Laura Sanko vs. Cassie Robb

On Saturday January, 5 at Invica Fighting Championship 4: "Esparza vs. Gadelha" at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas

Laura Sanko (0-0) will battle Cassie Robb (0-0) in a 105 pound professional MMA match.

This will be the debut professional MMA fight for both fighters.

Laura is a 5'5 30 year old fighter from Kansas City, Missouri who trains at Grindhouse. She is coached by Brian Davidson, James Krause, Austen Ford, and UFC fighter Tim Elliot.

I asked Laura what got her started in MMA and this was her response, "I got into MMA because I was going through some turmoil in my personal life. I got married young and it was a disaster. the marriage only lasted six months and I felt like a complete failure. I had grown up doing karate and realized I miss having a physical outlet and a place where I could forget about my stress and worries for a while. I loved the training so much that I eventually wanted to try to compete."
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Laura is currently #5 in the Women's amateur 105 pound World Rankings with a record of (4-1). She has won three fights in a row dating back to March of 2011, when she defeated last minute replacement Emily Reed (2-1) by second round rear-naked choke. Emily, has yet to enter a cage since.

The second win on that streak came against #7 ranked 105- pound fighter Kyla Slaughter (5-4) in September of 2011 when Laura submitted Kyla in the first round by armbar.

Most recently in March of 2012 she defeated #6 ranked 105-pound fighter Nadia Nixon (5-4) in a great match by unanimous decision for the Blue Corner 105-pound amateur title.

The only loss of her career came against now inactive fighter Leslie Lockwood (2-3) by TKO.

Laura made her amateur debut on September, 11 2010 when she defeated  115-pound amateur Amanda Hein (2-3) by TKO due to Amanda submitting to punches.

Cassie is a 5'5 22 year old fighter originally from Casper, Wyoming now living and training in Denver, Colorado at Advantage Martial Arts with the Serial Boxe Killers, where she is coached by Benjamin Schissler and professional MMA fighter Diana Rael.

Much like many female MMA fighters, Cassie is an openly gay fighter, who is engaged to fellow professional fighter Stephanie Skinner.

I also asked Cassie why she began to train in MMA and this is what she said, "I used to go to Steve Alley's local fights in Wyoming and thought it would be cool to try it. I used to want to be a boxer so I started boxing and took an MMA fight about two weeks later."

 Cassie is currently the #9 ranked 105-pound amateur in the world with an amateur record of (3-2-1) She is currently on a one fight winning streak, a win that came in October of 2012 against Lilian Orozco (1-1) who she defeated by rear-naked choke in the first round to win the Kick Down MMA 105-pound amateur championship.

The fight before that on August, 17th 2012 Cassie fought Ali Kistler (0-3-1) to a draw. This was an opponent Cassie had previously defeated in February of 2012 by triangle choke.

She also holds a victory over Star Polley (0-1) who she defeated by rear-naked choke. She  lost in her amateur debut to Kiele Lewis (1-1) who caught her in a guillotine choke in the second round of thier fight, a fight that Cassie took after only two weeks of training in boxing.

The combined record of all of Cassie's amateur opponents is (2-6-1) while her opponent Laura Sanko has fought against opponents with the combined record of (16-15).

Laura Sanko would like to thank her sponsor, Century 21 All Pro--Kansas city's leading residential real estate group. Grab their free app by texting C21 to 87778 and get thousands of listings at your fingertips.

You can watch Invicta FC on pay-per view  for $7.99 at Invictafc.com