EXCLUSIVE | Tiffany van Soest: Striking in the MMA women’s strawweight division is ‘Mediocre at best’

Tiffany “Time Bomb” van Soest was recently crowned the first-ever female champion in the prestigious Glory kickboxing promotion.

With the historic win under her resume, “Time Bomb” says that her future in mixed martial arts all

The Muay Thai and kickboxing champion made her professional MMA debut earlier this year and showed a lot of potential in her bout against Kalyn Schwartz at Invicta FC 19. However, van Soest fell short of victory in her MMA debut but is eager to work on all the disciplines of mixed martial arts so she can showcase her world class striking abilities to MMA fans.

“Yeah, we’ll see what happens,” the Glory champion said to BJPenn.com Radio host Kinch recently. “We’ll see what’s in the works and what fights get offered. I would really like to get back to focusing on jiu-jitsu, more wrestling, and MMA but you know I feel so comfortable on my feet. I feel like I’m transitioning back. It wasn’t too difficult this time. So, something I’m comfortable doing, but like I said, it just depends on what lines up.”

“Kinch,” asked van Soest of her opinion of the level of striking in the women’s strawweight division in MMA and “Time Bomb” does not seem to be impressed.

“Mediocre, at best,” van Soest said of the striking abilities in MMA for her division. “I’m a bit of a bias striking snob so there’s also that. Any of those girls in that division, I feel like I could stand with them and beat them. No Problem. It’s just about me getting the rest of my game caught up to my striking. When that happens, everybody is in big trouble,” Van Soest said with a laugh.

Many fans are dreaming of a matchup between van Soest and the UFC women’s strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who is a tough and talented Polish striker and has proven herself as the best in the division with four consecutive title defenses.

With van Soest feeling like it’s the time that she establish herself as an MMA fighter and not just a kickboxer and Muay Thai fighter, many are surely looking forward to seeing “Time Bomb” blow up in the world of mixed martial arts.