Women MMA Fighters

There are plenty of women MMA fighters, but it is fair to say that in general, mixed martial arts fighting is dominated by men and that female fighters are more popular in Japan than anywhere else in the world. There have been women MMA fighters in Japan for over twenty years. Most women fighters in Japan belonged to Smackgirl, a fight promoter, which has since changed its name to Jewels. There is also Valkyrie, another Japanese organization exclusively for women MMA fighters.

Women MMA Fighters

The USA had three main organizations that promoted women MMA fighters, namely: Bellator Fighting Championships, Strikeforce and EliteXC, although the last two are no longer active. Gina Carano is probably the female MMA fighter people would know if anyone, because she also appeared in the extremely popular American Gladiators.

Although few fans would say that women MMA fighters do not train as hard as the men or that they want to win less than the men or anything along those lines, officialdom saw fit to tighten the rules for female mixed martial artists, which makes it less exacting than the male variety of the sport.

For example, ground and pound is limited to 30 seconds in female MMA and rounds were three minutes long instead of five. Why officials have to tinker with women's sports to reduce them to more 'lady-like events' Heaven knows.

Women MMA fighters who have worked hard to get to the top of the MMA tree in the United States include: Amanda Lavoy, Gina Carano, Julie Kedzie, Marianna Kheyfets, Ronda Rousey and Debi Purcell.

Some of Japan's best women MMA fighters include: Megumi Fuji, Yuka Tsuji and Miku Matsumoto among many other fantastic fighting girls in gis.

Latin America, especially Brazil, and Europe also have women MMA fighters such as: Hannette Staack, Cristiane Santos, Karen Ousey and Rosi Sexton.

Strikeforce was one of the major promoters of women's mixed martial arts fights in the USA and certainly produced some of the most exciting bouts such as Gina Carano and Elaina Maxwell and more recently Gina Carano versus Cristiane Santos.

However, Strikeforce was bought out by Zuffa, a rival MMA promoter, in 2011, so the future of women's MMA hangs in the balance at the moment. Fans and fighters are waiting to hear Zuffa's proposed policy on women MMA fighters.

The decision could go either way. Many top names in men's MMA think the women's version a sideshow, an irrelevancy, where pretty girls show off their perfect bodies by doing a few moves of Muay Thai boxing or Brazilian jiu jitsu.

Fans also seem to be of a mixed mind. One survey found equal amounts of voters for and against Ultimate female fighters.

Women's MMA needs men to want to watch it, because there are not enough women that want to. Men will watch men fighting, but women would rather watch men fighting too.

Men do not watch women MMA fighters because they are beautiful - they watch fighting to see a good fight - whereas a lot of women - my gran included - watch men fighting to see a perfectly toned body and the fighting.