Sarah Kaufman: It's 'almost impossible' to pick Holly Holm over Ronda Rousey

Despite sharing teammate status, Sarah Kaufman isn’t particularly optimistic Holly Holm will dethrone Ronda Rousey at UFC 195.

To be clear, Kaufman (17-3 MMA, 1-1 UFC) believes Holm (9-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC), a teammate at Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA in New Mexico, has a greater chance than most to take the UFC women’s bantamweight title from Rousey (12-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) at the Jan. 2 event at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena.

However, given Rousey’s recent dominance inside the octagon, Kaufman said it’s “almost impossible” to pick her to lose the belt. That doesn’t mean she won’t help prepare Holm to give her the best chance possible, though.

“Ronda is who she is; she’s proven herself to be a phenomenal athlete, and this fight is pretty interesting if you look at she just knocked out Bethe (Correia) – Holly is an amazing boxer, she’s southpaw,” Kaufman told MMAjunkie. “I train with Holly and she’s fast, she’s powerful and she picks things up fast. I want to stand behind my teammate. It’s almost impossible to say she’s going to come out with the win, but I do think Holly has the ability if she comes in and fights the right plan to make it a very tough fight and potentially get that win. I want to stand behind her.”

Kaufman shoots it straight when discussing Holm. Although they’re teammates and good friends, Kaufman and Holm were very closing to competing against each other in an upcoming bout. In fact, Kaufman said she agreed to the matchup before the UFC surprised everyone and announced Holm as the next challenger to Rousey’s belt and not Miesha Tate, as was previously expected.

“It was funny when I first got the call to fight Holly I was like, ‘Really, Holly?’ We’re good friends, we’re teammates and this fight I personally didn’t think it made a ton of sense with her being ready to go towards a title shot and me just coming off a loss,” Kaufman said. “It was a fight that we didn’t really know what to think about. I said, ‘Well, it’s a fight and it’s going to be a good fight and we can be friends after and make a fight that fans are going to be like, “Hell yeah, we love that fight.”‘ So we decided, ‘OK, we’re going to take it – sounds good. Holly is going to take it and everything is good.’

“I wake up Friday morning at get a text at 5:45 in the morning saying, ‘So, it’s not happening?’ Then sure enough, I go online and everything is abuzz and Holly is now fighting Ronda. At this point, I’m excited for Holly to get a title fight, I’m excited that I don’t have to fight a friend if I don’t have to, but disappointed I don’t currently have a fight.”

Kaufman said that for obvious reasons she wasn’t thrilled about fighting Holm, but was willing to do it because it’s part of the sport. The matchup didn’t come to fruition, though, which left Kaufman without an opponent.

The Canadian called out nearly every big name in the 135-pound division. However, nothing has been confirmed at this time. Kaufman said she was prepared to fight Holm and it will be the same for anyone else in the weight class.

“We’re both professionals so we’re both not personally happy about it, but physically it is a fun matchup; we do have fun when we train, when we spar,” Kaufman said. “But then again trying to kill your best friend, or even a close friend, or even some you’ve known for quite a well, mentally would have been the biggest component of building that fight. Maybe it’s something I really need is having that mental shut off and think you’re a drone to me and no matter what I will kill you and have the one speed. I’m hoping I get Bethe (Correia) or Miesha Tate or Cat Zingano.”

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