BJJ black belt Alexis “Ally-Gator” Davis earned the biggest win of her MMA career on Saturday at Invicta Fighting Championships 4 in Kansas City, Kansas. Davis choked out Shayna “The Queen of Spades” Baszler in a rematch from 2010 and spoke with MMARising.com after the fight.

With the recent addition of female fighters to the UFC roster, Davis hopes to be able to compete for the promotion in the coming months. She welcomes a bout with UFC champion “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey, a part-time stablemate under Cesar Gracie, and plans to add UFC title gold to her collection.

Davis (13-5-0) has been one of Canada’s top female fighters for more than five years, but it wasn’t until July 2011 that she received her first big-show opportunity under the Strikeforce banner. She won her first two fights for the promotion and engaged in a thrilling rematch with former Strikeforce champion and fellow Canadian Sarah Kaufman in March. Despite a dominant third round from Davis that was enough to earn a 10-8 score from one judge, Kaufman prevailed via a narrow Majority Decision, which put a halt to Davis’s immediate plans for title contention.

The emergence of Invicta FC created another golden opportunity for Davis, however, and she has thus far made the most of it. Shortly after receiving her Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, Davis debuted for the upstart promotion at Invicta FC 2 in July and became the first woman to ever submit Japanese armbar specialist Hitomi “Girlfight Monster” Akano in MMA competition. The victory established that Davis was not just a good grappler. She was one of the best in the sport.

On Saturday night at Invicta FC 4, Davis avenged a razor-thin decision loss to Baszler (15-8-0) from when the fighters first met under the Freestyle Cage Fighting banner in 2010. Baszler eked out the victory in the first fight, but the bout marked the first time that she had ever won without being able to submit her opponent. In the rematch, Davis wasn’t looking to lose another competitive decision. She was looking to make a statement, and she did just that.

After threatening with chokes on the ground and nearly finishing the fight with an inverted heel hook late in round one, Davis picked up where she left off as round two began. She kept Baszler on the defensive with triangle chokes and armbar attempts and won the round off of her back. Early in round three, Davis took advantage of a Baszler slip by hopping on her opponent’s back. She pulled Baszler to the mat with a rear-naked choke and Baszler was rendered unconscious at the 58-second mark of round three.

“I almost caught her a couple of times [earlier], but Shayna’s tough and I’ve always been a fan of hers,” Davis said after the fight. “She has such a high-level jiu-jitsu game and I feel more at risk from her submissions than I would from Ronda Rousey’s because of the variations of the different submissions that [Baszler] has. It’s incredible.

“Did I think she was going to tap [to the heel hook]? Yeah, because I heard her yell, but I was just going to keep cranking on it until the ref stopped it or whatever else happened. She would have done the same thing to me.”

Davis noted improvements that Baszler had made since the first fight in 2010 and admitted that she might have been drawn into Baszler’s game plan if it weren’t for sound advice from her cornermen. She stuck to her strengths and earned her fifth victory in her past six fights.

“[Baszler’s] overall boxing has improved and I was sort of going back to the old Alexis [on the feet]. I’m fortunate enough that I have good corners and they’re willing to yell at me to push me back into the game plan. With her submission game, it’s always something that you have to be wary of.”

The Ultimate Fighting Championship recently made headlines by announcing that female fighters would compete inside the world-famous Octagon for the first time. On February 23rd, Ronda Rousey and Liz “Girl-Rilla” Carmouche will vie for the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship in the main event of UFC 157. Rousey is a part-time stablemate of Davis under Cesar Gracie, but that matters not to Davis and she would welcome a fight with the Olympic medallist if Rousey gets past Carmouche next month.

“I’d fight [Rousey] anyways,” Davis says. “Cesar has told me that he would have my back for that fight. She’s more of a visitor and I’m actually on the team. Fingers crossed, hopefully that fight happens. If I don’t end up in the UFC, I’m happy with the way things are going in my career. It’s really progressing regardless and I just want to fight the top-level girls. It’s been great fighting for Invicta.

“I’m hoping the UFC and Invicta can work out a deal, sort of like how Strikeforce did,” she adds. “That would be awesome because there so many bantamweights and it’s hard to keep us all busy. Especially in a male-dominated field like the UFC. With Invicta, they have so many shows and they can put that many different fighters out there, so it would be good if they could work together.”

Davis says that an ideal scenario would be to compete once or twice per year for the UFC and to stay active by fighting for Invicta FC during the remaining breaks. She also intends to compete in this year’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championships.

“I love jiu-jitsu,” Davis says. “It’s my passion and it’s something that I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. You can only get punched in the head [in MMA] for so long, but jiu-jitsu is forever in my blood.”

With back-to-back submission victories over high-level grapplers inside the Invicta FC cage, Davis has made a big statement to the rest of the women’s bantamweight division during her short time with the promotion. Whether she stays with Invicta FC or moves on to the UFC, Davis will be looking to capture a prestigious title this year as she continues her climb up the ranks at 135 pounds.

(Photo Credit: Esther Lin, AllElbows.com / InvictaFC.com)