GUADALAJARA - Cage of Fire comes to Guadalajara on Saturday, November 15, the latest step in director Francesco Noriega’s plan to replicate the meteoric rise of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in North America.

Mixed martial arts have arrived in Guadalajara. But can they take on the perennial local champion, lucha libre?

Cage of Fire is recognized by the UFC as the biggest martial arts competition in Mexico and is showing signs of catching on.

“We had over 3,000 people come to the last event in Tijuana. It’s more difficult in Mexico because of the popularity of soccer and lucha libre, but it’s growing. Once the people understand the rules then I think it’ll become extremely popular. It has exactly the same rules as UFC,” said Noriega, who first fell in love with UFC while studying at San Diego State University.

The rules are that basically anything goes apart from biting, hair pulling and eye-gouging. Timidity is also officially excluded. There are three rounds of five minutes in non-championship fights and five rounds of three minutes when a championship is on the line.

This weekend’s event will have an American feel with Long Beach, California’s JJ Ambrose pitting his fight skills against Iure Silva of Brazil. Half the fighters in Cage of Fire are from the United States.

Tickets for the event will be available at the door as well as at Mr. Ticket outlets and www.mrticket.com.mx . It will be held at the Coliseo de la Universidad de Guadalajara, located inside their campus at Avenida Revolucion 1500. The battles will begin at 9 p.m. It is not for the timid.