A change has been made to the upcoming Invicta Fighting Championship 2 event that’s set to take place at at the Memorial Hall on July 28th in Kansas City, Kansas. Kelly Kobold has been forced to withdraw from her upcoming fight with Vanessa Porto (14-4) due to a shoulder injury. Sarah D’Alelio (5-2) will step in on short notice to face Porto on the card at the bantamweight limit of 135 pounds.
D’Alelio snapped a two fight losing streak by defeating Vanessa Mariscal at the inaugural Invicta FC event earlier this year and spoke about the opportunity to face Porto as an opponent:
“Vanessa’s really tough, really strong, really aggressive and good on the ground, but I’m all of those things too,” said D’Alelio, analyzing the matchup with Porto. “This is a great fight and I think it’s going to be a serious battle. If I win, it will put me in top contender status.”
Both fighters are comfortable with their ground skills, but Porto is a blackbelt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu while D’Alelio is a blue belt. However, grappling is a lot different when strikes are involved as D’Alelio pointed out:
“Things like that don’t matter when there are punches involved,”
Porto has won five consecutive fights and has looked absolutely dominant in those fights as she has been able to finish three of those opponents in the very first round. She last fought three months ago and won via KO in only 41 seconds. Porto spoke on the opportunity to face D’Alelio:
“It’s just one more opponent. I’m here to fight and do not choose whom I fight,” said Porto. “I will fight anybody in the world at 135 pounds.”
The headline bout at Invicta FC 2 will feature 31-year-old Olympic wrestling silver medalist Sara McMann (5-0) against submission specialist Shayna “The Queen of Spades” Baszler (14-6). In the co-main event we will see Cesar Gracie protégé Alexis Davis (11-5) take on Hitomi “Girlfight Monster” Akano (18-9) of Tokyo, Japan. The rest of the card is full of top female fighters from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Japan and Europe.
The official Invicta FC 2 line-up is as follows:
MAIN CARD
- Shayna Baszler vs. Sara McMann
- Hitomi Akano vs. Alexis Davis
- Liz Carmouche vs. Kaitlin Young
- Milana Dudienva vs. Amanda Nunes
- Sarah D’Alelio vs. Vanessa Porto
- Barb Honchak vs. Bethany Marshall
- Julia Budd vs. Elina Nilsson
- Carla Esparza vs. Sarah Schneider
PRELIMINARY CARD
- Angelica Chaves vs. Nicdali Calanoc-Rivera
- Sarah Moras vs. Raquel Pennington
- Jessamyn Duke vs. Suzie Montero
- Cheryl Chan vs. Jocelyn Lybarger
- Liz McCarthy vs. Jessica Philippus
Tickets for Invicta FC 2: Baszler vs. McMann, priced from $25, are available for purchase at Memorial Hall box office(913) 549-4853), online at Ticketmaster.com and InvictaFC.com and by phone at (800) 745-3000.