If you're a fan of Mixed Martial Arts, a group of Americans are hoping that you'll want to attend a fight night at the Civic Center on Saturday night.Â
It's called Battle in Belize, and these American athletes have come here to display the craft of mixed martial arts. They have organized a line-up of fighters from the US, Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico to go head to head, all in an effort to attract a mainstream Belizean audience to the sport.
A few of the fighters and the promoters from MMA Events today made their pitch to see the battle in person:
Allen Soran - Promotor, MMA Events Inc.
Saturday, we're calling it the Battle in Belize. We're at the Belize City Civic Center doors are going to open at 7:30. We have 9 bouts going on, plus 2 jujitsu matches, and we're going to open the event with 3 kids exhibition matches, all ages. We're very excited the weigh-ins are Friday."
Johnny Feris - MMA Fighter
We're going to be doing a weigh-in. It's going to be open to the public. It's going to be at the Civic Center, 3 p.m., right at the stairs right there. So, you can come check it out, see the fighters weigh in, face-off, and yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun."
Reporter
So, why Belize? Why did you guys choose to hold the event here?"
Allen Soren
Have you ever been to Belize? It's beautiful. So, to give you a little background. We started the company many years ago as a fan. Basically, our partner is from Belize. He was born here, and he said, you got to come to Belize. As soon as we came, we fell in love with the country. We fell in love with the people. We started working with local gyms. That's a couple years ago. Since then, we come back every 4 weeks. We've been working on this. This is a long term project. It's a passion project for us. We love Belize, and we see the potential. We love the sport so much, and we know that everyone else deserves to see it. And these guys work hard, 24 hours a day. They're training; they're dieting; they're working. And we wanna showcase that. I think the reception has been great. We get greeted with smiles. Everyone seems to be asking questions. We see the interest, and I know that once they see it in person, it's gonna be special."
Johnny Feris
"Talking to you, Belizeans, you guys are hungry. You wanna learn. You wanna learn martial arts. And I know you guys, once you see, and watch a live fight, you're all gonna love martial arts, MMA, and you all are gonna be big fans. And you're gonna want us back."
Doors at the Civic open at 7:30 p.m on Saturday night, and general admission is $40.
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