7. Sarah Kaufman
Women’s MMA pioneer Kaufman gets her due with a seventh-place inclusion here. At a time where WMMA was just starting out, Kaufman was impressively well-rounded, being a skilled submission grappler who had respectable striking. Kaufman raced out to a record of 12-0 that saw her become the Strikeforce bantamweight champion and one of the best female fighters in the world. That early run included winning her first eight fights by KO, including knockouts of Valerie Letourneau, Alexis Davis and Roxanne Modafferi, and decisions over Shayna Bazsler and a green Miesha Tate. To be fair, Davis was making her pro debut, Letourneau was 1-0, and Tate was 22 years old and still very much improving, but it's still an impressive list of names. Kaufman would then suffer defeat for the first time, being submitted by fellow WMMA pioneer Marloes Coenen. Kaufman rebounded with a decision win over a young and improving Liz Carmouche before rematching Davis. “Ally-Gator” was a much better fighter than when they first fought, but Kaufman still edged out a majority decision.
That set up a showdown for the Strikeforce women's bantamweight crown against new champion Ronda Rousey. Unfortunately, as with most of Rousey's opponents, it ended poorly for Kaufman, who was armbarred in 54 seconds. After winning a split decision over Leslie Smith, Kaufman joined the UFC in late 2013, the same year they added women's divisions. Kaufman's time started inauspiciously, as she lost a split decision against Jessica Eye that almost everyone thought she had won, only for the athletic commission to overturn the result into a no contest after Eye tested positive for marijuana. Kaufman then won another decision over Leslie Smith, this time unanimously, but was then submitted by old rival Alexis Davis, who was now in her prime. Kaufman then fought a complete unknown making her debut into the organization and lost by split decision. In retrospect, that wasn't a bad result against Valentina Shevchenko, who I consider the greatest female fighter ever, but it meant Kaufman's release from the UFC. The Canadian continued winning, taking decisions over Jessica-Rose Clark and Pannie Kianzad and submitting Katharina Lehner. Kaufman then made an interesting decision to join the newly formed women's lightweight division of the PFL despite being a natural bantamweight. Despite being massively undersized, she easily submitted Morgan Frier but then lost to the bigger, stronger Larissa Pacheco in her next fight. After a first-round knockout win over former Bellator contender Jessy Miele at featherweight, Kaufman retired. She had a great career that often gets overlooked when discussing women's mixed martial arts.
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