‘Standing on the ledge’: One woman’s ongoing fight to change the game for female MMA

Invicta Fighting Championships president Shannon Knapp loves a good fight — the more challenging it is, the more enticing it gets.

That helps explain why she was the right person to create an all-women’s MMA promotion and why it’s still around nine years later, more successful than anyone imagined it could become.

Based in Kansas City, Invicta is the world’s premier all-women’s MMA promotion, and was recently bought by Anthem Sports & Entertainment. Invicta fights will now air on AXS TV cable network, which is owned by Anthem, in the U.S. Previously, since 2014, Invicta cards had aired on UFC’s Fight Pass.

Anthem wasn’t the only buyer courting Knapp when word got out that Invicta was on the market. But Anthem embraced her vision, and even better, Knapp joined Anthem’s board and retained her position as president.

Knapp appreciates the arrangement because Anthem matched her ambition; Anthem loves Invicta’s innovation and willingness to take risks.

“We’re not afraid to step out on the ledge, because that’s where we’ve been standing,” Knapp said. “We’ve been standing on the ledge for a long time. We’re all-female and if it was incredibly easy, everybody would be doing it.”

While Knapp has created a home for female fighters, the beginning of her 15-year career was spent on the men’s side of MMA with International Fight League, UFC and Strikeforce. She admitted she avoided the women’s fight game for a long time because of how it was presented to her. It was never, “Shannon, we want you to go and find the best talent out there,” she said. “What it was always about was hot girls.”

That’s what they wanted: a pretty face who happened to fight. The focus was too rarely on the talent, and that left a sour taste in Knapp’s mouth.

It was during her time with Strikeforce that Knapp first witnessed a women’s MMA fight and worked with the combatants up-close. Seeing the efforts the women had to put in to compete, Knapp’s perspective changed.

“They changed my mind,” she said. “They literally changed my mind and gave me every tool that I would ever need to go out there and change everybody else’s mind.”

The space in which the female scene was competing to exist was not a welcoming one. In 2012, few were interested in investing in it, Knapp said. It was a struggle to get in gyms for training, and when UFC bought Strikeforce, the narrative was that women weren’t going to be allowed to compete.

So Knapp did something about it.

Nine years later, she’s promoted over 400 fights across Invicta’s 46 events, and discovered some all-time women’s talents: Rose Namajunas, Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino and Amanda Nunes, to name a few.

Knapp said she had no idea where this journey would take her, or that one day Invicta would be big enough to be sold and land its own national television deal. All she knew was she wanted to make a difference and create a space exclusively for female fighters.

“Listening to some of these stories and these women, the things that were happening in the gyms and things like that, is really what grabbed me,” she said. “For me it was, this is something that I can get in here and I really believe I can make a difference. I think I can change the game for these women. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I like a good fight.”

People laughed at her when they heard about her mission. Knapp said UFC president Dana White told her she had “big balls” for pursuing an all-women’s MMA promotion.

Everyone counted her out, she said, and that only fueled her fire.

Invicta has changed the way women are viewed in MMA — women like 26-year-old Alesha Zappitella (9-2), who currently holds the Invicta atomweight title. Zappitella said she still fights misconceptions about women’s fighters not being exciting or tough enough for the sport.

“In all reality, any women’s fight that you ever watch is 10 times harder than any fight between two men,” she said. “I’ve never seen a woman give up; I have witnessed many men give up in the cage.

“I feel like all women who step in the cage, we go out almost with a chip on our shoulder. We know that we have something to prove; we know that a lot of society is looking at us like this is not our place.

Atomweight fighters like Zappitella have found a home with Invicta. Without all-women’s fight cards, Zappitella would likely be fighting in another country, or in weight classes for which she’s too small.

“Shannon’s really given women a place to grow in this sport … specifically like me, who are 105 pounds. Invicta is the only place that actually accepts women my size,” Zappitella said. “So it is creating huge opportunities for the younger generation and I’m just happy to be part of it.”

Knapp said she hadn’t considered selling Invicta until she realized that her dream and vision had grown larger than herself. She needed more resources and support to keep it going. Now, she can focus on the bigger picture: building a franchise that encompasses all areas of combat.

Invicta had previously been somewhat like a feeder league to UFC, rather than direct competition. As Invicta continues to grow, Knapp wants Invicta to get to the point where her athletes have more opportunities and options.

“I don’t look at it as competitive,” Knapp said. “I just look at as, I aspire to do as well as they have done, and provide those opportunities for the women that, when given that choice, they always choose here.”

Her focus now is on the Phoenix Tournament taking place at Kansas City, Kan.’s Memorial Hall on Friday. The one-day tourney format was inspired by prizefighter boxing tournaments and will feature eight fighters.

Knapp’s goal for the series was simple: provide entertainment at low-risk stakes with a big financial reward.

• Low risk: quarterfinal and semifinal bouts will be one five-minute round, decreasing the risk of injury; the finals will be three five-minute rounds and count toward a fighter’s win/loss record
• Big reward: fighters will be awarded a monetary bonus for every bout they finish, with a grand prize for the champion
• Entertainment: the eight fighters will be matched at random in the quarterfinals, and the fastest finishers will get to pick their next opponent. If no one finishes, they draw randomly. Essentially, the audience won’t know who’s fighting whom until right before and during the tournament

Invicta atomweight fighter Lindsey VanZandt (7-4), who is competing here Friday, is excited at the opportunity to fight more than once in a night.

“I’ve finished fights in like 29 seconds before and I’m like, ‘Oh, I want to fight again.’ And now I have the opportunity to,” VanZandt, 27, said. “The fact that you can fight multiple times a night is really cool because I’ve always wanted to.”

Zappitella is not participating in the Phoenix Tournament but said she loves tournaments and is a bit jealous of the fighters who will be featured in KCK Friday.

“We are the only promotion in the world that still does the one-day tournament,” Zappitella said. “And I think that there’s a lot to be said about the fact that it’s women doing it. I love all of the new ideas of things that Shannon is bringing to the table and keeping things interesting.”

Part of the overarching goal is to gain more visibility for the fighters, Knapp said.

“We tell you the story about who they are,” she said. “That was another facet of this that I thought was very helpful to getting the word out and helping the fans connect with the athletes.”

The Phoenix Tournament will be broadcast on AXS and streamed on Invicta FC’s YouTube Channel.

This story was originally published June 7, 2021 at 11:01 AM.