Womens' MMA mega-thread

[DR]

Hilarious!

[crushed4life]

Episode 3

[RBAP]

Dana White Previews Rousey vs. Carmouche
espnW's Julie Foudy talks with UFC president Dana White about Saturday's fight between Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:8968547

http://espn.go.com/espnw/commentary/8974195/espnw-women-bout-all-money-ufc

[Ronald_Frump]

Nice lead-in RBAP!

I'm going to make a prediction for this fight:

First round stoppage: Rousey by armbar.

I think Liz is tough, she will refuse to tap and Ronda will break her arm in grisly fashion.

Anyone care to disagree with me?

[sammy_scuffles]

I don't think you're going to get anyone suggest Carmouche to win. It's not a zero chance of course but it's a pretty small chance.

I'd like to think that Carmouche is smart enough and professional enough to tap once her arm is irretrievable. There's no benefit to getting yourself seriously injured, whereas if you don't you can fight someone else a few months down the road and earn money. Which is your job after all.

She was sensible enough to tap to Coenen in a title fight she was clearly winning so hopefully that'll hold true.

[RBAP]

Ronda Rousey Breaks the Glass Ceiling: The Birth of UFC's First Female Superstar

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1537750-ronda-rousey-breaks-the-glass-ceiling-the-birth-of-ufcs-first-female-superstar?hpt=hp_c1

[crushed4life]

Friday, 02/22/2013, 11:15 pm

EXCLUSIVE | Tiffany Van Soest: "Come for My Looks, but Stay for My Skill" | MMA NEWS

Women's Muay Thai fighter Tiffany Van Soest will be just five days short of her 24th birthday when she faces Natalie Yipp at Lion Fights 9 on March 15th in Las Vegas. The Blackhouse/Team Nogueira fighter is known as "The Time Bomb" and she displayed her knockout power in her last fight against Alexis Rufus.

Van Soest landed a head kick and then finished her opponent off with a right hand, improving her record to 3-0-1. She is quickly becoming one of the faces of Women's Muay Thai and is definitely a great representative for the sport. She may be in the middle of preparation for her next bout, but that doesn't mean she's not as excited about tomorrow night's historic women's MMA fight between Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche which will mark the first time the UFC has promoted a female fight.

"I think it's great, it's such a huge opportunity for women," Van Soest told BJPenn.Com. "It's well deserved and the timing couldn't be better and I'm really excited for it. I've sparred with Ronda before and Liz was one of my first MMA training partners when I decided I wanted to start learning mixed martial arts. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how she does against Ronda. I think if anyone can beat Ronda, Liz can."

The UFC seems committed to Women's MMA as evidenced by the signing of Miesha Tate, Cat Zingano, Alexis Davis and Sara McMann. The opportunities will continue to grow, especially if the Rousey-Carmouche fight does well. With that being said it only seems natural to ask Van Soest when she sees herself competing in MMA as opposed to Muay Thai.

"Everyone asks me in pretty much every interview, when am I going to do MMA," admitted the 24-year-old Van Soest. "It's not really a matter of if, but more of a when. Right now I'm getting a lot of opportunities with Muay Thai and I feel like I'm just starting to grow as a Muay Thai fighter. I'm gaining a lot of momentum so why stop that and have to learn something else? I want to keep riding the wave. When I accomplish all of my goals in Muay Thai then maybe I'll make the move to MMA. I still train a little bit of wrestling and jiu-jitsu, I use is it as cross training, but to also learn it for when the time for me to move does come."

One of the biggest reasons Women's MMA is doing so well is because of Invicta FC. It's hard to imagine it was less than a year ago when they made their debut in Kansas City. They have held three more highly successful shows since and are preparing for Invicta FC 5, an event that will feature two title bouts and 15 fights overall.

"I train with a lot of girls who have fought or who are fighting for Invicta," offered Van Soest. "Whenever they fight I like to watch it, I think the production of their show is great and from what the girls have told me they are treated awesomely. They have everything they need, it's everything a fighter can dream for. There's some promoters who will promise you one thing and do another and their shows are really unorganized. From what I've heard about Shannon Knapp and Janet Martin they are on top of things and treat the fighters extremely well."

There are still a lot of uneducated fans and media members who believe there aren't enough female fighters to fill anything other than the bantamweight division. All one has to do is look a little closer and they will see there is a lot of talent out there in many different weight classes.

