James Kaiwhare Kara-France is a mixed martial artist fighting out of New Zealand, Kara-France practiced Brazilian jiu-jitsu for 2 years starting at the age of 10. Kara-France started training MMA after being bullied for his small stature in high school. 3 years into his professional MMA career Kara-France dropped out of his university following a post promoting Tiger Muay Thai gym scholarships on Facebook. Kara-France was awarded the scholarship and moved to Phuket in Thailand where he would further build his MMA career.
Kara-France would win his professional MMA debut against Ray Kaitiana on the 27th of November 2010. Within 6 years Kara-France would fight 19 times building a 12-6-1 record in various promotions. Promotions Kara-France would appear in included Legend Fighting Championship, Bandung Fighting Club, AFC, Pacific Xtreme Combat and Kunlun Fight. Kara-France would win the KOZ Flyweight Championship on the 27th of September 2015 against Shantaram Maharaj by first round TKO.
In 2016 Kara-France would appear on season 24 of The Ultimate Fighter, Kara-France won his first fight in spectacular fashion with a 30 seconds KO win in his contest with Terrence Mitchell. The quarter-final would be the end of Kara-France's stint The Ultimate Fighter after losing to Alexandre Pantoja by decision.
It would take Kara-France 2 years and 6 bouts to fight himself to a UFC debut after The Ultimate Fighter 24. On the 2nd of December 2018 Kara-France would make his UFC debut against Elias Garcia, Kara-France would be victorious after taking the fight to the distance and securing the unanimous decision victory. Kara-France would win 2 more UFC fights against Raulian Paiva and Mark De La Rosa before facing current UFC Flyweight Champion Brandon Moreno. Moreno would hand Kara-France his first UFC loss by decision on UFC 245. Following his first UFC loss, Kara-France would win his fight against Tyson Nam and lose his fight against Brandon Royval in a Fight of the Night performance. In 2021, Kara-France has fought once and finished Rogerio Bontorin by KO in the first round after a Performance of the Night worthy performance by Kara-France. Kara-France's current record is 22-9-1 (5-2-0 in the UFC).
