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.
