There's no question that I am critical of Invicta FC matchmaking. I don't believe they understand card placement and they seem to play favourites with some fighters and ignore others. One thing to remember is Invicta contracts are non-exclusive so they are meaningless. But on last night's show for the very first time, the fighters underperformed. The majority of the fights on last night's show were not good. It almost seemed like most of them didn't want to fight or they were afraid to take risks. Is matchmaking the main culprit? Maybe Invicta needs to change. I'll get to that later. The main event of this show was Vanessa Porto vs Agnieszka Niedzwiedz in a Flyweight title contender match. I had no problem with the fight but it's not a main event. As it turned out, it wasn't a very good fight either. Agnieszka won by unanimous decision and then in her post fight interview she admitted she didn't perform very well. The whole show was like this. It's like the fighters were in a fog or something. The exception to this was Roxanne Modafferi vs Sarah D'Alelio. Roxanne has improved tremendously since training with John Wood at Syndicate MMA in Las Vegas. She got the only finish of the night with a third round TKO. A few years ago she wouldn't punch anyone so that kind of finish is very encouraging. The problem is Sarah is inconsistent anyway and now at 36 years old she's slowing down. That's why I didn't like the matchmaking. I knew the result last month. Herica Tiburcio beat Tessa Simpson by split decision. Herica is looking to get back into the Atomweight title picture. Neither of them did enough to win. And the funny part is it won Fight Of The Night. That tells you how bad the rest of the show was. Then Kelly Faszholz beat Elizabeth Phillips by unanimous decision. I talked about Elizabeth's unprofessional behaviour last month. Then she missed weight. So it was at a catchweight. Then the fight itself was terrible. And I understand there is value in ex-UFC fighters. But both came to the UFC as late replacements. And it's not unusual for UFC late replacements to wash out. They don't belong in Invicta either. I would prefer to see Invicta concentrate on developing young fighters instead of bringing in UFC washouts that should be in regional MMA. Be more selective. Andrea Lee won over Liz Tracy by split decision. It should have been a unanimous decision. I questioned this matchmaking when it was announced. I thought Andrea should face a more established fighter. The problem with Liz is she lacks quickness. Andrea got tired in the third round but I thought she won easily. Ediane Gomes won over Pam Sorenson by split decision. This is an example of why Welterweight is a landmine. There aren't enough decent Welterweights so you have Bantamweights like these two moving up. And both are slow. I didn't care who won because neither performed well. Tiffany Van Soest won over Christina Ferea by unanimous decision. Another terrible fight. Both are kickboxers trying to convert to MMA. Of course Tiffany is much better known. She lost her first Invicta fight while Christina won her Invicta debut over a mediocre opponent. Neither looked good. I understand bringing Tiffany in and the hype surrounding her. But elite kickboxers don't necessarily become elite MMA fighters. Plenty of them fail. Of course the problem is there's no money in kickboxing in North America. And that's why you see kickboxers trying MMA. And in the opening Bantamweight fight, Yaya Rincon won over Brooksie Bayard by unanimous decision. It was Yaya's MMA debut. The fight wasn't bad. But when this was announced last month I didn't know that Brooksie is 34 years old coming in with a 1-1 record. Don't book fighters with fewer than five fights over 30 years old. And I know fans get upset with me for bringing up age all the time. But Father Time is undefeated in MMA. And he's catching up to Brooksie already as she looked like she was fighting in quicksand. I liked Yaya though. She needs to walk out to Yaya by George Harrison. I guess the main thing is I would like to see some common sense in Invicta's matchmaking and I'm not seeing that. The fighters usually overcome poor matchmaking but not this time.
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