E. Spencer Kyte of Heavy.com writes that women’s welterweight champion Sarah Kaufman deserves main event billing when she defends her title against Roxanne Modafferi in the ninth installment of the Strikeforce Challengers series.
Placing one of the six Strikeforce champions in the two-hole should be viewed as an insult to the talents of Kaufman and Modafferi, and diminishes what little juice the title carries in the first place.
If we’re being honest with each other – and I think we are – Women’s MMA isn’t really at the “championship belts” stage of their development quite yet. There are only really a handful of truly skilled female competitors out there; the Kaufmans and Cris Cyborgs of the distaff divisions are few and far between.
It’s hard enough to create interest in the division when you don’t have a deep talent pool to draw from, but since Strikeforce decided to introduce belts into the equation, they need to step up the support and spotlighting of their champion.
Next month in Houston, either Tim Kennedy or Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza will claim the middleweight title Shields left behind when he left for the UFC. Not only will the incoming champion have to battle the constant barrage of questions about not having won the belt from Shields, but the fact that the Cesar Gracie student has moved back down to welterweight with the opposition casts an unfavourable light on the entire 185-pound division. After all, how good could they actually be if a natural 170-pound competitor was able to clean house and leave with the belt around his waist?
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