Invicta Fighting Championship Will Stream Live in HD in April: Will You Watch It? (Yahoo! Contributor Network)

Invicta Fighting Championship's (IFC) first all female card will stream live in HD on April 28th from Kansas City, Kansas. With the success of Tate-Rousey, is this the perfect time for female MMA fighters to demonstrate that there are many more technically skilled women willing to go three rounds in the cage?

Will you watch it?

Former Strikeforce champion, Marloes Coenen, gave an interesting interview about how she connected with female MMA fight promoter, Janet Martin—through their first partnership with Blackeye Promotions—and now with all-female Invicta Fighting Championships.

On the video, Marloes explains why she thinks it's important for women to see women fight. "The beauty of Invicta…it's about the athleticism of women. All women who are watching our show can see that you can be a normal girl or a woman or whatever and you can still kick a$$. That's important. I hope we can inspire so many women…it's not just one girl fight, it's a full card of women who kick a$$. I believe we will create buzz and energy and empowerment for women who watch it. But it's also entertainment for men, of course, for obvious reasons." video

If all goes well, women MMA fighters will have a new home and an opportunity to fight more often. That's good for the fighters and for the fans.

Invicta Fighting Championships: free HD live stream

Invicta promoter, Shannon Knapp announced in an interview with Stephie "Crooklyn" Daniels on Bloody Elbow, "…what we're going to do is have the show blacked out in Kansas City. We have a film crew coming in to film in HD, and we're going to stream it live, for free, to everyone, no matter where you're at, excluding Kansas City, right from our website. It's kind of Marketing 101, but we're going to give the product away. I think that's the best way to do it. One of the things that I learned from the UFC, is that maintaining control of your product is way more advantageous to us as a company." source

Live streaming worked very well for Super Fight League's first MMA show held in March in Mumbai, India. At one point, according to one of the commentators, over 200,000 people were watching on Youtube. That's quite an accomplishment since MMA is new and relatively unknown to Indian audiences. After the show, a video of the entire event was made available for new fans to watch this Bollywood meets MMA production.

Live streaming is an excellent way to get your product and the female fighters in front of the people who want to see them. The audience interested in watching female MMA fighters has grown since Tate vs Rousey captured attention of long-term and new fans.

Natasha Wicks, Ring Girl

I wonder if any consideration was given to having an alternative to "ring girls" for an all-female event. Speaking of Super Fight League, the women who danced modern-style and traditional Indian-style were a nice change from what fans are used to seeing at fights. K1 kick-boxing events feature women dancing too.

Mauro Renallo, Commentator

"…Mauro Ranallo will be our play-by-play commentator," said Knapp. "I haven't finished assembling the rest of the team, but the objective here is to continue to bring some familiarization to all of this." Mauro Renallo is familiar to fans who watch Strikeforce events on Showtime. source

Shannon Knapp and her partner, Janet Martin are pulling out all the stops to make this event a must-see for fans. To me, having Mauro and Natasha as part of the team shifts the promotion from feeling like a local show to a "ready-for-prime-time" show.

The fight card includes popular former Strikeforce champion, Marloes Coenen, and female fighters "on loan" from Strikeforce, Liz Carmouche and Sarah D'Alelio.

The first event, Invicta One, will take place in Kansas City, Kansas on April 28th, 2012.

I'll be watching the HD live stream. What about you? Will you watch it?

Source: thank you to MiddleEasy for the Marloes Coenen interview

More from this contributor:

Jon 'Bones' Jones Vs Mario 'Marinho' Filho on Brazilian MMA Reality TV

Five reasons women will improve faster with all female fight cards

Wheelchair Boxing and MMA Fighting with One Arm? Don't Bully These Dudes

Interview: Blackeye fighter Marloes Coenen is "Talkin' bout a revolution"

Bollywood Meets MMA at Super Fight League India: Fan's View

Cheryl Ragsdale started out boxing and has added kicks and BJJ so she can practice MMA. She trains with Keith Florian and UFC Fighter Kenny Florian at Florian Martial Arts - follow @thatgirlisfunny

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