Former Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Sarah Kaufman (15-2) will no longer get to make her Invicta Fighting Championships debut on October 6 in Kansas City, Kan. An injury has forced the 26-year-old Canadian out of her scheduled Invicta FC 3 match-up with Minnesota’s Kaitlin Young (7-6-1).
The exact nature of the injury was not disclosed, however, Kaufman expressed her disappointment and apologized to Young via Twitter:
1st fight I've ever had to pull out of so I'm sorry @kaitlin_young @invictafights and all my fans. Wanting to get back asap!
— Sarah Kaufman (@mmasarah) September 17, 2012
Taking Kaufman’s place will be a woman Kaitlin Young knows quite well, Team Cesar Gracie product Leslie “The Peacemaker” Smith (3-2-1).
Young and Smith fought to a draw back in April in a “fight of the night” performance on the inaugural Invicta FC card. Young has fought once since then, dropping a second round submission to Liz Carmouche at Invicta FC 2 in July. Smith has not fought again.
Smith was originally scheduled to fight rising prospect Kim Connor-Hamby (4-0) on the Invicta FC 3 card. Now stepping in for her in that fight will be Colorado’s Raquel “Rocky” Pennington (3-1) who made her pro debut back in March with a second round TKO victory over Kim Couture.
Invicta FC 3 wil be headlined with the promotion’s first-ever women’s world title bout featuring Jessica Penne (9-1) of Laguna Hills, Calif. taking on undefeated Naho Sugiyama (8-0) of Kyoto, Japan in an atomweight (105 pound) championship.
See ProMMAnow.com’s Upcoming Events page for the full Invicta FC 3 line-up.