About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nov. 6—Ahead of Clearwater Combat's MMA event this Saturday night, promoter Austin Arnett has been urging locals to tune in for the main event for one simple reason — you just might see it again on an even bigger stage.
"You want to watch this fight now while you can see it for cheap because you guys might see these guys fight again down the road in four or five years in the UFC," Arnett said.
This weekend's event is set for 7 p.m. Saturday at the Clearwater River Casino and Lodge's event center.
Arnett, a former UFC fighter himself, said the Clearwater Combat promotion has had five fighters earn UFC contracts.
To Arnett, the welterweight main event between Lewiston local Melvin Joye and Nampa's Layne Dalton is one of those high-level fights.
Joye trains out of the Arnett's Martial Arts America gym in Lewiston and holds a 5-1 pro MMA record.
"He has really big knockout power and has some huge knockout wins," Arnett said. "He's going to try and keep it on the feet looking for the knockout.
Arnett called the bout a classic "striker versus grappler" as Dalton is a two-time Idaho high school state wrestling champion.
"I think Layne is going to try and impose his strength and wrestling and try and dominate with ground and pound and finish him on the ground," Arnett said.
For Arnett, the clash in styles is what makes the bout.
"Neither one is going to accept fighting the other person's style so it's whoever can impose their style on each other," Arnett said. "As a promoter, I find those the more interesting matchups and I think you get the best out of each fighter and I think they get better because of it."
The co-main event is a middleweight bout headlined by Lewiston local Nate Sahme (1-1) and Moses Lake's Jairo Villasenor (1-5). Arnett described this fight as a "slobber knocker" and expects a knockout.
"They're going to come in there and try and take each other's heads off," Arnett said. "That's a coin flip fight. It could go either way but that's the one fight I'm guaranteeing that's going to be ending in a knockout."
There will be nine amateur fights before the two pro ones in the co-main and main event. Two featured bouts on the amateur side include Lewiston local Marcisio Noriega (1-0) versus Kainalu Corral making his debut. The other is between Lucas Reeves (1-0) versus Jacob Guertin (3-4), a fight that Arnett said contains two of the more skilled fighters on the card.
Tickets were available as of Thursday night at crcasino.com/event/clearwater-combat-mma or at the casino.
Wysup can be reached at 208-848-2268, hwysup@lmtribune.com , or on X @HaydenWysup.
Source: Sports
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