Katja Kankaanpää (Finnish: ; born June 30, 1981) is a Finnish former mixed martial artist who competed in the strawweight division. She is currently signed with Invicta FC. Kankaanpää started martial arts training at her teens when she was 15 years old with Goju-ryu karate. Later she had interest about combat sports by training submission wrestling and other combat arts. Katja leads the Nordic (all Skandinavia) strawweight rankings and Finnish women, all weight classes MMA rankings. On January 2, 2015 she was awarded 'Nordic Female Fighter of the Year'. The same month, Finnish sports journalists honored her as 'Sportswoman of 2014', category MMA. In addition to her career in MMA, the BJJ purple belt competes in submission wrestling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournaments. As of September 13, 2015 she retired from MMA.
2013-2015 |
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