Back when the UFC first decided that it wanted to get into the business of women’s MMA, which also happened to be right around the same time that Invicta FC was finding its footing as the only all-female fight promotion in North America, Invicta President Shannon Knapp used to get a lot of questions about how her organization could survive with the UFC siphoning off its best 135-pounders to co-star in the Ronda Rousey show.

Back then, Knapp had one standing answer to the question, and it was a pretty good one: The UFC had one women’s division, while Invicta had five. In other words, there were plenty of good fighters to go around.

Then the UFC added another women’s division – 115 pounds, which also threatened to cull the more ambitious fighters from the divisions just above and just below – and still, Knapp insisted, it wasn’t a big deal. Still plenty of fighters, plenty of talent, enough to populate a full fight card with no problem.

In theory, that seemed true. In practice, at least on Saturday night in Davenport, Iowa, it didn’t exactly feel that way.

I wouldn’t call Invicta FC 9 a bad event, but I can’t bring myself to call it good, either. It felt long, and not in the emotionally rewarding “Gone With The Wind” sense, either. It included nine bouts, all but one of which went to a decision, yet somehow it felt like a much harder slog from beginning to end than Invicta events of the past that included 13 or 14 fights.

Some of that might be due to the main event, which saw flyweight champ Barb Honchak clinch her way to a plodding five-round decision win over Takayo Hashi, but you can’t put it all on those two. My guess is that a lot of viewers didn’t even make it that far. There just wasn’t much in the way of in-cage fireworks to hold their attention, and even less in the way of recognizable names peppering the lineup.

The days when you could tune in to an Invicta event and expect to see Carla Esparza, Tecia Torres, Felice Herrig, Alexis Davis, and Joanne Calderwood all on the same fight card? Those days appear to be over, at least for now. All those fighters are now in the care of the UFC. They might come back around some day. Then again, they might not. What Invicta has to be wondering is, what is it supposed to do until then?

Call it the UFC talent drain, if you will. Invicta provided the platform for a lot of excellent female fighters to get valuable exposure and experience. Then the UFC decided there might be a future in this women’s MMA stuff after all, and it scooped up many of the best and brightest across two divisions, which really ended up affecting closer to four divisions.

Look at the first Invicta event and you see a main card comprised of six fights, four of which took place in the two divisions – bantamweight and strawweight – that the UFC has since raided for its own purposes. Even the atomweight fight on that main card, which pitted Jessica Penne against Lisa Ellis, wouldn’t be possible today. Both those fighters are featured on the season 20 cast of “The Ultimate Fighter.”

At Invicta FC 2, seven of the nine main card bouts were either bantamweight or strawweight affairs. At Invicta FC 4, it was five of six. Saturday night at Invicta FC 9, there were only two strawweight bouts on the entire card, and the lone bantamweight fight was the curtain-jerker between Kelly McGill and Maegan Goodwin, the latter of whom missed weight for her pro debut.

Point is, Invicta FC 9 didn’t offer much in the way of the two divisions that helped the organization get where it is today. It was also one of the least compelling events Invicta has ever put on, which seems like no coincidence.

That’s not to say Invicta is doomed, by any means. Give it some time, and it’ll likely find new stars. Plus, not all of the fighters currently employed by the UFC will stay that way, and some might even bring some new fans home with them when they return from reality TV land.

At the same time, it’s getting harder to pretend that those two divisions aren’t very important ones. That’s why the UFC wanted them, after all. That’s largely where the talent is right now in women’s MMA. Invicta can only go so far in trying to build around those weight classes, but it also knows that whatever it invests in building new names to populate them might be lost when the UFC comes looking for fresh meat.

It’s a tough spot, no doubt about it. But then, if anyone at Invicta thought building and sustaining a successful all-female fight promotion would be easy, they’re in the wrong business.’

(Pictured: Barb Honchak and Takayo Hashi)