For Regina’s Charmaine Tweet (5-4), it’s been a long and winding road over the years, trying to reach the ultimate destination. Her next stop is Kansas City, Miss., where on Saturday night she will represent The Great White North, as the only Canadian competing at Invicta FC 8.
Invicta Fighting Championships, an all women’s MMA organization, boasts a stellar roster of some of the best ladies competing in the sport today. They were the driving force for the upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter and have been a launching pad for fighters to make the jump to the big show.
For Tweet, who stands an even six-foot, making it to the big show is likely on her radar but competing at a lean and mean 155 pounds, the depth in her division may be similar to the UFC’s current response to those competing at 145 pounds. There’s just not enough talent (yet) to introduce it to the masses.
Unfortunate timing, and quite frankly bad luck for the 37-year-old Canadian, whose Muay Thai has seen her go toe-to-toe with some of the world’s best, and whose submission game has seen all five of her victories end by way of a tap out.
But the first time in her nine-bout MMA career, she will not be looking down at an opponent.
Tweet usually has a significant height advantage over her opposition, but when it comes to Saturday’s opponent, American Veronica Rothenhausler, she may be staring her eye-to-eye and nose-to-nose. Rothenhausler stands 5-foot-11, and is a product of California’s “Team Alpha Male.”
“It’s going to be different not looking down six inches at my opponent’s head,” Tweet told UFC Central Radio. “I did fight Jessamyn Duke in Thai Boxing, so I have had a little bit of experience with someone close in height to me. But it’s going to be interesting. It’ll be neat to see how the takedown dynamic happens.”
Not doubt a foreshadowing of what could prove to be her opponent’s primary game plan — take the Canuck out of her element (Muay Thai) and punish her on the ground.
But the full-time banker and mother will be more than ready to fight fire with fire, as her ironic nickname — “Not So Sweet” — provides a glimpse into an alter ego not many people are aware of.
“If you look at my last fight with Anna [Barone], I’m sitting there and choking her out. And as I’m choking her, I’m feeling this immense amount of satisfaction, because I’m watching the blood drip out her nose. YEAHHH … that’s what you get for knocking me out in 20 seconds way back when.”
