A pivotal women’s bout between former Strikeforce Women’s Welterweight Champion Sarah Kaufman and Liz “Girl-Rilla” Carmouche is targeted for Strikeforce Challengers 17 on July 22nd in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight could serve as a number one contender’s bout for Kaufman’s former title.
MMARising.com first learned of the bout’s possibility late last month, and MMAFighting.com was first to report today that verbal agreements are now in place. Kaufman recently rebounded from her loss to current champion Marloes Coenen, while Carmouche was submitted by Coenen in March.
Kaufman (13-1-0) opened her career with nine straight knockout wins and became the first and only Hardcore Championship Fighting Women’s Champion along the way. She made her Strikeforce debut as a late replacement against upcoming title challenger Miesha Tate and earned a close but Unanimous Decision. After a win over submission specialist Shayna Baszler, Kaufman captured Strikeforce gold by defeating Takayo Hashi on February 26, 2010. She ended her streak of decisions with a powerbomb knockout of Roxanne Modafferi last July, but lost her title to Coenen in October. Most recently, Kaufman stopped Japanese veteran Megumi Yabushita in her April return to Victoria, British Columbia.
Carmouche (5-1-0) fought five times in 2010 and was victorious in each of her fights, including in a pair of appearances for Strikeforce. After a dominant third-round stoppage of Jan Finney last November, Carmouche stepped in on very short notice to face Coenen for the Strikeforce Women’s Welterweight Championship in March. Surprising many by controlling the champion on the ground for much of rounds two and three, Carmouche fell victim to a triangle choke in round four and found herself in a similar position to Kaufman five months earlier; suffering her first career defeat at the hands of Coenen. Now looking to get another shot at the title, Carmouche faces a former champ with eyes on reclaiming gold.
Strikeforce Challengers 17 takes place on July 22nd at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event will be the first Strikeforce card to take place in the state, and also features a rubber match between “Vicious” Bobby Voelker and “Relentless” Roger Bowling.
man why do you people report on fights when you obviously neverwatched the fights or are lying to hype fights. the first rde of coenen -carmouche was mainly on the feet with marloes winning the rd on all score cards , 2 rd carmouche alnmost tapped to a standding gulitene ( in fact some web site question whether she did a sonnen -lindland tap) halr t5he second rd and most of the 3rd rd carmouche controlled the ground . a rd and a half is quite a bit different than 3 rds . at least report accurately on a fight .
Awesome fight.
Go Sarah.
She did control the fight on the ground for the majority of the first three rounds, but as the ground battles primarily took place in rounds two and three, I altered the wording accordingly.