On Saturday, the UFC returns to Mexico for the second time in 2015 for the finale of the second season of The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America. The promotion has invested heavily in Mexico, hiring a PR firm that specializes in the market to help push its rising stars to the Spanish-speaking audience.
Two of those stars, Kelvin Gastelum and Henry Cejudo, form the backbone of this event. In the main event, Gastelum takes on Neil Magny, who steps up on short notice to replace the injured Matt Brown. The original fight was one of the most anticipated of the fall, but the matchup with Magny might be even more relevant for the division, as it pits two of the best young welterweights against each other.
Cejudo, a gold medalist in freestyle wrestling at the 2008 Olympics, takes on Brazil’s Jussier Formiga in the third fight on the main card. This is a likely title eliminator for the flyweight division, with the winner set to receive a shot at 125-pound kingpin Demetrious Johnson. The stakes for Cejudo are even higher: He has a great opportunity to further entrench himself as a rising star in the Mexican market.
The co-main event features aging warhorse and winner of the first season of The Ultimate Fighter, Diego Sanchez, in a fight against longtime featherweight staple Ricardo Lamas. This could be the end of the line for Sanchez, and fighting in Mexico is something both he and the UFC have wanted for a long time.
The rest of the card is somewhat underwhelming. One of the two TUF: Latin America finals, the lightweight bout between Horacio Gutierrez and Enrique Barzola, features a pair of promising young fighters in what should be an interesting matchup. The welterweight final is less promising.
A lightweight bout between The Ultimate Fighter 8 winner Efrain Escudero, who’s now in his third stint with the promotion and served as one of the coaches for this season of the show, and Brazil’s Leandro Silva opens the main card. It’s a forgettable matchup but presumably has some appeal to the audience.
The jewel of the preliminary card is a bantamweight matchup between Mexico’s Erik Perez and France’s Taylor Lapilus. Both men are young strikers with big upside, and this profiles as a potential fight of the night. The other six preliminary bouts are forgettable, though a lightweight matchup between Valmir Lazaro and Michel Prazeres could be fun.
Let’s take a look at each matchup.