"More and more girls are getting into MMA and developing their skills," The Timebomb explained. "The talent pool in any weight class is getting deeper. People were complaining that there were only the 135er's and the 145er's, but look at the 125lber's. The 115lb. division is absolutely stacked, even the little girls in the 105lb. division, they are like little spider monkeys. There are so many good ones, especially overseas in Japan. Making good match-ups in all of women's MMA isn't going to be a problem anymore."

A few weeks back we had Invicta FC Strawweight title contender Bec Hyatt on BJPenn.Com Radio. She made a very good point about the need to have a happy medium when it came to women's mixed martial artists. She believes they have to be talented before anything else, but they also need to look like a woman. That seems to be the consensus amongst fans, promoters and fellow fighters. Many of those same people also believe the fighters need to have a good personality as well.

"Nobody wants to watch a robot fight, the fans want someone they can identify with," admitted Van Soest. "They want someone they can either love or hate. You can't just be a "fighter", you have to show that you're a person as well. Being a woman and it's kind of sad to say, but you have to do more just to get that attention. My whole thing is people say that I'm so pretty and they ask if I get mad about that. I tell them they can come for my looks, but once they see me compete they become a fan for the way that I fight. Come for my looks, but stay for my skill!"

[sammy_scuffles]

Four more fighters have been announced for the 135 division: Sarah Kaufman, Julie Kedzie, Amanda Nunes, and Germaine de Randamie.

Linky

[jiminy]

Another women's fight is planned for UFC 159 - Sara McMann Vs. Sheila Gaff.

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Olympian-Sara-McMann-to-Face-German-Prospect-Sheila-Gaff-at-UFC-159-50533

Not officially signed yet, but green-lit by the UFC. Sara will need to use her wrestling in this one. Sheila has formidable striking and Cyborg-like aggressiveness. She absolutely wrecked the very credible Aisling Daly in Cage Warriors and is still very young, only recently turning 23.

The UFC is putting together a great roster of WMMA fighters.

[sleepinbin]

Another women's fight is planned for UFC 159 - Sara McMann Vs. Sheila Gaff.

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Olympian-Sara-McMann-to-Face-German-Prospect-Sheila-Gaff-at-UFC-159-50533

Not officially signed yet, but green-lit by the UFC. Sara will need to use her wrestling in this one. Sheila has formidable striking and Cyborg-like aggressiveness. She absolutely wrecked the very credible Aisling Daly in Cage Warriors and is still very young, only recently turning 23.

another reason gaff is like cyborg is that she is roided to all hell. she'll be the first woman in the ufc to piss hot, put money on it.

[crushed4life]

How Ronda Rousey decided to chase a career in mixed martial arts
She drew inspiration from friends and current MMA standouts Manny Gamburyan and Rick Hawn

By Case Keefer (contact)
Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013 | 2 a.m.

In between the countless hours of training sessions and media obligations over the past couple of months, Ronda Rousey saw a quote.

She can't remember where it came from. All she knows is the line stuck with her to the point that it bears repeating.

"Man's plans are proof that God has a sense of humor," she recites.

Rousey (6-0) applies this to her career when talking about 25 short months ago, when she anonymously walked through the Orleans after finishing her amateur career with a first-round arm bar win — what else? — at a local Tuff-n-Uff card. This was a time when UFC President Dana White was still vowing that women would never step foot in the octagon.

Or even a couple of years before that, when Rousey had no plans whatsoever. After returning to Los Angeles from the 2008 Olympics, where she won a bronze medal in judo, Rousey scrounged up jobs as a bartender and briefly lived out of her car to stay financially afloat.

One of the world's most prominent fighters recently has reflected on everything that's led up to her UFC debut against Liz Carmouche (8-2) on Saturday in the main event of UFC 157 in Anaheim, Calif.

She's poured her heart out about the death of her father and traced her judo origins through two episodes of "UFC Primetime." But Rousey has talked little about how she got into mixed martial arts in the first place, another turn that she never planned on.

"When I was training for the Olympics, me and a bunch of the other fighters lived together, and Rick Hawn, who now fights for Bellator, was actually one of those guys," Rousey said. "My favorite day of the week was Thursday because our coach wouldn't show up and Rick would have all of us just grapple with no gi."

"We would turn the music up, go no-gi and just have such a fun time. We would just hang out. I had more fun doing that than judo, so I just started grappling when I came home from the Olympics because I loved it and I wanted to stay in shape."

