The main event of Invicta FC 9 is a five-round title fight between Invicta flyweight champion Barb Honchak and challenger Takayo Hashi. According to the current betting lines available at Several Bookmakers, Honchak is a -530 favorite (bet $530 to win $100) while Hashi is a +350 underdog (bet $100 to win $350). MMA linesetter Nick Kalikas opened up Honchak at -750 and Hashi at +450, and action so far has surprisingly been on the dog Hashi. I’m not sure why bettors are taking a shot at Hashi here, but I believe that’s dead money on the dog as I believe Honchak wins this fight hands down. Here’s why. Honchak (9-2) is the Invicta FC flyweight champion. The 35-year-old American is 4-0 in Invicta with wins over Leslie Smith, Vanessa Porto, Aisling Daly and Bethany Marshall. She also has earlier-career wins over Felice Herrig, Nina Ansaroff and Roxanne Modafferi. Her only career losses are to Cat Zingano and Angela Magana. Honchak is an aggressive, relentless wrestler. She is physically strong for the weight class and has a lot of success shooting on her opponents’ legs and taking them down to the mat, where she grind them out for her wins. She is not much in the way of a finisher (only two career stoppage wins) but she is working on her ground and pound and submissions and could show off those skills in this fight. Honchak hasn’t fought since last December because Invicta hasn’t had many shows this year, but I believe the company wants to make her on the faces of the promotion and that’s why they have matched her up with an aging veteran in Hashi in this fight, one she enters as a massive favorite. Hashi (15-4-1) is a veteran women’s flyweight who has been competing in the sport for a decade. She is 37 years old now, but the Japan native is currently riding a three-fight undefeated streak, bouncing back strongly from three-straight losses prior to that. Her only key victories have come over Roxanne Modafferi and Hitomi Akano, but most of her losses have come to name opponents like Cat Zingano and Sarah Kaufman. She is primarily a grappler and has a strong submission game (four career sub wins), but she has little in the way of striking and she has been finished on multiple occasions. In this matchup her best path to victory is to sub Honchak off her back with a triangle, or get a sweep and somehow get top position on her opponent, but that seems like a tall task against a solid defensive grappler like Honchak. I see very little paths to victory for Hashi here, and agree with her being a big dog. I believe Honchak is too strong, too fast, and too skilled in this matchup, and to be honest I’d be shocked if she lost. Look for Honchak to use her strong wrestling game to take Hashi down repeatedly over the course of five rounds and grind her out en route to a decision victory, although I am by no means counting out a possible stoppage win for the Invicta FC champ. The line right now is -530, which is over 200 cents lower than the opener. I don’t know why people are betting on Hashi, but I believe the action in that direction is wrong. At -530, Honchak makes for a strong parlay piece.
