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The lineup for July’s Invicta FC 6 card has been set, as Cris Cyborg and Marloes Coenen will collide for the vacant featherweight title.

Action takes place inside the Ameristar Casino Hotel in Kansas City. It will stream live once again on online PPV.

The strawweight title will also be up for grabs, as champion Carla Esparza defends against Ayaka Hamasaki.

The complete fight card lineup is below:

MAIN CARD (Online PPV, 10 p.m. ET)

Marloes Coenen vs. Cristiane Santos – for inaugural featherweight title

Carla Esparza vs. Ayaka Hamasaki – for strawweight title

Sarah D’Alelio vs. Lauren Taylor

Leslie Smith vs. TBA

Jessica Penne vs. Nicdali Rivera-Calanoc

Joanne Calderwood vs. Claudia Gadelha

Julia Budd vs. Ediane Gomes

Bec Hyatt vs. Mizuki Inoue

Miriam Nakamoto vs. Duda Yankovich

PRELIMINARY CARD (Online PPV, 8 p.m. ET)

Rose Namajunas vs. Tecia Torres

Ashley Cummins vs. Emily Kagan

Mollie Estes vs. Veronica Rothenhausler

Laura Sanko vs. Livia Von Plettenberg

Invicta FC strawweight champion Carla Esparza will put her belt on the line against Ayaka Hamasaki, according to a report by MMA Rising.

While the next Invicta FC event has yet to be scheduled, the all-female promotion is looking at either late June or early July. No venue has been confirmed, either.

Also, a bout between Bec Hyatt and Mizuki Inoue has been linked to the card.

The main event was confirmed shortly after Invicta FC 5, as Cris Cyborg will face Marloes Coenen for the vacant featherweight title.

A Strikeforce rematch is scheduled for later this year in Invicta FC, as Cris Cyborg and Marloes Coenen will battle for the featherweight title.

Both scored wins this past Friday night at Invicta FC 4, and were announced as the top contenders to the vacant title after the action.

Cyborg (11-1) returned from a year-long suspension to finish Fiona Muxlow. Coenen (21-5) is 4-1 in her last five, including a win over Sarah Kaufman.

“(Coenen) is a very good fighter,” Cyborg said. “We’re going to have a good fight.”

The card is expected to take place in either late June or early July.

Former Strikeforce women’s champion Cris Cyborg has signed a multi-fight deal with Invicta FC, and will debut for the promotion at Invicta FC 5 in April.

Cyborg (10-1) will meet Ediane Gomes, with the winner squaring off with another ex-Strikeforce champion, Marloes Coenen.

The bout will be part of the main card from the Ameristar Casino Hotel in Kansas City.

“We are thrilled to welcome Cris Cyborg, arguably the top pound-for-pound female fighter in the world, to our rapidly growing roster of world-class athletes,” said Invicta FC president Shannon Knapp. “Cris’ incredible performances in front of national TV audiences over the last few years have helped put women’s MMA on the radar of the masses.”

Cyborg was recently released from her UFC contract, as she cited a desire to compete at featherweight instead of bantamweight.

“I am excited to finally get back in the cage and to have the opportunity to fight for Invicta Fighting Championships, which has shown a tremendous amount of commitment to furthering the growth of women’s MMA,” said Cyborg. “I will be ready on April 5 for Ediane and I plan to dominate my competition as I’ve done in the past.”

Julia Budd, who was originally scheduled to face Gomes, will now meet Fiona Muxlow on the card.

Former Strikeforce champion Marloes Coenen returned to action this past weekend at Invicta FC’s inaugural event for the first time since her stunning release from Strikeforce.

[SPOILER]Coenen earned an unanimous decision victory over Romy Ruyssen in their headlining bout.[/SPOILER]

Check out the fight in it’s entirety above. More fights from the Invicta FC 1 card can be found at Invicta’s YouTube channel.

