Efrain Escudero was born in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico, but largely was associated with Arizona, where he lived when he won The Ultimate Fighter’s eighth season and fought his UFC career. And when he won TUF in December of 2008, he became the first Mexican fighter to compete in the UFC.
It would be nice to say that Escudero opened the floodgates for his compatriots, but that wasn’t the case, as only a handful of Mexico natives fought in the UFC over the next five-plus years. There were Mexican Americans making noise in the big show, most notably Cain Velasquez, who became the first fighter of Mexican heritage to win a UFC title in 2010, and the history of the promotion is filled with fighters like Tito Ortiz, Frank Shamrock, Kelvin Gastelum, the Diaz brothers, Gilbert Melendez, Carlos Condit, Dominick Cruz, Henry Cejudo and Diego Sanchez. But when it came to those born in Mexico, it wasn’t a big crowd.
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Yet in the summer of 2014, The Ultimate Fighter Latin America premiered, with Velasquez coaching eight Mexico natives against Fabricio Werdum’s squad of fighters from other Latin American countries. And by November, the UFC was making its debut in Mexico City with a UFC 180 card packed with eight Mexican fighters, including future interim featherweight champion Yair Rodriguez.
Now things were starting to get somewhere. Two more seasons of TUF LATAM followed, and a young man named Brandon Moreno competed on season 24 of The Ultimate Fighter. The ladies were getting into the party, as well, with Alexa Grasso becoming the first Mexican woman to fight and win in the UFC when she defeated Heather Jo Clark in November of 2016, and her teammate Aldana making her debut in a Fight of the Night against Leslie Smith a month later.
