UFC signs 11 strawweights from Invicta

They're going to fight on an all female TUF. Winner becomes the 115 champion.

Carla Esparza, Claudia Gadelha, Alex Chambers, Felice Herrig, Bec Hyatt, Emily Kagan, Julianna Lima, Rose Namajunas, Tecia Torres, Paige Van Zandt, Joanne Calderwood.

Not surprising since we've known for a while that UFC and Invicta were in bed together.

Waiting for that photo of Dana wearing an Invicta shirt.

Was posted by me and Eddie over a year ago on global-mma that invicta was owned by none other than zuffa

The plan of Zuffia /Invicta has finally revealed   itself .I knew head of time they were planning something likethe Tuf womanwithnvicta and Knapp is ok with that be a feeder league since she a former UFC employer. 


                                                                                           


Dave Doyleundefined"
[ltr]@davedoylemma[/ltr]


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Dana: "Buying Invita wouldn't do the sport any good, wouldn't do anyone any good. No sense in buying business which is growing."[/size]
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Dave Doyle undefined
[ltr]@davedoylemma[/ltr]


43m
Winner of TUF season will become first UFC women's strawweight champion
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1. They will compete in the next season of the Ultimate Fighter starting May 18. Full season with just women.
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Dave Doyle ‏
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Dana White on conference call announces Invicta has assigned contracts of 11 women's straw weights to the UFC.

And zoofa keeps on spreading their brand name thinner. Prepare for even lower TUF ratings.

Fuck no smaller woman =more watered down cards oh God .....

Increase ppv price,making people pay to watch foreign events,now bringing in a new woman's weight class to a roster you already claimed was too full?????

Wow what a business model lmfao

This is probably the best division in women's mma. Can't say you're the best strawweight without Hamasaki or Inoue, though.

Regardless of this being UFC/TUF/whatever, these are going to be good fights.

Dana: Lorenzo we have to many fighters. What should we do next?
Lorenzo: That's easy I know!
Dana: What do we do?
Lorenzo: Start a new womens division and sign more fighters!

What a joke this company is really becoming!

  

Yawn. More women's mma. Seriously, this is going to be the death of the UFC.

I honestly don't understand why Dana doesn't leave wmma alone let invicta be the real home of wmma.

I agree wekka its a good division but if you eliminated all wmma girls you would have more quality guys instead of division fillers and tuf leftovers.

UFC announces launch of women'€™s strawweight division, all-women's TUF
msn.foxsports.com - 11/12/13


Bec 'Rowdy' Hyatt was one of 11 women's SW's assigned to the UFC from Invicta FC today.


In case there are any doubts about just how deep the UFC will embed themselves into the women'€™s fighting business, consider this: in a Wednesday conference call, president Dana White formally announced the launch of a women's strawweight division. In addition to that, in 2014, the company will air an all-women'€™s season of The Ultimate Fighter for the 115-pounders and the winner will be crowned the champion of the new weight class.

The UFC president initially revealed the new strawweight division last month to the Fighter & The Kid podcast on FOX Sports. The division was officially established when the UFC acquired the contracts of 11 fighters from Invicta FC in a deal that took about four weeks to execute, White said.

That group will be sidelined until May 18, when they arrive in Las Vegas to film their season of TUF.
“It'€™s pretty damn obvious we're in business with women now.”
--Dana White

At that point, the UFC is all-in.

"From a guy who was saying 'Never, never, never' [on women], I'm pretty excited about this," White said.
The 11 fighters who were acquired from Invicta FC will take up most of the slots on TUF. They are Americans Carla Esparza, Felice Herrig, Emily Kagan, Rose Namajunas, Tecia Torres and Paige VanZant; Brazilians Claudia Gadelha and Juliana Lima; Australians Alex Chambers and Bec Hyatt; and Joanne Calderwood of Scotland.

The acquisitions represent a huge chunk of the division's top talent. According to MMARising, which publishes the most widely respected rankings on women's MMA, five of those athletes were in the strawweight top 10. Esparza, meanwhile, was the reigning Invicta strawweight champion, winning that title in January by defeating Hyatt in a unanimous decision.

Rose Namajunas lands a punch on Tecia Torres at Invicta FC 6 in July.


A hunt for five other contestants to round out the TUF cast will soon take place, although White hinted that other 115-pounders are already under contract. The coaches for the season have yet to be picked, but White said they would likely be men.

The strawweights join the women's bantamweights, headlined by champ Ronda Rousey, on the UFC stage. White said this season of TUF, which had a group of female contestants alongside of men, helped inform his decision.

"It was definitely a feeling-out process, and I think it went externally well,"€ he said. "And this 115-pound division has such depth. You look for the talent, and you look for the depth, and this one had it."€
While Invicta dealt away the contracts of 11 members of their roster, White said he believed that the partnership between the two organizations would boost growth as women recognize the new opportunities available.

"Now that the 115-pound division is open and women can get into the UFC, and could possibly be on The Ultimate Fighter, you'€™re going to see that division explode,"€ he said. "Now the fact that we're committed, and it'€™s pretty damn obvious we're in business with women now, you're going to see a lot more women. I think it'€™s going to be great for Invicta. I think it's going to help Invicta continue to grow. I think it'€™s a positive thing."€

Conversely, the addition of the 115-pounders will no doubt make competition for UFC jobs more intense than ever. Despite an event schedule that may reach 50 in 2014, the additional roster spots taken up by the new class could push out some who are on the borderline of staying put or being cut.

