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Dana: "UFC Women's division absolutely going to happen"

5K views 60 replies 31 participants last post by  hellholming 
#1 ·
Ronda Rousey, the most dominant female fighter in MMA, could be its most historic, too.

UFC president Dana White tells SI.com he's working on a female division of the UFC, largely because of Rousey's influence.

"It's absolutely going to happen," White said Tuesday of the women's division.

The inclusion of women in the sport's highest ranks is an about-face for White, who had long rejected the idea of a women's division, deriding the quality of fighting and the depth of competition in the female ranks.

White attributes his reversal to Rousey, 25, who has beaten each of her nine opponents -- three amateur, six professional -- with a devastating armbar in the first round. Only one opponent, wrestling specialist Miesha Tate, endured longer than one minute in the cage with the Strikeforce bantamweight title holder and 2008 bronze medalist in judo.

White says no time frame is set for the new division. Rousey's transition to UFC, White says, "could happen tomorrow, it could happen a year from now."

Rousey's manager Darin Harvey says, "Nothing is immenient. She's a Strikeforce champion not a UFC fighter. We still have three fights left for Strikeforce."

Regardless of the time frame for the women's division, White says, "The point is I'm committed to this."
Source: Sports Illustrated
 
#15 ·
And the bad UFC business decisions just keep on coming! I for one will never pay to see a woman headlined PPV, and I know for a fact that most people feel the same way. Whether it's right or not, society just doesn't accept watching two women beat on each other. To be honest, it barely even accepts two men beating on each other! :laugh:
But in all seriousness this sucks and I hope this is one of the many things Dana doesn't keep his word on. If they put women on the same cards as men then it will be a disaster.
 
#29 ·
I love me some Rhonda. But this sucks. I'm not paying for womens MMA. I don't want to see some no name woman fighting some other crappy woman's fighter even in the middle of the prelims.
This should not happen, if anything woman should have there own organzations. You don't see the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB having woman's teams or showtime and HBO boxing showing woman fights. I have never had any interest in woman's mma at all. If you ask me the UFC is starting to go downhill, Dana's trying to make it so good that hes just ******* it up.

There is no difference between women fighting and men fighting besides how much it bothers you that a woman could kick your ass. This kind of stuff makes me disgusted to be lumped in as an mma fan.
 
#16 ·
The anti-women's MMA arguments are always pretty interesting to me as they're typically so glaringly misogynistic. Is the technique a little sloppy? Sure. But that will improve as women's MMA grows.

Personally, I've never seen a boring women's MMA fight, and to me that's all that really matters. They tend to bring it.

Some fans like 135 lbs and below men's fights, I don't.

Some fans like 'gameplan' fighters who avoid the fight as all costs, I don't.

Some fans like women's MMA.

There's room for everyone imo.

And you're allowed to voice your dislike of women's MMA, just like I do of the parts of the sport I find pointless or boring.

I just think if you're going to be critical of it, it's a little classless to suggest even jokingly that Ronda Rousey, who medal-ed at the Olympics in judo , had to perform sexual favors for Dana in order to get women's MMA in the UFC.
 
#23 ·
Woman's MMA ends up with some helpless woman fighter not ready for that level turtling up and getting beat on by a more advanced fighter.

Sure if given the chance they could evolve and formulate like 1 good division in 5 years. But as of right now WMMA has nothing to offer other than Rousey armbaring everyone.

I guess you could sign Ronda and give contenders a 1 fight contract and have like 3 women's fights a year with Ronda in each one of them.
 
#25 ·
this would be HORRIBLE!!!!! UFC card watered down even further with shallow meaningless divisions. Might have been a reason the UFC was more popular when they didnt have 125 and 135 guys !
 
#26 ·
Yeah man, more MMA it's just ******* terrible. How dare they to try to put on more fights and expand and give people jobs, it's awful!
 
#28 ·
This should not happen, if anything woman should have there own organzations. You don't see the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB having woman's teams or showtime and HBO boxing showing woman fights. I have never had any interest in woman's mma at all. If you ask me the UFC is starting to go downhill, Dana's trying to make it so good that hes just ******* it up.
 
#31 ·
The fact of the matter is, the talent pool is just so small.

I'm a fan of Ronda, and I've enjoyed some awesome female MMA matches, but they really need to think about their audience here...

Who do they think they are doing this for? Do they think they will attract MORE female fans? Highly doubtful.

