Invicta FC 55 on June 28 to Mark Promotional Return, Features Bantamweight Belt

We aren't back because we never left. Now it's time for us to do the talking....#InvictaFC55 | Kansas City, Kansas at Memorial Hall @Talita_MMA(c) vs @bigbad2_0 for the bantamweight title

Full card and tickets released May 31st

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NEW DISTRIBUTION DEAL ANNOUNCED SOON pic.twitter.com/TAxPcuAXyu

— Invicta FC (@InvictaFights) May 28, 2024

It’s been a while, but Invicta Fighting Championships is coming back in full swing this summer.

On Tuesday, organizational chief Shannon Knapp announced on the “MMA Today” show on the MMA on SiriusXM radio channel that Invicta would be staging its first event of the year in June. The women’s-only league last ran a show in October 2023, and rumors had spread that Invicta was in jeopardy. According to a press release on Friday, a full seven-fight offering will be held at the Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas. The broadcast arrangements have not yet been made public, but Invicta later posted that this would mean the beginning of a deal that would allow for events every six weeks.

Invicta FC 55 on June 28 will be headlined by a bantamweight championship battle between Talita Bernardo (10-4) and Olga Rubin (9-3), with Bernardo looking to make the first defense of her throne after winning it in January 2023. The Ultimate Fighting Championship vet left the promotion after losing three of four appearances, but since departing, has rattled off four straight wins including three under the Invicta banner. Her foe Rubin came up short by split decision to Taneisha Tennant in 2022 for the title, and a pair of wins over Serena DeJesus and Claire Guthrie propelled her into another championship opportunity.

The co-main attraction will see the promotional return of Kay Hansen (7-6) against relative Colombian neophyte Sayury Canon (3-0). Hansen saw her four-fight stint in the UFC come to an end in 2022 when she dropped three straight decisions, and she will return to the company where she made her pro debut. Fellow strawweight Canon turned professional before Hansen, winning once in 2016 and taking over five years off before her return.

The remainder of the lineup will see a few newcomers from Japan interspersed against Invicta vets and MMA newcomers. Top-ranked Saori Oshima (14-4) will be lent from Jewels to face Andressa Romero (6-4-1) in an atomweight affair; Taylor Guardado (4-2) and Yoko Higashi (8-4) will both drop back down to bantamweight in a collision of former Professional Fighters League fighters; Elisandra Ferreira de Oliveira (6-2) tries to make it three for three under the Invicta lights as she takes on the well-traveled Katie Saull (6-6) at atomweight; former amateur standouts come to blows when former GAMMA competitor Zoe Nowicki (0-0) battles ex-IMMAF champ Josiane Oliveira (0-0) in a double debut flyweight tilt; the card opens with Scorpion Fighting System upstart Fallon Johnson (0-0) turning pro in a flyweight contest against one-time Combate Global victor Violeta Mendoza (1-0).