The headliner for Matrix Fights 9 on December 5th in Philadelphia has been announced as former Bellator fighters will meet as Jesus Martinez meets Levon Maynard.
The fight booking was announced by Matrix Fights matchmaker Sam Caplan on Monday.
Matrix Fights 9 will come from The Pennsylvania National Guard Armory and tickets will go on sale for the event in the coming weeks on MatrixFights.com.
“I think that the one thing Matrix has always focused on was quality over quantity. We never wanted to be known as a promotion that just did shows to fill out a calendar,” said Matrix Fights CEO Jimmy Binns Jr. “We’ve always gone the extra mile to make our promotions feel like ‘events’ as opposed to just ‘shows.’ We have a slate of fights that compelled all of us to get back together and finally promote the next installment of Matrix.”
Martinez (9-5) competed for Bellator on four occasions and is coming off a decision win against Ryan Contaldi at Bellator 118 in May. The victory snapped a two fight losing streak and this will be his third fight in Matrix Fights.
“There’s been a lot of manufactured hype in the media recently surrounding a lot of main events other promotions are pushing right now,” remarked Martinez. “You’re not going to see any shoving or mean mugging between me and LeVon. I consider him a friend and we have a mutual respect for one another. But what you are going to see though is simply the Philly MMA fight of the year.”
Maynard (12-10) has been competing professionally in mixed martial arts since 2006 and also had four fights in Bellator. His last appearance in Bellator came in 2012 and was defeated by Lyman Good at Bellator 65. This fight against Martinez will mark his first fight since being defeated by Chidi Njokuai in August of last year.
“I headlined Matrix Fights 1 against a competitor I have the utmost respect for in Matt Makowski. It’s an honor to be a main eventer once again in Matrix’s return and once again I find myself fighting someone that I have total respect for,” said Maynard. “Jesus and I don’t need to disrespect each other to get people excited for this fight. This fight sells itself!”
The rest of the Matrix Fights 9 fight card will be announced over the coming weeks by the promotion.