic Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) sports franchise, rapidly becoming the number two sport, after soccer, for Spanish speaking sports fans worldwide. The COMBATE GLOBAL franchise includes reality TV programming, live events, and mobile programming. The company’s CEO, Campbell McLaren, is universally recognized as the co-founder/co-creator of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). New York Magazine described McLaren as “the marketing genius behind the UFC” and Yahoo! Sports proclaimed that he “knows more about the sport than just about anyone in it today.”
