Womens' MMA mega-thread

[jiminy]

Yeah, good to see Rosi in the UFC even though it is towards the end of her career and against a very difficult, bigger and perhaps insurmountable opponent. She has been talking about retiring for the past couple of years, so I don't think fighting in Invicta really held much appeal. I guess it's the lure of the UFC.

Since Sheila Gaff signed with the UFC, I wondered if any more top 125ers would make the jump to 135 to be in the UFC.

I also read on Sherdog that Tara LaRosa is trying out for TUF. I can just imagine Miesha Tate "coaching" Tara.

Tara also said that she had cleaned out the 135 division and had to move to 125 to get some competition. 

[sleepinbin]

Also, another womens fight has been announced by the UFC. Alexis Davis vs Rosi Sexton @ UFC 161, June 15th.

quality. delighted for rosi.

[sammy_scuffles]

Penne vs Waterson was a faaaaantastic fight too.

[Ronald_Frump]

Thanks Sammy..... I haven't seen this yet.

[sammy_scuffles]

Zingano and Tate was fight of the night at the TUF 17 finale. Which is excellent.

And here:

Fight doesn't start until about the 15 minute mark. The clip also manages to miss the first minute of round three but it'll do until someone finds a better one!

[sleepinbin]

saw that fight live - it was excellent. zingano is quite simply a tank.

[jiminy]

I watched the five fights on the main card this afternoon and no doubt Zingano/Tate was FOTN. I said there'd be no Machida/Henderson-like 15 minute feeling out process in this fight, it would be full on assult mode from the bell.

Amazing tenacity from Cat after Miesha had looked the more dominant of the two for much of the first two rounds, getting the better of a couple of wild punching exchanges in round 1 and working an arm bar and then later, a heel hook submission in the 2nd. Miesha was probably up on the judges scorecards going into the 3rd, but it was in that round that Cat Zingano really turned on the dark with a fantastic double-leg take down, ruthless ground and pound, knees and elbows. Miesha was bloodied up quite badly by the time the female ref, Kim Winslow, stepped in.

[sleepinbin]

Miesha was probably up on the judges scorecards going into the 3rd,

this has been confirmed - she was up 20-18 on (i think two, possibly all three) scorecards. zingano is clearly strong and has good instinct at hunting down rocked opponents but i worry about her grappling... tate basically styled on her for two rounds, so she really needs to work on that if she wants to stuff rousey.

[Ronald_Frump]

.......disrespect somebody by giving them a "face-push" 



and you reap what you sow:



pwned!

[RBAP]

Much better than the Rousey bout. 

[sammy_scuffles]

Pushing off someone's face to get up like that is pretty classless. I missed that when I watched it the first time.

this has been confirmed - she was up 20-18 on (i think two, possibly all three) scorecards. zingano is clearly strong and has good instinct at hunting down rocked opponents but i worry about her grappling... tate basically styled on her for two rounds, so she really needs to work on that if she wants to stuff rousey.

I also read that Miesha was up 2 rounds to 0 on two of the scorecards (with the other being 1-1) but obviously that's irrelevant when you stop a bunch of knees with your face in the third. When I was watching it I thought it should be 1-1 after two round but I don't really have a problem with it being judged 2-0. I think that to say "basically styled on her for two rounds" is over-selling it. The actual ground action was really quite competitive (which is why I would have given Zingano round 2 I think) but Tate had all the takedowns, so that's probably why the judges saw it the other way. For all that Zingano is clearly pretty powerful and has plenty of killer instinct (not to mention cardio when Tate ran out of steam) I don't think she has the grappling chops to beat Rousey.

Of course I didn't think that Carmouche had the grappling chops to even remotely challenge Rousey and she had a pretty decent shot at choking her out. Zingano probably isn't particularly likely to pull off the upset but I'm not going to write her off completely. Hopefully she can find some good coaches in the lead up to the fight to tighten up her grappling.

In other unrelated news, Julie Kedzie will fight Germaine de Randamie at UFC on Fox 8. Which is cool. Should be interesting because de Randamie is reportedly a fantastic kickboxer but she's a relative newcomer to MMA. I'd have thought she'd be a good candidate for TUF.

TUF is interesting too - the UFC is booking fights for the more well known women so it would seem that TUF is going to have a lot of women we haven't heard from much yet. Should be fun!

[crushed4life]

Dana White says more UFC women's divisions are likely

by John Morgan, USA TODAY Sports

Published: 04/15/2013 10:21pm

LAS VEGAS – As he watched a group of 50 women try out for the The Ultimate Fighter 18, UFC President Dana White admitted he was impressed with the talent level of the fighters. And while his promotion currently only employs 135-pound women, White doesn't believe that will always be the case.

"You would think so," White told MMAjunkie.com when asked if he expected to add more women's divisions to the UFC. "If you think about it, when we started this company, we had heavyweights, light heavyweights, middleweights and welterweights. That was it. When we brought in the 155-pound division, everybody was like, 'This is crazy. They're too small. Nobody will ever watch.'

"The evolution of this sport as it's continued to grow, we've been adding weight classes, and the sport keeps getting bigger. There are more and more talented guys in all those weight classes. The same thing will happen with the women."

To date, there have been just two women's bouts in the UFC: February's Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche bantamweight title fight and this past weekend's No. 1 contender fight between Cat Zingano and former Strikeforce champ Miesha Tate. A handful of other women have already signed to the UFC's roster, and The Ultimate Fighter 18 will feature additional fighters hoping to score a UFC deal.

White believes the excitement surrounding the new division will inevitably lead to more women athletes competing in the sport – which in turn may very well lead to a need for more opportunities in the UFC.

"I think when you got into the 135-pound division, I knew there were enough fights for a year and a half, two years," White said. "You think that after it starts to generate some excitement and interest that other women will pop out of the woodwork. ... I think over the next couple of years, we're really going to see a big boom."

There are, of course, critics of the women's game who wonder if the division has staying power or if it is simply a fad whose time will pass. Boxing aficionados point to their sport, which enjoyed a women's boom in the 90s with fighters like Leila Ali, Christy Martin, Lucia Rijker and others but is no longer much of a draw.

White doesn't believe his company will allow that to happen.

"I just think that this company is so different than boxing," White said. "Women's boxing blew up for a minute and then it just died and went away. We invest in the sport, and as long as we want women to stay, women will continue to thrive and grow."

[jiminy]

Kedzie seems like a taylor-made opponent for Randamie. A decent striker in her own right but is she on Germaine's level?

Another great fight to look forward to.

[sammy_scuffles]

Miesha Tate vs Liz Carmouche will be on the UFC on Fox 8 main card.

[crushed4life]

Ronda Rousey just tweeted:

Ronda Rousey ‏@RondaRousey 3h
I've seriously watch this history of mma video like 4 times now