Okanagan Indian Band fighter Rylie "Coyote" Marchand put on a one-round clinic in the final fight of her amateur mixed martial arts career, and thanks to a new promotion launched by the owners of her gym in Vernon, she got to put on the bantamweight belt in front of friends, family and a raucous home crowd. 

The Vernon Curling Club played host to the first ever Okanagan Fighting Championships Saturday, July 6. The OFC was created by Unity MMA and Kickboxing owner Raja Kler and his wife Alishia, and saw a number of local fighters battle in the cage. 

"The energy of the fans was amazing and the fighters put on a great show," Kler told The Morning Star. "We had finishes, we had good hard-fought decisions, we had it all. I couldn't ask for a better first promotion event."

Marchand, 23, came into the event with a 4-1 amateur record, facing Cleveland, Ohio's Stephanie Lehecka (2-4). Marchand won the bout in the first round with a rear naked choke.

Kler, who is Marchand's coach at Unity MMA, gave Marchand 'performance of the night' honours.

"She didn't get touched. It was just fantastic," he said. "She really dominated that main event, and she won the championship."

For fight of the night, Kler picked the match-up between Lucas "Ruthless" Taylor (3-0) of Kamloops and Calgary's Curtis Anderson (2-1), which ended with Taylor submitting Anderson in the third round, also with a rear naked choke. 

"Those guys went at it really hard," Kler said.

The prospect of the night, according to Kler, was bantamweight Ethan Northcott of Unity MMA, who won his debut fight with an arm bar in the last 10 seconds of the fight. 

Northcott was the first Vernon fighter to take to the cage, and Kler said he was blown away by the crowd's warm welcome of the hometown kid.

"The whole arena was literally chanting his name, saying 'Ethan, let's go' ... I've never seen that before for a prospect," Kler remarked. "They were also bumping crazy hard for Rylie, but I kind of expected that because she's more known in this area."

Kler said the main reason he and his wife created the OFC was to give his fighters at Unity MMA a chance to fight at home.

"Generally we have to travel, and it's really hard to do that all the time, because you have to do a weight cut and it hampers performances. So we finally got to do an event in town and it was a really good showcase for all the local teams.

"And my fighters from Unity, they did great. They stuck to the game plan," Kler added, saying all of the Vernon fighters won their contests. 

Last weekend's event was just the beginning for the OFC. Kler said more fights will take place in Vernon for the foreseeable future, and he's eyeing spring 2025 for the next event.