Kayla Harrison just beat Courtney King into
a bloody mess. Opened up a nasty cut on the bridge of her nose
midway through the first and the mauling just continued. pic.twitter.com/3J7Cmhui7o— Will (@ChillemDafoe)
November 21, 2020
It was a mismatch on paper, and it was a mismatch in practice.
Two-time Olympic gold medalist Kayla
Harrison put forth a near-flawless performance in her
Invicta Fighting Championships debut, as she dismissed Courtney
King with punches in the second round of their gory
Invicta 43 headliner on Friday in Kansas City, Kansas. King
(4-2, 1-2 Invicta) packed her bags 4:48 into Round 2, closing the
book on her three-fight winning streak.
Harrison (8-0, 1-0 Invicta) brutalized the Fury Fighting
Championship titleholder throughout the first round, turning their
showcase into a bloodbath. The
American Top Team export executed a takedown, settled in full
guard and slashed open long vertical gash between King’s eyes with
an elbow strike. Blood poured from the wound, covering much of the
canvas and both women in a slippery plasma. Harrison ultimately
shifted to mount and made a pass at an armbar before the horn
sounded.
King fared no better in the middle stanza. There, Harrison
delivered two more takedowns, achieved full mount and progressed to
a mounted crucifix, at which point she forced referee Marcio
Laselva to intervene with a quick volley of unanswered punches.
Meanwhile, Stephanie
Geltmacher rebounded from her first professional defeat, as she
put away the previously unbeaten Caitlin
Sammons with punches in the first round of their flyweight
co-main event. Sammons (3-1, 3-1 Invicta) succumbed to blows 4:28
into Round 1.
A four-time All-American wrestler in college, Geltmacher (5-1, 3-1
Invicta) executed an early takedown, applied maximum pressure in
the clinch along the fence and generally made life miserable for
her opponent. Sammons managed to gain separation, but her situation
only deteriorated from there—and rapidly so. Geltmacher feigned a
takedown, floored the Floridian with a devastating overhand right
and drew the curtain with follow-up punches.
The finish was Geltmacher’s first in more than two years.
In other action, Hope Chase
(3-1, 2-0 Invicta) dispatched Brittney
Cloudy (2-3, 0-2 Invicta) with a rear-naked choke 4:37 into the
second round of their bantamweight affair; Meaghan
Penning (1-0, 1-0 Invicta) laid claim to a unanimous decision
over Alexa Culp
(1-1, 1-1 Invicta) in a three-round strawweight tilt, drawing 29-28
marks from all three judges; and Juliana
Miller (2-0, 1-0 Invicta) submitted Kendal
Holowell (0-1, 0-1 Invicta) with an armbar 2:49 into the first
round of their flyweight pairing.