Invicta finally announced the full card for the next show. It will be on July 9 at the Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas during International Fight Week. It will air on UFC Fight Pass and I normally use Roku to watch it on my HDTV. You can also use Apple TV or Google Chromecast. If you have an HDTV and you don't have one of those devices, I highly recommend you get one. I know what you're thinking. Why is this show on a Wednesday? It was supposed to be on July 10 but it was going to conflict with other events during IFW. So Invicta applied to the Nevada State Athletic Commission to move the show to July 9. That was approved last week which is why it took so long to announce the card. This show will have three title matches and a total of seven matches. I guess their thinking is more title matches means it's a better show. I dunno about that. The main event will have Cris Cyborg defending her Invicta Featherweight Championship against Faith Van Duin. Faith is from New Zealand and she won her Invicta debut over Amanda Bell on the last Invicta show in April. Cyborg won her last fight over Charmaine Tweet in less than a minute. I don't expect this to go any longer. Until Cyborg drops to 135, her fights are a waste of time. Then we will have Tonya Evinger vs Irene Aldana for the vacant Invicta Bantamweight Championship. Irene is from Mexico and she's one of those names that has been mentioned as a potential UFC signee. If she wins this fight, she'll probably get that call. I just don't think she has beaten anyone decent yet. Tonya will be her toughest opponent and she could beat Irene. And I don't think the UFC is interested in Tonya. then we have Herica Tiburcio defending her Invicta Atomweight Championship against Japanese veteran fighter Ayaka Hamasaki. Herica won the title over Michelle Waterson last fall. Some thought it was an upset. I think Michelle is overrated. Ayaka is a former DEEP JEWELS 115lb champ who dropped to 105 after recovering from knee surgery. Her last win was over VV Mei on the DEEP New Year's Eve show and she's been sitting around waiting for this fight. Both have good submission skills but Ayaka may be a better striker. And I assume that is something her coach Megumi Fujii is working on. Let's get to the rest of the card. In a Bantamweight match, Pannie Kianzad will face Jessica-Rose Clark. Pannie is new to Invicta but she is a former Cage Warriors 145lb champ. She is someone I would like to see in the UFC. Pannie is from Denmark but she trains in Sweden. Jessy Jess, as she is known, is from Australia and this is also her Invicta debut and her first fight outside Australia. She's 5-1 but Kannie is a big step up in competition for her. In an Atomweight bout, Amber Brown will face Invicta newcomer Catherine Costigan. Amber won her Invicta debut over Liz McCarthy in Nov. 2014. But I liked when she went to Japan in 2013 and submitted the favourite Kikuyo Ishikawa. Catherine is from Ireland and fought for Cage Warriors. But I didn't think much of her opponents. I like both fighters but I think Amber has fought at a higher competition level and that gives her a bit of an edge. In a Strawweight bout, Amy Montenegro will face Jamie Moyle. Amy is 6-1 and she won her Invicta debut in Feb. over Brianna Van Buren who I think was a little overhyped. Jamie is 2-0 and won her last Invicta fight over JJ Aldrich in Feb. She should be the favourite but both are just gaining experience at this point. The opener is a Featherweight match. Marina Shafir will face Amber Leibrock. Both are making their Invicta debuts and Amber is making her pro debut. Of course Marina is known as Ronda Rousey's long time training partner. Because of that, she was a bit overhyped as an amateur. Then in her second pro fight, she was KOd by Amanda Bell in less than a minute. That's why Amanda was overhyped. So both fighters are inexperienced as pros. Who knows what we will get. My main concern is that with three championship matches, maybe Invicta won't have anything left for their next show. Plus I'm expecting at least three of seven matches, including the main event, to be mismatches. So it's probably not as stacked as they think it is which doesn't surprise me because they have a bad habit of overrating their fighters. We'll see how it goes.
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