Jewels Lightweight Queen Champion Ayaka Hamasaki will make her U.S. debut against Austria’s Jasminka Cive at Invicta Fighting Championships 2 on July 28th in Kansas City, Kansas. MMARising.com learned of the bout’s possibility this past week. GroundandPound.de confirmed the fight today.
Hamasaki is coming off of a dominant first-round submission victory over Japanese legend Yuka “Vale Tudo Queen” Tsuji in May. The Megumi Fujii protégé is one of the sport’s premier female fighters. Cive has yet to go the distance in her career and most recently scored a TKO victory in March.
Hamasaki (7-0-0) and Cive (5-0-0) sport similar records on paper, but Hamasaki brings a significant experience advantage into the fight and has faced a much higher level of opposition. She became the first Jewels champion with two victories in one night at Jewels: “11th Ring” in late 2010 and has since made successful title defences against South Korean standout Seo Hee Ham in a December rematch and Tsuji this past month. The judo black belt is known for her strong ground game, but her striking skills are among the best of any competitor on the Jewels roster; a fact that was evident in Hamasaki’s first fight with Ham in 2010 when she outstruck the kickboxing veteran.
Fighting at 115 pounds for the first time, Cive will also make her U.S. debut in the bout with Hamasaki. Cive has finished all five of her professional opponents to date, including a pair of TKO wins over Lilla Vincze in 2011. On March 17th, she travelled to Liechtenstein and stopped Slovakia’s Eva Henesova by third-round TKO. Cive is a solid striker in her own right, but her opponents to date sport a combined record of just 0-8 and she now takes a huge step up in competition to challenge the Jewels champion next month. The bout will mark Cive’s strawweight debut.
Invicta Fighting Championships 2 takes place on July 28th at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas.
- Shayna “The Queen of Spades” Baszler (14-6-0) vs Sara McMann (5-0-0) [135 pounds]
- Alexis Davis (11-5-0) vs Hitomi “Girlfight Monster” Akano (18-9-0) [135 pounds]
- Liz “Girl-Rilla” Carmouche (6-2-0) vs Kaitlin Young (7-5-1) [135 pounds]
- Amanda “Lioness of the Ring” Nunes (6-2-0) vs Milana Dudieva (8-1-0) [135 pounds]
- Kelly “Blood Red” Kobold (18-3-1) vs Vanessa Porto (14-4-0) [135 pounds]
- Barb “Little Warrior” Honchak (5-2-0) vs Bethany Marshall (4-0-0) [125 pounds]
- Julia “The Jewel” Budd (2-2-0) vs Elina Nilsson (2-2-0) [145 pounds]
- Ayaka Hamasaki (7-0-0) vs Jasminka Cive (5-0-0) [115 pounds]
- Carla Esparza (6-2-0) vs Sarah “White Tiger” Schneider (6-5-0) [115 pounds]
- “South Valley’s Own” Angelica Chavez (4-1-0) vs Kikuyo Ishikawa (7-3-0) [105 pounds]
- Sarah “Cheesecake” Moras (2-0-0) vs Raquel “Rocky” Pennington (1-0-0) [135 pounds]
- Jessamyn “The Gun” Duke (5-2-0 AM) vs Suzie Montero (1-0-0) [135 pounds]
- Jocelyn “Lights Out” Lybarger (4-2-0 AM) vs Cheryl Chan (6-2-0 AM) [125 pounds]
- Jessica Philippus (7-1-0 AM) vs “Lightning” Liz McCarthy (6-0-0 AM) [105 pounds]
No comments:
Post a Comment