Roswell native Quintana set for busy evening in the ring
MMA fighter who now lives in Albuquerque is part of Copa Combate
Every young MMA fighter dreams of signing a contract with the UFC, the sport’s most powerful promotional organization.
Well, almost every young MMA fighter.
Andrés Quintana, a Roswell native and a featherweight fighter who lives in Albuquerque and trains at Luttrell-Yee MMA, is under contract to Combate Americas, a seven-year-old Latino-oriented promotional firm. He couldn’t be happier. “There’s good money there. It’s a super-solid organization,” Quintana said this week in a phone interview from Fresno, Calif., where he’s scheduled to compete tonight in Copa Combate, a onenight, eight-fighter tournament offering a grand prize of $100,000.
Quintana, 27, began his combat-sports career as an amateur boxer in his native Roswell. When local MMA fighters began crosstraining at his gym, he decided to give it a try.
He’s now 15-2 as a professional and riding a five-fight win streak — all five of those victories coming on Combate Americas cards.
In 2011, as he was about to launch his pro career, a mutual acquaintance put him in touch with Albuquerque coach Chris Luttrell, a renowned teacher of the ground game.
“I really didn’t have that much more knowledge to gain (in Roswell), and I didn’t have much of a wrestling background or ground-game instruction,” Quintana said. “So, it was kind of a perfect situation.”
Always dangerous in standup — nine of his 15 victories have come by knockout or TKO — Quintana under Luttrell’s tutelage has become progressively more effective in the ground game. Two of his last three Combate Americas wins have come via submission holds.
Meanwhile, Ray Yee, the other half of the Luttrell-Yee team, has added Muay Thai skills to Quintana’s already polished boxing talents.
“I feel like I’m really wellrounded
(at this point),” Quintana said. Early in his career, he said, “everyone was thinking that if they didn’t take me down I was going to put them out (in standup), so they started wrestling with me.
“Now, I’ve got the two submissions.”
Standing 6 feet, Quintana enjoys height and reach advantages over most of his peers in the featherweight (145-pound) division. As it was in boxing, he has found his length to be a distinct advantage.
“A lot of my boxing came over to my MMA,” he said.
Tonight’s Copa Combate, for those who advance from start to finish, involves 23 minutes of fighting. The first stage consists of one three-minute round; the second and third stages each are three rounds of three minutes.
As daunting as it sounds, Quintana points out that an MMA title fight consists of five five-minute rounds.
“So (Copa Combate is) basically the length of a full title fight,” he said.
This truly is an international event.
In tonight’s first stage, Quintana is matched against Marlon Gonzales (14-3-2) of Lima, Peru. On the other half of the bracket, Alejandro Flores (13-1) of Monterrey, Mexico, will face John Bedoya (6-0) of Bogotá, Colombia.
On the other side of the bracket, it’s Joey Ruquet (6-1) of Las Vegas, Nev., vs. Bruno Cannetti (7-5) of Buenos Aires and Daniel Requeijo (14-6) of Las Palmas, Canary Islands vs. Pablo Villaseca (13-4) of Santiago, Chile.
LONG DAY: Luttrell, Quintana’s primary coach, is in Fresno for tonight’s Copa Combate. Saturday at 6:30 a.m., he’ll begin a 2,200-mile journey to Toronto, where he’ll work the corner of Brazilian strawweight Claudia Gadelha (16-3) in her fight Saturday against Nina Ansaroff (9-5) on UFC 231.
Luttrell said via social media he plans to go straight to Scotiabank Arena after deplaning at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Gadelha briefly lived in Albuquerque. She then moved to Las Vegas, but still works with Luttrell.
Luttrell is optimistic about the chances for success this weekend of both Quintana and Gadelha.
“Both of them have had fantastic training camps,” he said.