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“My management has proven themselves over and over again. I’ve been with them for 10 years. If they tell me to do it a certain way, I will do it because I trust them completely… In America, you pay taxes, but in the Netherlands, you pay a lot of tax because we’ve got the health system. That’s really good in the Netherlands. If you go to university, it’s only 1,500 Euros a year; it’s like $2,000. There’s a reason we have these high taxes, and not only do we get [deductions] straightaway in the states – we have to pay tax in the Netherlands. Of course, we have to pay our trainers and our management, as well. If we deposit here in the bank, it will take seven or eight weeks before we get the money. So for us, it’s way more convenient for us to have it done by the management, who will do all the tax stuff for us, and then we get the money… When I went to ADCC 2005, the management paid because they only gave me one ticket and one room, and they’ve paid for my trainer and the room. They never asked for that money back.”

— Marloes Coenen explaining to MMA Junkie why she prefers to have her Golden Glory management handle her paychecks

It’s a shame that Marloes Coenen got caught in the Golden Glory-Zuffa crossfire, but the way she sees it, her exit was probably inevitable anyhow. Coenen explains that she missed the pre-fight press conference because her shuttle van left early and they told her it wasn’t a big deal, she didn’t need to be at the press conference, which struck her as odd since she was a champion in the co-main event of the card. Coenen felt it was a sign that Zuffa really isn’t all that interested in promoting women’s MMA, something Dana White has said time and time again.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is she’s probably right. One by one, Strikeforce is losing all its top stars — Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem, Fedor Emelianenko, Dan Henderson, Cris “Cyborg” Santos — and the future doesn’t look bright. It’s hard to believe that Zuffa will keep Strikeforce operational, at least in its current form, longer than necessary, and it’s clear that the UFC won’t be adding women’s divisions anytime soon.

As unfortunate as it was to see Coenen released, they may have done her a favor. She’ll get a head start over the other girls on the next chapter of her career. Where that will be remains to be seen, but word is ProElite is interested.

Image via Esther Lin for Strikeforce/Showtime

Update: Reed Harris denies Marloes Coenen was purposely left out of the press conference.

“I read what Marloes said,” Harris said. “I don’t know where they’re trying to go with this, but what she said is not what happened. We told everyone to be down there at 9:30. We don’t ever tell fighters to be there at 9:30 so we can leave at 10 because otherwise they’re all going to show up at 10. What we tell them is that if we tell you at 9:30, Burt (Watson) tells them 9:31 is late.

“We were down there, and the problem we had is that we had a bunch of people. We had Tim Kennedy and Robbie Lawler and Miesha Tate and Fedor (Emelianenko) and all these people, and we were driving about 40 minutes into the city. We had rented out Harry Caray’s famous restaurant – which was not cheap, by the way – to do the press conference. We had a huge crowd, and it went really well.

“At 9:30, she didn’t show up. At 9:35, she didn’t show up. Her crew told me she would be down in five minutes. At 9:40, she didn’t show up, and they told me it would be another five minutes. I went through that about three times. I walked back to the Suburban, and Fedor’s people are like, ‘Why are we sitting here? We were told we were leaving at 9:30.’ I’ve got six guys packed into a Suburban, so we left.”

Harris also says they are signing women fighters and trying to put together a meaningful women’s division, but it is a difficult task.

It looks like the Zuffa-Golden Glory story isn’t completely over yet.

Dana White spent a good part of his day telling reporters that the Golden Glory fighters were released because their management refused to do business the same way they do. More specifically, Golden Glory insists that Zuffa pays them instead of paying the fighters directly. Then in an interview with Ariel Helwani, Dana White explained that the fighter’s purses are paid to the commission before the event and the commission writes the checks directly to the fighter after the event.

Case closed, right? Well, not quite. Shortly thereafter, Marloes Coenen took to Twitter and not only did she say that wasn’t true, she also provided proof in the form of her check (seen above) which is clearly made out to her from Forza LLC, the company Zuffa set up to purchase Strikeforce.

