Sarah Kaufman travelled all the way from Victoria to square off in TKO 29 in the first women's mixed martial-arts fight here

Her road was clearly mapped five years ago, university biology studies aimed at a career in cardiovascular surgery.

And then the mixed martial-arts school opened beneath the studio where she danced.

Tonight, 21-year-old Sarah Kaufman of Victoria, B.C., will step into an octagonal steel cage at the Bell Centre against Montreal's Valerie Letourneau. She expects not to leave her fate in the hands of the judges.

Kaufman, with a 4-0 record, and Letourneau (1-0) will square off in TKO 29: Repercussion, blazing a trail as the first women on a card staged by the Montreal-based TKO mixed martial-arts promotion.

The 11-fight show is headlined by a bout for TKO's vacant middleweight title, with Rimouski's Patrick "The Predator" Cote, a veteran of the elite Ultimate Fighting Championship circuit in the U.S., facing Jason Day of Lethbridge, Alta.

Of considerable local interest will be the MMA debut of Steve Bosse, a warehouse-sized, cement-fisted enforcer with his hometown St. Jean Summum Chiefs of the semi-pro Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey.

Bosse was ranked 277 of 278 players in 2006-07 statistics, pointless in 27 games. But he did serve 253 penalty minutes, a portion of the 927 minutes he's earned through his 129 career LNAH games (two goals, four assists).

No athlete in tonight's show has come to Montreal from farther afield than Kaufman, word of her four impressive victories, all by knockout or technical knockout, having reached TKO head Stephane Patry.

Early Wednesday morning, the friendly, hard-bodied stick of dynamite settled into a chair in her Montreal hotel lobby beside her coach, Adam Zugec, and considered not only her task tonight, but her responsibility.

"The guys can get away with a little more," Kaufman said. "If they come in and don't put on a great show, there will be guys fighting after them.

"But when a promoter brings in an attraction, two women, for the first time, and they don't put on a show that excites the crowd, he won't have an incentive to bring us back." "Women have more to prove. Here, it's neat being a first. It makes it more memorable, especially if you have a really great fight and can pull off a win." Mixed martial arts, a highly athletic blend of jiu-jitsu, judo, karate, wrestling, boxing, kickboxing and other combat disciplines, is gaining mainstream acceptance as it flourishes, distancing itself from its freak-show marketing of a decade ago.

As it does, female athletes are discovering its appeal.

Kaufman is viewed as one of Canada's finest talents at the unofficial 135-pound (61-kg) weight class. It's for her perfect record and energetic, crowd-pleasing style that Patry has flown her cross-country for TKO's first women's bout.

Eighteen years of ballet, jazz, tap and hip-hop dance have provided Kaufman with world-class aerobic conditioning. She can almost effortlessly endure the usual three rounds of five minutes in a women's match, though she hasn't yet had to go the distance.

"Sarah's cardio is incredible," said her coach, Adam Zugec, into whose Victoria school Kaufman wandered almost five years ago to take up kickboxing. "She's not worried about getting tired or gassed out." Kaufman never considered fighting until her first "horrible" efforts at kickboxing grew to become an obsession.

"Even if I'm so bad at something, I'll keep working at it and force myself to get better," she said. "I ask the ridiculous little questions until Adam wants to rip my head off and won't answer me any more. But I think that makes me better. I'm a perfectionist and want to improve everything." She was driven academically, a lover of math and the sciences.

"I was really a big nerd," she said, "and I don't know that anything has really changed." And as much as she adored dancing, Kaufman discovered another passion: "I like hitting stuff," she said, laughing.

"In dance, you do recitals," Zugec said. "She asked: 'So what do I do with all this training?' " Kaufman won a few amateur fights, and last June 3 in Vancouver, she turned pro against the seasoned Liz Posener, Zugec bowing to his student's wishes "because Sarah wants to fight all the time - and she begged me." Zugec was so nervous pre-fight that Kaufman was massaging his shoulders in the dressing room; she is so calm and well-conditioned, Kaufman has recorded the lowest pre-fight heart rate of any competitor, male or female.

His protege knocked out Posener a minute into the third round to win her professional debut, also earning the fighter-of-the-night award and a standing ovation. She recalls a good fight "that went back and forth and up and down," and that her hair came undone and tumbled around her shoulders.

The hatred that the uninformed believe fighters have for each other? Kaufman stays at her new friend Posener's home when she's in Vancouver.

She is eager to watch her sport evolve, and expects to be part of it as long as she's healthy and motivated. Kaufman looked forward to meeting Letourneau at yesterday's weigh-in, saying, "Hopefully, she's a nice girl.

"You put your heart and soul into your training and fighting and at the end of the day, it's not about the other person, but about pushing yourself as far as you can. You can't ever be better than your best." TKO 29: Repercussion tonight at the Bell Centre, 7:30 p.m.

Tickets at Admission Network - www.admission.com - by phone at (800) 361-4595, and at the Bell Centre box office.