To be clear...

The UFC did not sign 11 Invicta fighters to contracts who were finished with their Invicta contacts. Not did they outbid Invicta for any champions with champions clause.

All of these 11 were currently under contract to Invicta. The enforce contacts we're owned by Invicta. Invicta chose to sell all of their top level fighters to the UFC leaving them with a severely very weakened company with very few, if any draws, on their roaster.

Does anyone know of any precedent of this... where a league or team does this without being bought outright? Invicta is essentially left with a shell of a company here.


1. Why would the sell the company to Zuffa?

2. Why wouldn't Zuffa simply purchase Invicata and no longer have them as a competitor in women's MMA?

3. In the female MMA space Invicicta was the ONLY competition they had in major women's MMA. Who may be asking tough questions if Zuffa purchases another major MMA organization?


Some 'could' have suspicions as to 'maybe' some kind of...


Collusion

Collison is an agreement between two or more parties, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage. It is an agreement among firms or individuals to divide a market, set prices, limit production or limit opportunities.[1] It can involve "wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship between the colluding parties".[2] In legal terms, all acts affected by collusion are considered void.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion

Drawing power? None of these girls are even considered draws. Invicta arguably has one draw and that's Cyborg and with her remaining, I believe Invicta's profile remains relatively the same.

Does it hurt the overall product? Definitely, since most of their high.level fights occurred at this weight. Yet, it can be said that depth could possibly improve and will enact Invicta has a WEC, of sorts, with their atomweight, flyweight, and featherweight divisions. Unless flyweights would rather drop or continue to bulk up to Bantamweights and the same could be said for Atomweights.

As for then being an unofficial Zuffa subsidiary of sorts, no one is surprised. Either they continue their conquest of eventually owning WMMA or DEEP Jewels couldn't step up in the meantime.

wekka wrote:Drawing power? None of these girls are even considered draws. Invicta arguably has one draw and that's Cyborg and with her remaining, I believe Invicta's profile remains relatively the same.

So you're saying that this won't affect Invicta paying fans who follow many of their top fighters like... Carla Esparza, Joanne Calderwood, Tecia Torres, Rose Namajunas, Bec Hyatt, Emily Kagan, Alex Chambers, Julianna Lima, and Paige Van Zan.. They'll just keep watching as much Invicta ans spending just as a they did before?

Come on Weeka, get real. That's something right out of the UFC handbook. It was in Vince McMahon's bible too prior to them near-falling of the face of the earth in the last decade or so. Three golden letters alone  lit up at center ring/cage do not make people shell $60 out of their pockets a few dozen times a year.

Are you also gonna to tell me that current Invicta watchers/customers who are followers of these name Invicta MMA girls are not gonna be now spending a lot of their MMA time & money following these top girls in the UFC. That's not gonna hurt Invictas bottom line at all??? Are u assuming those fans are now gonna double their MMA viewing time & the MMA dollars they spend on it. Haven't you witnessed the growing amount of despair or even backlash to the UFC when they put on new fighter-filled up-n nowhere fighter -filled cards??? A lot of UFC costumers have stopped buying PPV's or at the least bought fewer because of this. Why would current Invicta customers be any different? Do you  know what 'customer acquisition cost' is in regeard to landing brand spanking new customers. That makes this even more costly for them.

caposa call out zuffia for steal someone idea on UG.
the link mention this fighter.
Americans Carla Esparza, Felice Herrig, Emily Kagan, Rose Namajunas, Tecia Torres and Paige VanZant; Brazilians Claudia Gadelha and Juliana Lima; Australians Alex Chambers and Bec Hyatt; and Joanne Calderwood of Scotland. i

Caposa @GrabakaHitman
Zuffa stole this guys idea:


http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma.cfm?go=forum_framed.posts&forum=1&thread=2234436&page=1&pc=30

this the link what look like when you search it.
here the summary of the topic
From: If it ain't Dutch, it ain't much 11   
Posted: 10/4/13 9:13 AM
Member Since: 1/26/08
Posts: 5266


With ratings for Tuf 18 showing that viewership is higher for the female fights, what do you think the odds of an all female 115lbs (Strawweight) division are?

Dana stated it would be awhile before a new division is put in the UFC and they could use the show to build the division with the winner of the show getting the title. Would be the first time for an all female edition and the first time that the winner of the show became a UFC champion.

SW for WMMA IMO is one of the best divisions and it would make for great TV. Think about the possible fighters.

Jessica Aguilar
Claudia Gadelha
Carla Esparza
Felice Herrig
Joanne Calderwood
Tecia Torres
Bec Hyatt
Paige VanZant
Thug Rose
Ashley Cummins

Plus I assume some 125lb fighters would move down and some 105lb would move up for the show.

I assume it would get better ratings then your traditional all male season would get because it would be WMMA (drawing better ratings this season) and would be for a UFC Title.

Even if the fights were good, it's TUF and I won't be watching.

Can't stand that reality TV drama crap. Also not really a big fan of WMMA in general.

Not trying to sound harsh, but there's only a handful of women who are even any good IMO. It looks like watching amateur MMA to me.

The UFC women's BW champ is the very epitome of being one dimensional. That should tell you something.

Apparently, the winner of the upcoming Mizuki Inoue/Emi Tomimatsu fight will be on their way to the UFC.

They are literally grasping at STRAWS!!!!!

clever haha^^^^^^