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Sarah “Cheesecake” Moras is a bantamweight fighter from Kelowna, British Columbia who trains with Toshido Mixed Martial Arts and is 3-1 in her professional mixed martial arts career.
Just one month after her first-round victory over Christina Barry at AFC 11, Moras announced on her Facebook page that she would be facing Vanessa Mariscal at Freedom Fight: Caged Combat on Oct. 27.
Moras took some time to answer questions about her upcoming fight with Mariscal, her beginnings in MMA and how she earned the nickname Cheesecake.
You are facing Vanessa Mariscal in less than 10 days. How did you get tapped as a replacement for Valerie Letourneau and what are you doing to prepare for the match?
Well, as some of you may have heard in other interviews I have done, I owe my life to Facebook, and I just got a Facebook message asking if I was willing to fight her, so I told them to contact my coach about it and they did, and here I am fighting her Oct. 27.
Because I took this fight on such short notice, I only really have a week to prepare, but like my other fights I focus on what I’m going to do, so it doesn’t really matter who is in front of me. I do what I am good at and what I want to do, and it usually works out well for me.
Everything has a beginning Sarah. What first drew you to mixed martial arts?
I was always interested in the sport. I didn’t know what “MMA” was but I had seen it on T.V. and it always seemed fun. I started dating a guy that was a fighter, and he told me to check it out. So I did and here I am.
What do you enjoy most about being a fighter?
Sometimes I ask myself the same question. There is definitely a love-hate relationship between me and MMA.
I’d have to say that my favorite part is the challenge, and that there is always something new to learn and to improve on. I’m [also] overly aggressive and [I] like the idea of hurting people.
What has been the most challenging aspect of being a professional fighter?
The hardest part for me was when I first moved back to Canada, and I kept having opponent after opponent drop out, shows cancelled, or different situations where I trained hard for fights and they never happened. It’s incredibly hard to stay motivated and training hard when you know that your opponent is going to pull out three days before the fight.
I’ve been luckier this year, well since April at least. I’ve had three fights so far and next weekend will be my fourth this year. I am stoked and finding myself again.
Where did the nickname Cheesecake come from?
For my first pro fight I had a friend dare me to come out to a song called “Cheesecake” by the Muppets, as he was too scared to come out to it himself. My [other] friend also said she’d bake me a cheesecake if I used that song, so I had to use the song. After that everyone started calling me “Cheesecake” and it stuck.
There have been some prospects that have recently made the jump to pro. What was the transition like, going from the amateur level to the professional one?
I was pretty lucky with how everything worked out for me there. I moved to England to train with Rosi and my level just jumped so high.
Over there, their amateur rules were no head shots so it made it pretty easy to make the jump to pro, because I didn’t want to take steps backwards.
You traveled to Manchester England to train with Rosi Sexton. You also made your pro debut in Birmingham West Midlands against Helena Martin. What was that experience like for you and how was it different from training and fighting in Canada?
It was a pretty crazy experience, and a bit of a gong show. Training for the fight was awesome though, and I was training with one of the best females in the world, so I knew that Helena wouldn’t do anything to me that Rosi hadn’t done to me every day in training.
It was a lot different than it was when I was in Canada. Before England, I was training at a Jiu-Jitsu gym that called itself an “MMA gym” so I learned a lot from Rosi. Coming back to Canada I found Toshido, and the training here now is unreal.
After your fight with Martin, you took some away from competition before your fight with Julianna Pena. What was the process of coming back to MMA after several months away from fighting?
It was more than several months, it was a month shy of 2 years. But like I said earlier, I was training my ass off every day, except when everyone else would get their rest week before a fight, I’d find out I didn’t have a fight and then I’d keep training hard.
[In regards to] my Juilanna fight, I actually took that on only eight days notice, so there wasn’t really much to prepare for that, other than the past two years of training every day [and] waiting for an opportunity like this to happen.
Your first loss came at Invicta FC against Raquel Pennington in July yet you followed it up with a win against Christina Barry in September. Between the loss and victory, what were some of the things you worked on during training that helped you in your next fight?
Well with the Invicta fight I think my biggest problem was that my head wasn’t there.
My coach couldn’t make it and I broke my nose in the fight camp, so I lost a lot of confidence in my game because I couldn’t full out spar like I was use to leading up to that fight.
With the Barry fight I actually broke my nose AGAIN a week and a half out of the fight, but my head was in a way better place and my coach was there.
Who are some of the people who have made an impact on you since you started fighting?
Well obviously there is Rosi Sexton who helped me out loads, and without her I don’t think I would have been able to handle training at Toshido, where I am now.
Right now everyone at Toshido is absolutely amazing, I love them all and they are like family, and all incredible athletes and amazing training partners.
What do your family and friends back home think about you being a fighter?
I think they think it’s cool. Everyone is pretty supportive, but what a lot of people don’t understand is the amount of time it consumes. Since I started training, I don’t have much time to visit, and I don’t drink or go out and do all those things that most people my age do
After the fight with Mariscal, who are some other fighters you would like to step into the cage with in the future?
Well obviously I’d like to work my way up to Ronda Rousey, but I’ve actually had my eye on Sarah D’Aleilo since I saw her fight Mariscal. When I saw that fight I thought ‘me vs. Sarah would be an entertaining and competitive fight.’
I basically want to make it to the top and step in there with the highest level of females.
What else would you like readers to know about you?
Probably just to tell them to follow me on twitter @sarahcheesecake and to like my Facebook fan page ‘The Sarah Cheesecake Moras.’
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