Rousey could more than hold her own with the men she trained with during those sessions, which made them wonder why she didn't try to make a career out of mixed martial arts. They eventually started telling her she should consider fighting professionally.

It was something Rousey had never thought about. Before the 2008 Olympics, the only MMA fight she'd ever watched was "The Ultimate Fighter" 5 finale when her childhood friend Manny Gamburyan, whom she knew from judo, lost to Nate Diaz via second-round submission.

"I liked it," said Rousey, who now trains with Gamburyan and Diaz, "but only loosely followed it from there."

Her relative unfamiliarity with the sport was part of the reason why it took Rousey awhile to decide to pursue mixed martial arts. But not too long.

She eventually made up her mind and excitedly shared the news with Hawn, Gamburyan and her other grappling friends.

"When I decided I was actually going to give it a try, they were like, 'No, no, don't do it. You're going to get hit in the face,'" Rousey said. "I was like, 'These girls can't hit me. They can't touch me.' And so far, I haven't gotten a single bruise in a fight."

Rousey's rise isn't quite as unforeseen as it's painted or how she sometimes describes. From the moment she started training in MMA, Rousey says, the goal was to make it to the UFC.

She might not have expected it two years after turning professional, but that goes back to her belief against trying to look too far ahead. If Rousey lives by a rule, it's to not set limits on what she can achieve.

"I was talking to my coach the other day and said: 'Hey, what do you think after I retire in MMA, I go over to boxing and win a world title and then go win the Abu Dhabi world jiujitsu championship? Just do all of it,'" Rousey said. "He looked at me says: 'You're nuts. You're crazy.' But I'd just as soon be the best at everything I do."

[jiminy]

Another women's fight is planned for UFC 159 - Sara McMann Vs. Sheila Gaff.

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Olympian-Sara-McMann-to-Face-German-Prospect-Sheila-Gaff-at-UFC-159-50533

Not officially signed yet, but green-lit by the UFC. Sara will need to use her wrestling in this one. Sheila has formidable striking and Cyborg-like aggressiveness. She absolutely wrecked the very credible Aisling Daly in Cage Warriors and is still very young, only recently turning 23.

another reason gaff is like cyborg is that she is roided to all hell. she'll be the first woman in the ufc to piss hot, put money on it.

That's what a good deal of people seem to think. In the run-up to her Cage Warrior's 125 championship match with Rosi Sexton, Rosi insisted on both undergoing anti-doping tests under the independent VADA program. It costs a few thousand pounds and was something the Cage Warriors org wasn't willing to pay for, so Rosi asked for help from fans in covering the bill (i think she paid half herself) and fans were willing to help. All was going well until Sheila, a couple of weeks out from the fight, pulled out citing "illness". Very suspicious.

On the other hand, this is a great opportunity for SHeila, she clearly has talent regardless and it would be daft to blow it.

[sleepinbin]

Another women's fight is planned for UFC 159 - Sara McMann Vs. Sheila Gaff.

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Olympian-Sara-McMann-to-Face-German-Prospect-Sheila-Gaff-at-UFC-159-50533

Not officially signed yet, but green-lit by the UFC. Sara will need to use her wrestling in this one. Sheila has formidable striking and Cyborg-like aggressiveness. She absolutely wrecked the very credible Aisling Daly in Cage Warriors and is still very young, only recently turning 23.

another reason gaff is like cyborg is that she is roided to all hell. she'll be the first woman in the ufc to piss hot, put money on it.

That's what a good deal of people seem to think. In the run-up to her Cage Warrior's 125 championship match with Rosi Sexton, Rosi insisted on both undergoing anti-doping tests under the independent VADA program. It costs a few thousand pounds and was something the Cage Warriors org wasn't willing to pay for, so Rosi asked for help from fans in covering the bill (i think she paid half herself) and fans were willing to help. All was going well until Sheila, a couple of weeks out from the fight, pulled out citing "illness". Very suspicious.

On the other hand, this is a great opportunity for SHeila, she clearly has talent regardless and it would be daft to blow it.

yeah, i remember that, really doesn't help her cause. the problem about "blowing it" is that the fear of coming off of the drugs and losing is usually greater than the fear of being caught at the moment, so unless she starts looking suspiciously saggy in the near future, i think it'll be safe to assume she's still cycling.

regardless, mcmann should win. gaff will be fighting out of her weightclass for this bout and mcmann is by far the best fighter she has ever gone up against.

[crushed4life]

[crushed4life]