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(A black eye and the faintest hint of a smile. That’s our kind of woman. Photo by Esther Lin.)

Wednesday we tried to educate your ignorant asses on Takayo Hashi, the Japanese fighter who is one half of the 135-pound title fight on tonight’s Strikeforce: Challengers show (you made your FightPicker selections yet, by the way?). It’s only fair that we also shine the spotlight on her opponent in tonight’s main event, the undefeated Sarah Kaufman.

In addition to having a perfect 10-0 record that includes wins over the likes of Miesha Tate (one of MMA’s hottest women, let’s not forget) and Shayna Baszler, Kaufman also has the distinction of winning all but two of her fights via TKO stoppage. She may not win pretty, but she’s a gritty fighter who likes to stand and bang and will not give you a second to breathe once the bell rings. If you need another barometer aside from her record to tell you how dominant she’s been, just look at the odds on her fight against Hashi. She’s fighting the #2-ranked fighter in her weight class, and bookmakers still expect it to be a blowout.

Biographical notes: Kaufman was a dancer from age two, but transitioned to fighting because it is far more awesome. She’s from Victoria, British Columbia, and yet bravely missing tonight’s Canada-Slovakia hockey game in order to fight for a title. She’s more or less estranged from her family, who she says “weren’t bad parents,” but were not active or health conscious or terribly supportive of her fighting career. See her in action after the jump.

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