Most casual fans already don't care much about the lighter weight classes. I think the UFC needs to channel their efforts on keeping their existing fans happy before it's too late.
 
#41 ·
I think you're not quite aware of the market the UFC attracts, Women fighting, rolling around on the ground in short shorts could be a huge boost to the UFC.

Think a lot of people are under estimating what Women's MMA could do for the UFC, Rhonda can be huge for them and if the UFC has a Women's division I wouldn't be shocked if Gina came back for a fight, they need to make it Women's 140 though.
 
#47 ·
I'm sure none of the anti-wmma posters never seen an actual WMMA event like they used to have in Japan or like Invicta now. they just want huge dudes, haymakers and 1st round KO.

if it ever gets more technical than that, then they qualify it as "boring" because there's actual thinking involved and well, when you're an idiot, you usually don't like stuff that involves brain activity.

There is very good talent in WMMA and it only needs a good promotion to grow exponentially.

Because WMMA may also bring another kind of fan, maybe more women will tune in and watch UFC, maybe it'll finally ease up on the "violent and brutal" image of the UFC for numerous non-fans.

Just realize, all of you anti wmma, you have the EXACT same attitude towards WMMA as the ones who say MMA is nothing but a bunch of roided tanks swinging at each other until one falls down.

the attitude of those who don't know what they're talking about, but would rather remain in the wrong than actually learning something and open their mind.

my 2cts, flame away now. I'm out of this topic.
 
#48 ·
I like the idea of a women's division about much as I like the 125 lb division right now, I can do without either.

Their just isn't enough talent to create a meaningful division for wmma in the UFC right now. I would be willing to watch a wmma super fight a few times a year, but never on a PPV main card.
 
#49 ·
@hadoq, you make it sound like we are scum and we MMA fans are the only one that thinks like this. But Male Sports always outperform thier Female Counterparts for a reason. The only one that really accepted are Women's World Cup Soccer and the WNBA, but even they cannot beat the Men's World Cup Soccer or the NBA. Im sorry but thats just the way it is, we can say this and that, but facts are facts. Womens MMA will be accepted eventually but it will never be on par with Male MMA, even if they both are in the UFC and Dana White pushes Womens MMA and Rousey to high hell. He is doing an admirable job though. Dana White managed to promote more pub for Rousey and Womens MMA by talking than Scott Coker ever could by promoting actual Women Bouts.
 
#52 · (Edited)
Yea, not really sure how people come to the conclusion that if we don't care to watch much WMMA that we are some how new MMA fans or fans that are dumb and don't care about nothing but knockouts.

Do all of these people watch all other women's sports? Would they say we are all a bunch of close-minded idiots if we told them we don't watch the WNBA?

Never knew there would be such a backlash for not liking womens MMA? :confused05:

I've seen this arugment a lot as well. The 'it's bad for business' argument.

Well time will tell on that front in the UFC.

But the Strikeforce events that have featured women's MMA haven't done significantly worse numbers than cards without women. In fact, I believe some of those cards were some of the highest rated cards in their history especially those with Gina and Ronda.

Sex sells.

Ronda and Gina are easily the biggest crossover stars in the history of the sport.
The big women's fights have done decently. You had a man-woman taking roids for years and beating up smaller fighters. Take away her roids and will she be the same beast? You had Gina, who had skills. But ultimately wasn't a fighter and went into movies. She was stunningly beautiful and a solid fighter.....that is rare. Ronda is a Olympian in Judo and has some looks. Pretty unique situations. Try to promote 2 high level women's fighters like Tate and Kuafman and see how bad it does. And those are elite women's fighters.

Also what do you mean by crossover star? I assume exposure away from the sport? You could be right, Gina's movie and Ronda's crazy media attention and magazine covers every other day. But Rampage and Randy had movies. Chuck has been on all the talk shows and is basically a rock star he is pretty big outside of MMA. Brock Lesnar? A guy like Vitor is more known in Brazil for being married to a popular star, than Gina or Ronda is in the U.S. All of that doesn't really matter, I am just going off subject.

Also again to everyone who thinks non-WMMA guys are idiots and "alpha males" about it....seems like the whole brand of WMMA is being built on sex-appeal. Is that not right there men expressing their alpha male personalities, and sexist? Shouldn't the people who have such a problem with WMMA not getting credit it is due, have a problem with how it is being promoted?
 
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