Move over, Aljamain Sterling. You are not the one Long Island mixed martial artist in motion this week.
Just three days before the UFC Bantamweight Champion puts his title on the road in Newark, NJ, Jillian DeCoursey will defend his Invicta FC Atomweight Championship in Denver for the primary time.
By way of UFC or nothing, this championship makes DeCoursey the de facto North American champion within the 105-pound division, and her weight class is the one notable division not yet represented by any of the continent’s big three: UFC, Bellator and PFL.
And if DeCoursey’s nascent reign signals anything, it is time to rectify that oversight. In Glendale, Queens-based, all-female promotion Invicta has a champion that defies the knocks attributed to atomic weights.
Too many choices? The last two women who entered the cage with DeCoursey never made it to the primary corner. The Long Island MMA and Fitness Center product brutally knocked out Lindsey VanZandt last May and defeated champion Jessica Delboni by rear-naked choke in September in a total of 5 minutes and 50 seconds. This has given her three finishes in her last 4 fights on the atomic weight division.
Because the 38-year-old prepares for Invicta FC 53 (21:00 ET, AXS TV/YouTube) on Wednesday against Rayanne Dos Santos, the champion can only speculate as to why her division stays the one notable women’s weight class excluded from the massive shows.
“I do not know. I feel they only hate us little people, man,” DeCoursey told The Post in a recent Zoom conversation. “It really doesn’t make sense because among the justifications they use like: “Oh, atomic weight fights aren’t exciting, they’re too small”, things like that … should you watch any atomic weight fights, nine times out of 10, it’s super fast paced and sometimes they’re probably the most exciting fights on the cardboard.”
![Jillian DeCoursey knocked out Lindsey VanZandt in May 2022.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/05_Jillian_DeCoursey_vs_Lindsey_Vanzandt_09.jpg?w=1024)
Women’s MMA pioneer Julie Kedzie, who provides color commentary on Invicta FC broadcasts, dismissed the idea that atoms will not be finishers, citing many she witnessed in her decade of promotion.
“There have been some rattling good finishes and good knockouts in Invicta,” Kedzie, a UFC and Strikeforce veteran, told The Post.
DeCoursey drew a parallel between women’s atomic weight and men’s must-weight – a woefully under-promoted weight class that usually delivers high-octane motion.
The recently announced June 3 bout between Kai Kara-France and Amir Albazi shall be the primary non-title UFC flyweight important event since 2017.
The UFC has been steadily increasing its range of girls’s weight classes because the popularity of Ronda Rousey forced UFC president Dan White to alter course to his promotion to women’s fights.
Rousey helped introduce the bantamweight division in 2012, progressed to the strawweight division two years later, after which to featherweight and flyweight in 2017.
Bellator currently promotes featherweights and flyweights, while the PFL has a featherweight season – after three years of a lightweight division essentially formed around Olympic star Kayla Harrison.
![Jillian DeCoursey became the Invicta FC Atomweight Champion in September 2022.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/07_Jillian_DeCoursey_vs_Jessica_Delboni_25.jpg?w=1024)
Founded in 2012, Invicta has given the overwhelming majority of today’s female leaders a platform to compete in the USA.
Before Amanda Nunes built her GOAT-level profession as a double UFC Featherweight and Bantamweight Champion, she competed in a few of Invicta’s earliest events. Alexa Grasso, whose stunning submission victory over Valentina Shevchenko in March made her the primary Mexican woman to win the UFC belt, was an Invicta strawweight for years before becoming the UFC Flyweight Champion.
As larger organizations with greater platforms and deeper pockets have adopted more women’s weight classes, Invicta continues to feature women weighing 115 kilos and over as a stepping stone to the UFC and the like. Not so with the Atomicweights, who can either move on to compete among the many vast pool of talent in Asia – for promotion to ONE Championship and Rizin – or be forced to tackle larger women weighing in at 115 kilos.
While she acknowledges that age and muscle growth naturally make weight changes a smart decision, Kedzie hates to see undersized fighters forced to fight larger women only for the greater platform the UFC provides.
“You see, a lot of Atomweight fighters are moving as much as the strawweight division, and strawweight is a division that the UFC put there,” says Kedzie. “And that’s an unusual division within the UFC. It’s full of wonderful warriors. So we’re seeing a lot of Atomweight fighters select to extend their weight as an alternative of staying at Atomweight, which I do not know makes me sad because I feel that is really a legal weight class that ought to be recognized.
Until the UFC embraces 105 in its octagon, the perfect on this side of the globe reside in Invicta.
And DeCoursey proudly represents this promotion.
“On the subject of atomic weights, Invicta is at the highest,” said DeCoursey. “And should you grow to be a champion, you will be at the highest of the food chain.”
White, who often bemoans the thought of adding more divisions to the UFC’s current 12 divisions attributable to having two genders, noted in late 2020 that he “definitely kicked all the pieces” when it got here to opening the door to atomic weight.
![Jillian DeCoursey Submitted Jessica Delboni for the Atomweight Championship.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/07_Jillian_DeCoursey_vs_Jessica_Delboni_17.jpg?w=1024)
UFC star Michelle Waterson-Gomez, one in every of Invicta’s first Atomweight champions who moved as much as 115lbs so she could fight on a greater stage for extra money, voiced her support for her previous weight class to come back to the UFC ahead of her fight within the UFC . promotional event on Long Island.
“For those who construct it, they’ll come,” said Waterson-Gomez, conveying the “Field of Dreams” vibes. “The ladies are on the market they usually want a platform to point out the world what they’re doing. And there are many feisty little girls – including me – who would like to go there and rejoice.”
Kedzie said concerning the UFC strawweights currently ranked within the UFC, “I can consider about 4” who she suspects could potentially drop right down to 105 if the Atomic had a home with a promotion.
When the UFC added the lads’s flyweight category, it created a mini-four-man tournament: two standout UFC bantamweight fighters and recognized top champions from North America and Asia.
This led to the coronation of one in every of the best warriors of all time: Demetrios Johnson. This led to a lot of crazy incredible fights and finishes.
Or will we see something like this for atoms at some point, ultimately?
Preferably earlier.