Sarah Moras

Sarah Moras, a Canadian MMA pioneer and "Cheesecake" nickname carrier, represents a particular era of women's fighting: someone who stumbled into the sport almost by accident and clawed her way to the UFC through sheer determination. She started training for fitness in her twenties, fell in love with jiu-jitsu, and eventually turned down college to move to England and chase a professional fighting career. In 2015, she earned a spot on The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rousey vs. Team Tate, the first coed season of the show, where she won a submission bonus and made it to the semifinals before losing to eventual winner Julianna Peña. Her UFC career spanned from 2014 to 2021, with a 6-8 record that reflects the brutal gap between TUF success and octagon consistency at the elite level.

Moras fights as a grappler, favoring submissions (especially the armbar, her stated favorite) and ground-and-pound elbows. Her striking volume is modest and her takedown success has been limited against top competition, but when she gets opponents to the mat, she has finish rates that keep her dangerous. Her signature win came at UFC 215 against Ashlee Evans-Smith, a clean first-round armbar that dislocated her opponent's elbow and remains the high point of her octagon resume. A late-career TKO of Liana Jojua at UFC 242 showed she could still execute, though she weighed in 2 pounds over and had to do it at catchweight.

What makes Moras worth remembering is not a flashy title run or a hall-of-fame resume, but her willingness to be an early believer in women's MMA at a time when it was far from assured. She made sacrifices most fighters wouldn't consider, lost more than she won, and carried herself with humor and humility throughout. She was released by the UFC in 2021, but her imprint on the women's bantamweight division and the sport's history of grinding pioneers remains.