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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.


Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/m ... z2ABeZicd8

Where to start?

What's change since his previous opinion?

I'm guessing Rousey's emergence as a crossover star is what changed his mind.

I'm not sure how much bigger Rousey is now than Gina Carano was a few years ago, but Rousey is under contract with Zuffa, and Carano wasn't.

The questions he had about depth are still there though, so it will be interesting to see how this develops.

Rousey vs. Carano season of TUF plz.

He's had a boner for Rousey for a while so this doesn't surprise me, horrific move though. Between this and the midget-weight classes they're really diluting the brand as a whole. If the talent was there then cool but I don't see it.

Edit: Female TUF season is an excellent idea. They need to fill up on good fighters and fast if they're going to get people interested.

I hate watching women fight. Hate it.
I also hate the small weight classes. Not all that thrilled to hear any of this.

Yea, I'll just come out and say that this is very bad news to me. The skill level in women's mma is just so, so bad.

I'm really not interested in seeing any woman not named Rousey fight. blkout is right though, Dana has a hard-on for her, so this was pretty much inevitable.

I don't know where this hype for Rousey is... I'm not hearing any. Not seeing anything in the paper or on the web, aside from the folks who cover MMA already and none of them would put Rousey above any of the 155+ champions. Even Aldo is respected more and hyped more. Rousey can't headline a PPV. Today Show appearances does not a superstar make.

This is just diluting the pool... there's already like 300 fighters on the roster and a good half of them haven't fought more than once this year.

When Dana opens his mouth, I swear, 9/10 times I end up hoping a preeminent promoter like Vince McMahon enters the MMA game and poaches his talent.

SDM wrote:This is just diluting the pool... there's already like 300 fighters on the roster and a good half of them haven't fought more than once this year.

I'd be super interested in learning how many fighters are currently under the zuffa umbrella. Seriously, between the hundreds in the ufc, the couple of different tufs going on right now, and strikeforce...its gotta be a crazy high number.

I respect and like female MMA, I would just like to see, Rousey aside, and for the timebeing, any female fights on free cards, and on prelims.

I agree with growing the sport, and allowing everyone to get a crack at the top level., I just hope they don't come out of the gate too quick with it.

People were booing the 125 title fight, it will get ugly before it gets......pretty.

If the UFC does this, they need to do it completely. Not just toss in one division for the sake of making money off of Rousey. At the very least they should have 3 women's divisions.

Why the hell did they close WEC? It would be perfect for this. A couple female divisions, flyweight, and HW to get people to tune in and for PPVs, send over the UFC guys who aren't getting fights because of Dana's pet projects.

SDM wrote:Why the hell did they close WEC? It would be perfect for this. A couple female divisions, flyweight, and HW to get people to tune in and for PPVs, send over the UFC guys who aren't getting fights because of Dana's pet projects.

Strikeforce would be perfect for this. I've been saying for like a year now that they should just make Strikeforce an all women org and be done with it.

Cammo how the hell could they make 3 or more women's divisions? They could have the fighters who normally fight at 145 cut to 135 (Coenen, Cyborg) and still have a really underskilled division at 135 imo.

That would be like cutting hw into 225, 245, and 265.

REDDzone wrote:Cammo how the hell could they make 3 or more women's divisions? They could have the fighters who normally fight at 145 cut to 135 (Coenen, Cyborg) and still have a really underskilled division at 135 imo.

That would be like cutting hw into 225, 245, and 265.

No, it would be like deciding to only have a HW division because the middleweight and light heavyweight division were not deep enough. By having one women's division they cement the fact that they have no interest in growning the sport or the women's divisions and only want to just make a quick buck off of Ronda Rousey.

You are either in the business of women's MMA or you are not. All in, or all out. Sure, the divisions will be shallow at first. But that is no different from any other weight class the UFC adds. Bring the division along slowly and the talent level will rise. Remember when people said there was not enough talent at 155 for a UCF lightweight division? I do.

The woman's division sucks so bad that a judoka with less than zero striking entered the biggest promotion and has won every fight but one within like 50 seconds. And you think the talent is enough to create 3 divisions with that?

edit: I'm not saying you are wrong, I just don't agree. If it were up to me I wouldn't add wmma. If we had to, I'd probably just make a 140 pound division and tell Cyborg and Coenen to suck it up.

Super-Heavyweight Division, do it.

REDDzone wrote:The woman's division sucks so bad that a judoka with less than zero striking entered the biggest promotion and has won every fight but one within like 50 seconds. And you think the talent is enough to create 3 divisions with that?

edit: I'm not saying you are wrong, I just don't agree. If it were up to me I wouldn't add wmma. If we had to, I'd probably just make a 140 pound division and tell Cyborg and Coenen to suck it up.

For the record, I don't want WMMA in the UFC. I think Strikeforce should be a women's only org and that works better for all involved. I just would rather have the UFC totally embrace WMMA as opposed to just trying to make a quick buck of a few Rousey fights.

Also, a TUF episode with Rousey and Carano coaching where you bring in the top 16 females at 1254 pounds and have the winner of the season be the first champ. Gold.

My understanding is that the chances of Carano coming back is 0.