Filed under: Strikeforce
The first time Marloes Coenen won a mixed martial arts title, she was a 19-year-old girl from Holland, fighting in Japan, and winning a title motivated her to decide to try to fight for a living, rather than go to a university.
That was in 2000, and neither Coenen nor anyone else had any idea of how much MMA would change over the next decade. But as Coenen prepares to fight Sarah Kaufman for the Strikeforce 135-pound women’s title on Saturday night, she says she’s motivated by the opportunity to earn a second championship belt.
“It was so different then,” Coenen said. “This was an open-weight tournament for the ReMix World Cup, and the rules were different and there was a tiny Japanese girl fighting a Russian girl who was 330 pounds. Ten years ago, when I won that title in Japan, I had so many hopes and expectations, and now if I could win another title I would feel like it’s the beginning of a new decade.”