@danawhite hurts me 2 hear things about my management that are not true. #Ibelieveinthetruth #proof http://twitpic.com/6113vq

That of course raised a red flag, so MMA Junkie contacted Dana White to see what the deal was.

“The Golden Glory guys told us, ‘You’re going to pay us.’” White on Thursday night told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “We said, ‘No, we’re not. We’re paying the fighters directly. We’re not going to do that.”

“Even when we did the deal with Einemo (for a fight at UFC 131), we told them, ‘We’re paying the fighters,’” White told MMAjunkie.com. “Even though they agreed to the deal, they later came out and were flipping out during the event wanting to change the deal.’”

It’s a bit confusing, but the way I understand it Zuffa (or Forza) was paying the fighters directly against Golden Glory wishes and since Golden Glory continued to make a big deal out of it, they decided to cut them all loose. As for the commission thing, not all commissions, including the Illinois commission that oversaw Strikeforce “Fedor vs. Henderson”, require promoters to place the purses in an escrow account, and since Dana White isn’t involved in Strikeforce’s day-to-day operations, it’s possible that he wasn’t aware how payments were being disbursed for that particular event.

The story’s still not over though. MMA Junkie, along with ESPN’s Josh Gross, is hearing that the Golden Glory fighters actually want their checks to go to their management first for tax purposes.

Further sources familiar with the negotiations suggested Golden Glory fighters are often willing to simply sign over their checks to Golden Glory, regardless to whom they are issued. MMAjunkie.com was unable to confirm those requests on-record, but veteran MMA reporter Josh Gross seemed to suggest the relationship with her management is one of complete trust.

“Marloes Coenen just told me she wants Golden Glory to handle payments because of tax purposes,” Gross stated on Twitter. “She’s paid direct and knows what she makes.”

So if this all about taxes and the fighters are willing to simply sign their checks right over to Golden Glory, then why is Golden Glory making such a big deal out of this? Why not handle it that way so everybody gets what they want?

If you’re looking for real answers to burning questions about Strikeforce, it become evident today that UFC president Dana White, not Scott Coker, is the man you want to talk to.

In an attempt to figure out what’s going on between Zuffa and Golden Glory, Mauro Ranallo asked Scott Coker yesterday why Strikeforce suddenly released Marloes Coenen and Valentijn Overeem. Coker explained that there’s simply not enough room on the upcoming cards to give losing fighters fights. So “in fairness to the athletes,” they opted to release Coenen and V. Overeem so they would have the freedom to fight elsewhere. Transcription via MMA Mania:

“Well, you know, Mauro, that whole thing about Alistair (Overeem), I think it’s been documented. I think it’s been regurgitated over and over so I don’t know if we have to get into that. But with Valentijn (Overeem) and Marloes (Coenen), you know, right now, there’s only so many TV spots, as you know, until the middle of next year. And, uh, they’re, um, you know, in this business, you’ve gotta keep winning. So, to me, it was a situation where Valentijn had that loss, I believe in June, so that was already in the works anyway. It just seems sudden to everybody because it just all happened this week. But that was already on its way for Valentijn. The slots are going to be for the fighters that are victorious right now. We have a lot of athletes under contract and we have to get everybody fights and there’s only so many slots. There’s only so many TV dates, we only have two more TV dates on the big show before the end of the year. September is already full, December is getting full and then January is hopefully are finals and that’s going to have a full card already. So in fairness to the athletes, why just let them hang around? It’s a much fairer situation to let them go fight elsewhere and create another future somewhere else.”

So if that’s the case, should we assume Strikeforce will also cut Robbie Lawler, Paul Daley, Fabricio Werdum, Jeff Monson, KJ Noons and every other Strikeforce fighter who lost in recent months? No, probably not, which is why this is one of the weakest spin jobs we’ve seen in a while.

