FanHouse ShaynaBaszler

Joey Villasenor beat Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos by split decision Friday night in the main event of the Strikeforce Challenger Series event in Kent, Washington, providing an exciting, fast-paced conclusion to a good MMA show.

It's been almost a year since we've seen Shayna Baszler compete in an MMA cage. Following her last fight, a highly-visible loss to Cristiane Santos on CBS in July 2008, the 28-year-old was forced to sit on the sidelines while Pro Elite figured out what they were going to do with their contracts. Once Strikeforce purchased most of the significant ones in February, it was only a matter of time before Baszler got back to work and resumed her promising career.

At Friday's "Strikeforce: Challengers" event in Kent, Wash. (Showtime, 11 PM ET/PT), Baszler (9-5) will face undefeated star Sarah Kaufman. Kaufman (9-0) made her successful 135-pound Strikeforce debut last month, defeating Meisha Tate via unanimous decision. FanHouse spoke to Baszler about her time off and preparing for Kaufman. The full interview is below.

Miesha Tate and Sarah Kaufman have a mandate, and that's proving to the world that women's MMA goes deeper than just Gina Carano and Cris Cyborg.

The pair gets the opportunity to do so on May 15's Strikeforce Challengers event in Fresno, Calif., broadcast on Showtime.

Tate was originally booked to fight Kim Couture on the event, but after the latter dropped out due to personal reasons, she was replaced by Kaufman, who openly campaigned for the fight and got her wish granted when Strikeforce president Scott Coker moved her from a June 19 match with Shayna Baszler. Barring injury, the winner of the Tate-Kaufman bout will face Baszler.

Here's a look at Shayna Baszler, who fights on EliteXC's CBS card on Saturday, beating Samantha Gavere last year:

On a call to promote the EliteXC show this week, Baszler was asked about UFC President Dana White's claim that there aren't enough good female fighters for UFC to bother with women's mixed martial arts.