Invicta FC Moves to Wednesdays in 2022

Invicta FC Moves to Wednesdays

To paraphrase the great Elton John (and also Nickelback:)

“Oh, Wednesday night’s all right for fightin’. Get a little action in.”

Effective next Wednesday, and continuing through the rest of this year, whenever women’s MMA promotion INVICTA FC holds a card, it will do so on Wednesday, its new night for events.

This new effort starts with a rematch for championship gold in the promotion’s atomweight division (competitors fight at a maximum allowable weight of 105 lbs.) as incumbent titleholder Alesha Zappitella (9-2, 1 NC MMA, 6-2 INVICTA) will meet challenger Jessica Delboni (11-3 MMA, 4-2 INVICTA FC {not counting her wins ahead of the Phoenix Series final last June}) in the main event of INVICTA FC 45.

Look for a full breakdown of this event as it draws closer.

The championship rematch headlines a six-fight card to be simulcast live on the promotion’s YouTube channel and MMAJunkie.

Broadcast time for INVICTA FC 45 will be 8 pm ET/ 5 pm PT on Jan. 12. So mark this on your calendar today to ensure you won’t miss it.

Other MMA Promotions to Hold Wednesday Night Cards

While it is an uncommon happening, an MMA promotion holding its cards on a Wednesday evening is by no means something that’s considered unheard of.

INVICTA FC is the latest entry into the Wednesday night fray in MMA, as several other promotions have come before it in holding midweek cards.

WXC Found Success on Wednesdays

Take INVICTA’s former UFC Fight Pass stablemate Warrior Xtreme Cagefighting (WXC) out of Michigan (of which Zappitella is an alumna), for example:

Between Feb. 27, 2019, and Jan. 27, 2020, WXC would hold monthly cards, most often on the final Wednesday evening of each month under the WXC Warrior Wednesday title– with no event being held in June of 2019 as the promotion instead optioned to bookend the month of July by holding two cards (July 3 and July 31.)

Additionally, due to the Christmas holiday being observed on a Wednesday in 2019, the December Warrior Wednesday was instead held one week earlier on Dec. 18.

After the Jan. 29, 2020 card, dubbed Warrior Wednesday 11, the promotion intended to move to weekend evenings on Fight Pass. Effective with its April 10, 2020 card, what was to have been WXC 87.

Due to the effects of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sports industry, WXC was forced to cancel this card, along with a planned rebooking of WXC 87 on Oct. 30, 2020, still on Fight Pass.

As of January of 2022, it is still unknown when WXC may return from the pandemic.

Alaska Fighting Championship a Wednesday Staple

Much like WXC, Alaska Fighting Championship (AFC) has also found a comfortable home for itself on Wednesday nights, even before it joined the UFC Fight Pass portfolio in August of 2016.

Prior to the onset of COVID-19, AFC cards would stream once a month in a 12 midnight ET time slot on Wednesday nights (early Thursday mornings) with the Fight Pass partnership beginning at a time when the promotion was still operating in a fall-to-spring calendar, moving to a year-round schedule of events in the middle of 2019.

Notably, AFC 158 took place on March 11, 2020.

The same day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared the coronavirus as a worldwide pandemic, making that card the last MMA event to take place before a full audience for more than a year.

As a result of pandemic-induced restrictions designed to curb the spread of the virus, two planned events in the spring of 2020 were scrapped and the promotion suspended cards for 15 months, finally returning for the first of three cards in 2021 last June, most recently holding AFC 161 this past November.

As of this writing, there’s no word as to a date for AFC 162.

Even the UFC Holds Midweek Shows Periodically

On occasion, the UFC will hold a Fight Night event on a Wednesday evening, most recently last year.

Jan. 20, 2020 saw the UFC’s latest Wednesday night card (Wednesday morning and afternoon inside the United States) as part of its third residency on UFC Fight Island, specifically UFC Fight Island 8.

That day in the main event, Michael Chiesa bested Neil Magny via unanimous decision, a fight that was elevated to headlining status after a planned Khamzat Chimaev versus Leon Edwards main event was scrubbed amid the former’s recovery from the coronavirus, a rebooking of an earlier postponement from December of 2020 after both men tested positive for the virus.

This pairing was plugged in again in March of last year. But the fight was scrubbed a second time in 2021 a month before its scheduled date as Chimaev dealt with the aftereffects of the virus.

Midweek MMA Can Be Done

Just as there can be midweek college football late in the fall from the Mid-American Conference (MAC) on ESPN’s networks, just as there was midweek CFL action last fall, there can be midweek MMA, as well.

With the Wednesday night timeslot, INVICTA FC is setting itself up for a successful run in 2022, just as sports entertainment promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) experienced with its two-plus years on Wednesdays on cable’s TNT with its flagship program AEW Dynamite.

The bottom line here is simple.

Midweek MMA has been done successfully before, midweek MMA is about to be done again, and if INVICTA FC plays its cards right, midweek MMA can be done successfully all over again.

Follow me on Twitter at @DrewZuhosky to see my latest work. Follow us on social media at @OTHeroicsMMA to stay tuned in with our content! Please visit our web page to keep up with everything MMA!

Featured Image Credits to:

🎊HAPPY NEW YEAR!🎊

We’re kicking off 2022 with the highly-anticipated rematch between Atomweight champion @aleshazapp and @Jessicadmma! Catch all of the action LIVE and FREE on Wednesday, Jan. 12 at 8/7c only on @InvictaFights @YouTube + @MMAjunkie! pic.twitter.com/KaYIsv1tbx

— Invicta FC (@InvictaFights) January 1, 2022