The day before she stepped into the ring to fight Shayna Baszler, I told you not to sleep on Sarah Kaufman, the hard-hitting Victoria, British Columbia native who was 9-0 at the time and coming off a solid win over Miesha Tate.
A day later, I was posting congratulatory messages on her Facebook page. What? That's how I roll. Not two weeks later, Josh Gross of Sports Illustrated named Kaufman Female Fighter of the Year in his first half awards. I left that link on her Facebook page too, and followed it up with an interview request. Professional, I know.
For some reason she accepted, eagerly at that, and earlier this week we talked about the state of MMA in Canada, the build-up to the Carano - Cyborg fight and a host of other things in the second installment of the K2 Interviews Series.
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We’ll start with the ubiquitous first MMA interview question: When did you first become a fan of Mixed Martial Arts?
Well, I started doing Muay Thai with my coach, Adam Zugec, in late 2002. I had never watched a fight, or even been interested in combat sports, but it seemed like it might be fun to take. I was immediately addicted. I probably didn’t start watching any MMA until about 2 years later.
I specifically remember watching a fight where Bas Rutten badly broke his nose, was asked if he wanted to continue, and went back in. I think he won the fight. From there MMA grabbed my attention and I began following more of the events.
What was the progression between that initial interest and where you are now? How did you go from taking a couple classes to becoming a fighter?
Originally, I only took 1 class per week—as I had prior commitments with dance, school and work—but after a year, I jumped into as many classes as I could. Then another year later, I started grappling. I didn’t have any ambition of fighting, I just wanted to be as good as possible.
As I am an extremely competitive person (even playing dodgeball in the kids’ classes that I teach at ZUMA), as my technique improved, I wanted to try participating in some local tournaments. I did my first tournament in late 2004 and had a great time. At one tournament, I had a grappling match with Liz Posener.
A few months later, Adam got a call asking if I would like to fight Liz Posener in MMA. It sounded fun to me, so I trained really hard, fought hard, and came away with a 3rd round KO! That was June 3, 2006, and I haven’t looked back since.
In your opinion, what is the state of MMA in Canada and where do you see it going in the next year?
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