EliteXC signs Coenen, Hashi, Kaufman

Sam Caplan of Five Ounces Of Pain is reporting that EliteXC has signed three of the top female MMA fighters in the world today. EliteXC's Jeremy Lappan confirmed the signings. These signings really raise the level of competition and it certainly bodes well for an all womens show down the road. At age 27, Marloes Coenen of The Netherlands is the most experienced of the three. She usually fights at around 150lbs. She is a legend in Japan but has never fought in North America. Her 15-2 record is deceiving because many of her fights have been in three different Japanese tournaments. Marloes won the 2000 REMIX World Cup by defeating Megumi Yabushita in the final. She lost to Erin Toughill in the semi final of the 2004 World REMIX Tournament. And she lost in the finals of the May 2007 K-Grace tournament to Roxanne Modafferi. More recently, Marloes has had difficulty finding decent opponents in Europe and decent promoters outside her home in Shooto Holland. Her latest fight was a submission win over Romy Ruyssen on the Aug. 2 SLV show in Basil, Switzerland. Her original opponent backed out and Ruyssen was a last minute replacement. And the show was a combined kickboxing/MMA show and the promoters didn't seem to care about her match. Long time womens MMA observers have been hoping that Marloes Coenen would get the call from EliteXC. Maybe they're listening to us. And she's a big star in Japan if they're interested in that market.

Takayo Hashi will be 31 years old on Oct. 2. She usually fights at around 130lbs. EliteXC has used a couple of Japanese fighters but Hashi is a cut above both of them. Her record is 11-1 and has worked mostly for Smackgirl since her debut in 2004. Her one loss was to Hitomi Akano in Aug. 2005 but Hashi successfully avanged that loss with a win over Akano on the Sept. 6, 2007 Smackgirl show. She is the current Smackgirl Middleweight Champion. I would say that over the last year and a half, Hashi has stepped up her game considerably and has fought higher calibre opponents. She made her US debut in her most recent fight with an impressive win over the very tough Amanda Buckner on the Apr. 3 Fatal Femmes Fighting show in Los Angeles. She wins a lot of her fights by decision so I would like to see more submissions from her. You want to avoid leaving the result to judges. She has potential. Hashi just has to keep winning.

Sarah Kaufman is 22 years old from Victoria, BC. She usually fights at around 135lbs. Sarah is the least experienced of the three fighters but probably has the best long term star potential. She has won all seven of her fights by KO. Sarah was the winner of the first womens bout in TKO with a win over Valerie Letourneau on TKO's June 1, 2006 Montreal show. After that fight, Sarah signed with Hardcore Championship Fighting and defeated Ginele Marquez on their Oct. 19 Calgary show and then defeated Molly Helsel on their Mar. 29 Gatineau, QC show. But HCF closed soon after not because of money problems but because the owners weren't getting along. I've seen Sarah's fights and she is a very entertaining buzzsaw. But she has yet to fight outside Canada and I was concerned that she hasn't had enough visibility to get an offer from EliteXC. So the signing of these three fighters indicates that Jeremy Lappan doesn't think women MMA fighters are a novelty and great fighters can sell tickets and draw eyeballs. So since Jeremy is listening to us, why don't you ditch the three minute rounds and give the women five minute rounds just like the men? That's what we want.