So the good news about last night's Invicta FC 15 is it wasn't in Kansas City. It was at The Hangar at OC Fair in Costa Mesa, CA. It's not a big place but they were able to sell it out. And that means on TV it didn't look like they were fighting in an empty warehouse. Their next show will be in Las Vegas and I guess they are going to go back and forth. I don't care as long as they stay out of Kansas City. The problem with last night's show is it was short on competitive content. Two of the nine scheduled matches were cancelled. And there were two late replacements and that always leads to mismatches. And when fans know how your main event will go, you have to compensate with competitive matches on the rest of the card. So what got cancelled? Christine Stanley vs Shannon Sinn was cancelled when both fighters got hurt. Amanda Bell vs Ediane Gomes was cancelled when Gomes got sick on Thursday. That leaves us with seven matches and Invicta hasn't run a show since September. It's not enough. Invicta's thinking that announcing the full card three weeks in advance of the show would limit injury replacements hasn't worked out. Of course Cris Cyborg easily defended her Invicta Featherweight Championship against Russian Daria Ibragimova. Daria thought that if she grabbed Cyborg's leg and tried to take her down, it would unnerve her. It didn't work. Cyborg hammered her while Daria was holding her leg and the inevitable knockout came at the end of the round. In the co-main event, Livia Renata Souza easily defended her Invicta Strawweight Championship over DeAnna Bennett with a first round body kick. I assume Invicta was hoping this would be competitive. But they have overrated DeAnna. She was 8-0 but her recent wins have been shaky at best. I think DeAnna is a better fighter at 125 so I would like to see her go back there. Objectively, I didn't like her at 115 and I would have never given her a title shot. That's a big Invicta flaw. Their matchmaking needs to be more objective. Colleen Schneider won over Raquel Pa'aluhi by split decision. Raquel was the favourite going in but she wasn't the same after getting cut early in round one. I thought Colleen won but I don't think either of them can beat Invicta Bantamweight Champion Tonya Evinger. This fight was delayed for ten minutes when the ambulance took Lacey Schuckman to the hospital and they had to wait for the ambulance to return. The fighters had already been introduced and stood waiting in the cage. That's a bad screw up. Amber Brown beat Shino VanHoose with a first round guillotine choke. Shino was a late replacement for Lisa Ellis. Shino lived in Japan a few years ago. She's young and she has talent but she makes mistakes and that's how she lost this fight. I expect Amber to get a shot at Ayaka Hamasaki's Invicta Atomweight Championship. I wanna see that. MIZUKI returned to Invicta and got a big win over Lacey Schuckman with a third round armbar. MIZUKI looked much more aggressive in this fight. She knew she beat herself in her two previous Invicta matches. I hope she's back on track. Angela Hill beat late replacement Alida Gray with a first round KO. Original opponent Jodie Esquibel will probably be on TUF 23. This change really hurt this fight as Alida is not at a level where she should be fighting in Invicta. Is she the best fighter you can find? Geez! In the opener, Aussie Megan Anderson won over Amber Leibrock with a third round KO. Megan was winning the fight anyway. Megan has moved from Australia to Kansas City and it looks like the training has paid off for her already. Don't feed her to Cyborg yet. Invicta's next show will be in March in Las Vegas. They didn't announce anything for that show but I know they are planning a Flyweight Championship tournament.
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