Saddening news from Strikeforce, courtesy of MMAfighting.com,
Jake Shields is not the only Strikeforce titleholder without a contract with the promotion. 135-pound women’s champion Sarah Kaufman is in the same boat.
It’s been two-and-a-half months since Kaufman (11-0) defeated Takayo Hashi for the belt in the main event of Strikeforce Challengers 6 and she still has not been re-signed by the promotion.
“We’ve talked a few times here and there and I think they’re just trying to figure out what their plans are in terms of the 135-pound division since it is a deep division,” Kaufman told MMAFighting.com Tuesday. “They feel I just fought Miesha Tate, Shayna Baszler not that long ago as well, and I just fought the No. 2 girl (Hashi), they’re just trying to figure out what they’re going to do with the division, as they want to have a tournament. I personally don’t want to wait till after the tournament is complete because that’s at least another probably eight months before that’s done.”
Strikeforce’s shoddy handling of female mma is getting ridiculous, with the Megumi Fujii fight coming up along with the 115 pound tourney for the 3rd season maybe Bellator is the promotion that will give female fighters the stage, prestige and most importantly the stability they deserve.
Props to mma photog extraordinaire Esther Lin
This is terrible. She’s not even re-signed?
Not having your title holder contractually tied to your organization makes no damn sense whatsoever. I really hope Bellator picks up the slack and shepards female mma into the limelight it will eventually receive.