Women's MMA is in the spotlight this weekend as all female promotion Invicta Fighting Championships hosts its first ever event. The event takes place in Kansas and is streamed live through the Invicta FC website. When you combine a really strong first card with the fact that there is no Bellator or UFC card happening this weekend, the MMA community should really keep their eyes on Invicta this weekend.
This weekend,
all-female promotion Invicta Fighting Championships will put on their
first event in Kansas. With a weekend free of UFC and Bellator
events, a really strong card and the event being streamed for free on
the Invicta website, chances are that this event will garner some
attention. With women's MMA seemingly on the rise just now, I would
like discuss whether a newly started organisation like Invicta has a
chance of succeeding and whether such an organisation is preferable
to a Zuffa run female MMA organisation.
At UFC 145, Jon Jones
defeated Rashad Evans to retain his light heavyweight title for the
third time. He did so by dominating the next best fighter in the
division without getting into any serious trouble. The post fight
discussion though, has seen people call the fight disappointing for
one of two reasons; it was not exciting enough or Jon Jones did not
look great in his win. I think Jones looked fantastic and I was on
the edge of my seat all the way through the fight.
You may have heard that Jon Jones will defend his light heavyweight title at UFC 145 against former training partner Rashad Evans, or you might have been living in a cave. Anyway, it just so happens that this is just the headlining fight of a really interesting card. It seems like the UFC has decided that since the main event is a sure fire pay-per-view seller, they can fill up the under card with lesser known fighters. Well that's just fine because as unknown as some of the fighters may be, some intriguing fights are in the offing. On paper, it seems like a night of fights with pretty clear favourites, so let's have a look where the possible upsets lie.
As well as writing jiMMA, I am also writing articles for MMA magazines and more mainstream news outlets. Here are a few links to some bits and bobs I have been doing recently.
One of the most
anticipated bouts in the UFC's history finally takes place this
Saturday as former friends and training partners Jon “Bones”
Jones and “Sugar” Rashad Evans fight for the UFC light
heavyweight title.
In 2005, a young mixed
martial artist with a background in wrestling named Rashad Evans
joined Greg Jackson's fight camp in Alburquerque, New Mexico. On the
road to winning the light heavyweight belt, he helped build Jackson's
gym into one of the most successful and famous in the sport. By
2009, a new young fighter was making waves in the division and
Jackson asked Evans how he would feel about inviting Jon Jones into
the camp. Evans was excited by the youngster's potential and took
him under his wing. The two developed a brotherly relationship and
vowed never to fight one another.
Around a month ago, I wrote a quick piece about how excited I was that Bellator was back. In spite of the postponed and then cancelled heavy weight tournament final catastrophe, Bellator has continued to put on solid cards that repeatedly deliver, to the extent that I wonder why more people aren't watching. This Friday sees an awesome card, headlined by Eddie Alvarez's long awaited rematch with Shinya Aoki, but also features three tournament semi finals.
