After several weeks of screwing around, Strikeforce finally announced that Sarah Kaufman will defend her women's 135lb title against Roxanne Modafferi July 23 at the Comcast Arena in Everett, WA. Roxy earned this title shot with her win over Tara LaRosa at the Moosin show in Boston. At least that show was good for something. This is on a Strikeforce Challengers show and I couldn't help but notice that Sarah is a little annoyed about that and wants to prove that she belongs on a main Strikeforce show. I don't think it's a big deal. I guess the original concept was for the Chalengers Series to showcase up and coming fighters and it's based on when EliteXC was doing the ShoXC shows. But at this point I think the only difference between Strikeforce and Strikeforce Challengers is the compensation Strikeforce gets from Showtime. Challengers now seems like a meaningless label. Maybe they should change it. Will this be the main event of the show? Based on this poster it will be. And I assume this fight is scheduled for five five minute rounds. Sarah Kaufman won this title with a win over Takayo Hashi in February. Roxy used to train with Hashi at the WK dojo in Tokyo. But I expect Roxy's strategy to be much different from Hashi's. She has to take Sarah to the ground because Sarah has proven that trading punches with her is a losing proposition. But Sarah's takedown defense is outstanding. And she will do anything to keep the fight standing. So I wonder what might happen if Sarah stuffs Roxy's takedown attempts. Both Meisha Tate and Shayna Bazsler took Sarah down but weren't able to go any farther and she stuffed a lot of their other takedown attempts. That's the key to this fight. Taking Sarah down is one thing. Because Sarah is an excellent defender, advancing that position is another story. One takedown probably won't be enough for Roxy to win this title. And that's what makes this fight interesting. Their personalities are interesting too. In a business where fighters try to give themselves fearsome nicknames, Roxy calls herself The Happy Warrior and prepares for fights by posting silly pictures on her MySpace. Sarah smiles and waves to her family during introductions and then proceeds to punch her opponent in the face. Strikeforce should emphasize that sort of thing.
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