Andres Quintana: “We just roll with the punches and you do what you got to do”
Unbeaten at 8-0 in Combate Americas, including beating three men in one night to win the 2018 Copa Combate, “The Bullet” Andres Quintana was full of excitement to make the walk to La Jaula (the Cage) at the Star Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. The fight was set to take place just minutes away from his home, and was for the Combate Americas inaugural Featherweight championship. That was until the event was canceled on the Monday of fight week, rescheduled for eight weeks later, and moved 970 miles west.
This has been a crazy lead up. How have you handled it?
“I didn’t know if the fight was going to happen. I didn’t know what was going to go on. We prepared of course, but it’s always a toss up when you’re not too sure what’s going to happen. It was a weird training camp. I’ve been in camp for about five months. A lot different than my previous 8 to 10-week camps, but that’s just how the game is.”
Was there any fatigue these last couple weeks from when the fight was originally expected to happen two months ago?
“Yeah of course. Like I was already peaking so I took some time off so I could let my body recover. Five months is a long time to train. I was ready for the fight to happen. We were more than ready and prepared for the fight to happen in Albuquerque, June 28th, but you know how the fight game goes. I don’t even know what happened, why they canceled the event or what was going on. We just roll with the punches and you do what you got to do.”
Does it feel weird the position that you were going to be the hometown favorite, to now everybody’s on the road fighting at this event?
“Yeah, you know it sucks for all the local fighters that were going to fight here (Albuquerque). I know a lot of people were really depending on the pay day. I know they (other fighters) take a lot of time off of work, sacrifice time from their friends and families to train for this event and it got canceled like that. It really sucks, but I feel for them and to top it off I’m the only fight that gets moved. It’s a tough pill to swallow.”
How have these extra eight weeks affected you?
“I feel it affected me negatively because we had a set date. We were ready to go and now you kind a got a reset how training camp is going to take place. You’re now peaking at a different time. It’s just a bad situation all the way around, I feel like.”
Combate 42 is a co-promoted event between Combate Americas and Tuff-N-Uff taking place at the Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harvey’s in Lake Tahoe, Nevada on Friday August 23.
Check out the full interview with Andres Quintana at the top of the page.
