Kaufman won’t face ‘Cupcake’ at UFC 186
Instead, she’ll fight foe she’s defeated twice
Sarah Kaufman did her best to convince Ultimate Fighting Championship matchmakers to give her a sweet treat — a cupcake, perhaps. Instead, she worries that her return bout after one year on the sidelines is being treated like “the scraps left over.”
From an Instagram video of Kaufman flattening a cupcake to public call-outs, Kaufman made every effort to convince UFC officials to book her against popular former title challenger and proven TV ratings draw Miesha (Cupcake) Tate. Instead, when Kaufman was healthy again and offered her first fight in a year at UFC 186 on Saturday in Montreal’s Bell Centre, it was against fellow Canadian Alexis Davis.
“Alexis wasn’t on my radar. And I don’t think she really should be on my radar. We fought twice and they were good fights but I won both of them, no question about it,” said Kaufman, the Victoria native who defeated Davis in 2007 and again in 2012.
“Miesha has named me on multiple occasions: ‘ Sarah would be a good opponent.’ Then when I’m ready to jump on board and say, ‘Yeah let’s do it,’ she disappears … I wasn’t happy getting Alexis. I wanted Miesha. I wanted a fight that mattered. I don’t think that this fight is being billed like it matters.”
Kaufman (17-2, 1 NC) is the No. 5-ranked contender in UFC’s women’s bantamweight division. Davis (16-6) is a couple spots higher, ranked No. 3. Kaufman held the Strikeforce title before the promotion was scooped up by UFC. Davis fought for the UFC title last July, losing to undefeated champion Ronda Rousey. Their match is scheduled as the second-from-the-top preliminary bout on Fox Sports/ TSN, which Kaufman says “is a great spot to be in terms of viewership, but in terms of the prestige of being on the pay-per-view, we don’t have that placement — or even the main-card spot. I do think that this fight should matter in that sense, but it’s not getting the recognition that a threeand a five-ranked fighter in a division should be getting.”
Davis, a native of Port Colborne, Ont., who now lives in California, was equally surprised to be offered a third fight versus Kaufman but she looks at the matchmaking from a different perspective. Having lost twice to Kaufman in the past, and coming off a 16-second loss to Rousey last July, she feels like she has much to prove on Saturday.
“Are you going to look at that and slump over, be depressed? Or are you going to use it to motivate you and step up your game? I’ve been trying to use that,” she said of her emotions following the Rousey contest.
Though Kaufman would have preferred a different opponent, she knows what needs to be done if she wants to remain near the top of the bantamweight rankings — and in the mix for the high-profile bouts she craves.
“The biggest thing that I could do is I could go in and I just have to blow people out of the water. You can’t just win fights, you have to win fights in crazy fashion,” said Kaufman.