As for the real reason, Dana White explained after the UFC 133 pre-fight press conference today that they were cut because of the way Golden Glory handles fighter pay. Similar to M-1 Global, Golden Glory requires the promoters to pay them instead of paying the fighters directly.

“This is actually a pretty simple explanation. If you look back throughout history, we haven’t had any Golden Glory guys fight with us since Semmy Schilt, right? And the reason is we have very different business practices. It’s tough to do business with them. The bottom line is the way they do business is, you have to pay them, not the fighters. We don’t work that way. It’s not the way we do business. It’s not how it works in the United States with the athletic commissions. You don’t pay the managers and the managers pay the fighters. You pay the fighters and the fighters pay the managers.”

“The reality is, we’re trying to work out deals with these guys and they won’t do it. They said you absolutely can’t pay the fighters, you have to pay us. And it’s pretty simple to look back and see that the last guy who fought in UFC was Semmy Schilt. There was a reason for that.”

Actually, the last Golden Glory fighter to fight for the UFC was Jon Olav Einemo and that was less than two months ago, however Dana said that Golden Glory actually relented in that one instance. When trying to work out deals with their other fighters like Alistair Overeem though, Golden Glory refused to give in, so Zuffa let them go.

Update: Sergei Kharitonov will be done with Strikeforce whether he loses next month in the HWGP semi-finals or goes on to win the tournament. He has two fights left on his contract and they don’t intend to keep him around under the current circumstances, but they must honor the contract until they can legally release him.

On the heels of Alistair Overeem’s stunning Strikeforce release comes news that three of his Golden Glory teammates — Marloes Coenen, Valentijn Overeem and Jon Olav Einemo — have been cut by Zuffa as well.

Golden Glory manager Martijn de Jong tweeted the news earlier today.

I am very dissapointed to let you know that @MarloesCoenen@JohnEinemo and ValentijnOvereem have been cut from @Strikeforce@ufc…..

De Jong didn’t reveal why they were cut, but it seems to be more than just a coincidence. V. Overeem and Einemo were each coming off their first losses in Strikeforce and the UFC while Coenen was Strikeforce’s 135lbs. women’s champ this time last week before losing her title to Miesha Tate over the weekend. It’s not unheard of for Zuffa to cut a fighter after one loss, but I can’t think of one instance where they immediately released one of their champions who just lost their title without some sort of drama going on behind the scenes. It’s also odd that they would release Einemo now when he lost nearly two months ago. Clearly, this is more about Golden Glory than the individual fighters.

Sergei Kharitnov, who appeared alongside Alistair Overeem on that United Glory poster, is the only Golden Glory fighter left on a Zuffa roster. He has an upcoming fight against Josh Barnett in the semi-finals of the HWGP next month. I can’t say for sure, but this news suggests Kharitonov may be fighting for more than a shot in the GP finals. He may be fighting for his job as well.

Image via James Law for MMA Fighting

Update: MMA Junkie was able to track down Martijn de Jong to get his comments on the cuts. In short, he’s very disappointed and doesn’t know why Zuffa is removing Golden Glory fighters from their rosters.

“This is a big blow for us. I feel it’s kind of unfair to the fighters. They train hard. They put on exciting performances.”

“You tell me (if it’s fallout from Alistair Overeem’s release). I have no idea, but it doesn’t look good. Of course, for us, it’s really bad. I’m very disappointed. What can I say?”

“The only thing I can say is I feel disappointed for the fighters, and now we have to go back and see what we’re going to do (and) where we’re going to go. For me, I hope the management can still work something out with Zuffa. I think Alistair needs to fight the best fighters in the world, and I think right now there’s only two people ranked above him: Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos. Alistair only wants to be the best. It’s a pity.”

“For me, it doesn’t make sense. I was just thinking, ‘Is this the future of MMA?’”

I think the future of MMA is pretty clear at this point. Play by Zuffa’s rules or don’t play at all.

Update: Another possibility for the cuts via Loretta Hunt: