While the international population currently has its eyes on the world’s best athletes in Vancouver, there’s a population in nearby Victoria who will be watching one of the world’s best female athletes of her sport as she competes Friday south of the border.
Unbeaten Canadian Sarah Kaufman, who hails from the B.C. capital, will be putting her status as the No. 1 female bantamweight on the line as part of the Strikeforce Challengers card at the Civic Auditorium in San Jose. Not to mention she’ll be fighting for the organization’s first ever 135-pound championship against Japan’s Takayo Hashi, who is second in that weight class according to the Unified Women’s Mixed Martial Arts Rankings. (The event can be seen live Friday night in Canada on Super Channel.)
The spotlight on the two got even greater this week when Strikeforce elevated it from co-main event to the headliner, bumping down a matchup between Trevor Prangley and Karl Amoussou. Kaufman believes that move is just a further demonstration of the commitment the organization has made to showcasing the best women on the planet.
“I love Strikeforce,” Kaufman said. “They’re really pushing the females. … There isn’t another organization like them that have that exposure and are really putting the women as an important part of their fighting.”
This matchup has been a bit of a long time coming. It was originally supposed to take place in November, though not for a title. Strikeforce instead decided to shelve the fight while figuring out the best way to promote it.
Kaufman (10-0) said another reason for the postponement was to see if the organization could make it a championship fight, and she is thrilled they did.
That’s not all. Strikeforce has recently been able to get athletic commissions to permit women’s fights to use five-minute rounds, as opposed to three-minute frames like when she fought Miesha Tate to a three-round decision in her Strikeforce debut last May in Fresno, Calif.
Her most recent fight, in which she beat Shayna Baszler by unanimous decision in Kent, Wash., marked the first time Strikeforce used five-minute rounds in a women’s bout. And she’ll get that again Friday. That is another thing the 24-year-old Kaufman believes is good for women’s MMA going forward, and definitely better for her.
“Eight out of my 10 fights have all been five-minute rounds, so to go down to three minutes was hard for me because I was so used to that five minutes, and three minutes really just flies by,” Kaufman admitted. “I’m really happy Strikeforce is kind of equaling the field (with the men) and treating us as equals.”
The five-foot-five Kaufman got into MMA by chance. A dancer from the age of two, she started taking a Thai boxing class when she was 17 after Adam Zugec, now her coach, opened a gym directly below the dance studio she attended.
She thought it would be something different and would help get her more in shape. But she never planned on following the path of mixed martial arts. Kaufman confesses she wasn’t even a fan of the sport at the time.
“I was really just looking for something fun to do, and a couple of years later, here I am fighting!”
After starting with just boxing and kick-boxing lessons at the gym, she has remained at ZUMA, where she has also taken classes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and last year earned her purple belt in the discipline.
“Honestly, I’m really not that concerned about the belts themselves,” Kaufman insisted. “I’m happy that I’m progressing and that I’m improving and that’s really all I can ask for. If I stay at a white belt, blue belt, purple belt for the rest of my life, then that’s where I should be. But my whole goal is to always improve so I think that’s a big step in really being able to see that I’m improving.”
Kaufman continues to be coached by Zugec, who also trains the likes of Vancouver’s Denis Kang, the former Pride and UFC veteran, and TFC welterweight champion Ryan Ford of Edmonton.
“All those guys are awesome,” Kaufman said. “The main people I train with are those who are around the gym all the time. For the most part I train with the guys, just because a lot of the ladies that we have are really good in the Thai boxing, or they also do jiu-jitsu as well, but not many do MMA.”
As well-versed as Kaufman has become in the three-and-a-half years since she made her MMA debut, she will always be a striker first and foremost. Prior to her past two fights, she won all eight by TKO or KO, capturing and then defending the Hardcore Championship Fighting bantamweight belt along the way.
The challenge against the 32-year-old Hashi (12-1) will be the extra experience her opponent brings. The slightly shorter fighter from Tokyo has won eight straight fights, most of which coming in a Japanese promotion focused solely on female fighters.
“She’s not someone to be taken lightly,” Kaufman said. “She has come from primarily a ground-based camp. Yet I’ve heard rumours she’s going to stand with me. I think that poses a really interesting fight right there.
“If she wants to stand, then by all means, let’s have a standup fight.”
NOTES: Kaufman said she’s a fan of the Winter Games, but it hasn’t been hard to avoid any distractions in her last week’s of training, especially since there hasn’t been much traffic coming onto Vancouver Island. “I don’t have cable so I haven’t actually seen any of the Olympics.” … She said she would love to see MMA at the Olympic Games, but believes it would be difficult to regulate. “It would be very interesting, would be great for the sport, and would give it that much more legitimacy. But I think there would be a lot of things that would be hard to mediate. (For example) if you’re injured in the first round of a fight, but you moved on, how would that work?” … Ford, who Kaufman expects to see back for another training camp at ZUMA ahead of his TFC welterweight belt defence on March 19, announced on his Facebook page this week his opponent will be former UFC fighter Tommy Speer.
