Del Rosario and Kaufman remain Unbeaten and Kaufman won’t grow Man Parts

Sarah Kaufman stopped Roxanne Modafferi via vicious slam with just 15 seconds on the clock at Strikeforce Challengers IX. The win pushed her record to 12-0 and kept her number one ranking in the women’s 135 pound division in tact.

Shane del Rosario stopped the bigger, but overmatched Lolohea Mahe by TKO in round one. With the win del Rosario is now 10-0 and he’s won his last five fights (and 9 of 10) in the first round.

So what’s next for Kaufman? It looks like she’ll get the winner of the recently announced upcoming four-woman tournament between Miesha Tate, Hitomi Akano, Carina Damm, and Maiju Kujala. All very good possible opponents. Some things would need to happen, but I’d like to see her fight Tara LaRosa. In any event, the fight better take place on the main card of a bigger Strikeforce event, not a challenger card, with some promotional push behind it. Kaufman deserves it and on her blog just before her fight with Modafferi she mentioned her frustration:

Cookies and Man Parts…seem to be the 2 things that will get me on a main Strikeforce card…that and learning how to shake my assets

I am currently the Strikeforce Women’s Welterweight Champion…yet I fought for the title on a Challengers Card. Now, I am set to defend said title against Roxanne Modafferi in just a few days – again – on a Challengers Card.

I know that it’s going to be a fun and challenging fight…and I always welcome that. Roxanne has been around the sport for a long time and will come game to fight; however, I need to take this fight and make a statement.

That statement will be: I deserve to be on a main Strikeforce Card because I am a talented, exciting FEMALE fighter at 135lbs! I will NOT eat a ridiculous amount of cookies to make 145lbs JUST for the opportunity to be on a main card and growing man parts… well that would just be ridiculous :D

As for Shane del Rosario, he called out Andrei Arlovski and this fight makes sense for him. It is time he gets a tougher test and preferably somebody with name recognition. A victory over Arlovski would put place him in the picture in the heavyweight division.

If not Arlovski, how about Brett Rogers or Antonio Silva? Shane definitely needs a tougher fight, and just like Sarah Kaufman it needs to be on a bigger card. Strikeforce has some really talented fighters on a relatively thin roster. It needs to work to develop new stars.