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| Photo by Esther Lin |
Last night's Invicta show had two championship matches and the rest of the show was a mixed bag. When the show was announced, I thought the main card was weak and it was. Two refs worked the show. I didn't think either was on his game and there was one very bad mistake that killed one of the championship matches. When the card was announced, Jennifer Maia vs Roxanne Modafferi was supposed to be for the interim Flyweight Championship. At the time, I thought that Barb Honchak should have already been stripped of the title because she hasn't fought since 2014. So Invicta actually did this at the weigh ins. It's the right decision but it was handled ineptly and afterwards Barb complained that she wasn't notified. It wasn't necessary to do it in public. They could have done it by press release months ago so everyone is notified. I guess these people don't think straight. The fight itself was close but I thought Jennifer won three of the five rounds. The judges gave her the win by split decision and that didn't surprise me either. It could have gone either way. In the other championship match, Ayaka Hamasaki retained her Invicta Atomweight Championship over Jinh Yu Frey by a second round doctor stoppage. Ref Mark Wasem really screwed up. As you can see in the accompanying pic, Ayaka's overhand right cut Jinh over her left eye. Wasem immediately stopped the fight so the doctor could examine the cut. If he had let the fight go, Ayaka would have finished Jinh anyway seconds later as she was out on her feet. The doc really had no choice but to stop the fight because if he had allowed the fight to continue, the rest would have given Jinh an unfair advantage. I suppose this will lead to a rematch though Ayaka said she wants to move up to 115 and go to the UFC. The other two main card matches were mediocre. Irene Aldana won over Faith Van Duin by first round TKO. Faith is not a good fighter and Irene needs to beat someone better to make me think she is any good. And the stoppage was late. And then Kaline Medeiros beat Manjit Kolekar by unanimous decision. Of course the big deal is that Kolekar is from India. She has mostly fought for SuperFights. The problem is she did nothing for three rounds. Why does a fighter come all the way from India to lose like that? I guess it's a moral victory if she lasts three rounds. Ugh! In the prelims, we had the wildly overhyped MMA debut of Glory kickboxing ace Tiffany Van Soest. Her opponent was announced as Kalyn Schwartz but by the time she got to the cage she was Kal Holiday. And that's the name she uses on Twitter. The bottom line is Tiffany needs work on her takedown defence. Kal took her down at will and won with a second round rear naked choke. Back to the drawing board for the kickboxing ace. In the other prelims, Julia Jones beat Stephanie Skinner by first round rear naked choke. Stephanie was coming off of a long injury layoff and she just didn't look good. Amber Leibrock beat Amy Coleman by first round TKO. Amber nailed her with knees and then punches. I thought the stoppage was late. That's two late stoppages for ref Mike England. And in the opener, Sunna Davisdottir came all the way from Iceland to beat Ashley Greenway by unanimous decision. Sunna looked very sharp. I want to see her again. BTW, UFC fighter Gunnar Nelson is one of her teammates. In other Invicta news, MIZUKI has a torn ACL and she will be out for at least six months after knee surgery. She was up for a title shot. Not anymore.
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