Tonight’s Invicta Fighting Championships 12 card featured a number of excellent bouts at the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. A bantamweight battle between Raquel “Lionheart” Pa’aluhi and Ediane “India” Gomes was one of two matchups to share Fight of the Night honours.
The second bout to earn a $1500 FOTN bonus was a strawweight clash between Sharon “The Dream Catcher” Jacobson and Delaney “Lil’ Scrappy” Owen. In addition, new strawweight champion Livia Renata “Livinha” Souza and Faith “The Immortal” Van Duin each won $1000 Performance bonuses.
Pa’aluhi (5-4-0) extended her winning streak to three with arguably her biggest victory to date against Gomes (10-4-0) in their featured bantamweight matchup tonight. Showcasing her much-improved skills from her time training in Las Vegas, Pa’aluhi controlled the opening round with ground and pound and continued her assault in round two after dropping Gomes with a knee to the body. Gomes bounced back in round three, but her late rally was not enough and Pa’aluhi was rewarded with a trio of 29-28 scorecards for a Unanimous Decision victory.
In early action on the card, Jacobson (3-1-0) overcame the punching power of Owen (3-2-0) en route to a Unanimous Decision win. Jacobson’s key takedowns, ground and pound and submission attempts were enough to offset Owen’s hard punches, which rocked Jacobson in rounds one and three. Jacobson finished the fight strong with elbows and forearm strikes from top position, and all three judges scored the entertaining strawweight showdown 30-27 in her favour.
Newly-crowned Invicta FC Strawweight Champion Souza (8-0-0) tried her best to finish the title fight with Kankaanpää (10-2-1) in the first round, but the defending champion survived early danger and came on strong as the fight progressed. Souza was able to lock on a triangle choke from her back in the fourth round and she weakened Kankaanpää’s defences with elbows. Unable to escape, Kankaanpää tapped out and relinquished her championship at the 3:58 mark of round four. Souza’s Performance of the Night bonus earned her an extra $1000.
New Zealand’s Van Duin (7-1-0) had originally planned to make her Invicta FC debut in December. Her fight fell through, but the wait proved to be worth it for the featherweight prospect and she kicked off her Invicta FC career with an impressive submission victory over Bell (3-3-0) tonight. Both fighters were active with submissions in round one, but Van Duin reversed a takedown and locked on a no-hooks rear-naked choke in the early stages of round two. Bell could not spin free and was forced to submit at the 38-second mark of the second round. Van Duin pocketed an extra $1000 for the POTN bonus.