Adventures in living a healthy, juicy life
Guest Post by Eric Gargiulo
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ThatGirlisFunny welcomes Eric Gargiulo from the CamelClutchBlog with the first offering in our new “We Want Female Fighters in the UFC” series. Eric writes about wrestling and mixed martial arts and has been featured on on CNNSI.com, FoxSports.com, NBCSports.com, WWE.com. and Yahoo News.
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Cris Cyborg from a scary angle
We Want Cyborg in the UFC!
Dana White claims to have the world’s best MMA fighters in the UFC.
Sadly, the UFC president is wrong.
The UFC is missing an entire division of elite MMA fighters. Until the UFC incorporates a women’s division, they will not have every great fighter (not named Fedor) under their roof.
The ignorance of the UFC to look past women’s MMA fighting in 2010 is stunning.
Dana White is very defensive when anyone criticizes the integrity of the UFC. If there is one thing that White and Zuffa pride themselves on, it is taking the UFC from a glorified Tough Man contest into a legitimate sport.
Even the Olympics are exploring the idea of including MMA into their competition. So why does the UFC continue to turn a blind eye to something as legitimate as female MMA?
At first glance, it can be kind of hard to watch women compete in MMA. Seeing a woman drive her elbow into the nose of another girl or smash another girl in the eye with her fist can be a bit shocking. However, it doesn’t take long to appreciate the skills that the ladies bring with them into an MMA ring.
Rarely are female MMA bouts just pure slugfests. Most female fighters pride themselves on their technique and love showing off some good ground and pound. Between the conditioning, the training, and the courage, female MMA athletes are some of the greatest athletes you will ever see compete in combat sports.
Take Cristiane Justino Venancio Santos for example. The fighter known to many as “Cyborg” is one of the most exciting and talented athletes in all of professional sports.
Santos trains with men. Santos has a diverse background in BJJ and Muay Thai. Santos has a record of 9 wins, 7 by knockout and 1 loss. Santos is currently on a 9 fight win streak. Santos knocked out her toughest opponent in the first round. If I was talking about a male fighter who wasn’t in the UFC, you would be wondering what the hell Dana White’s problem was.
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Cyborg Chokes Out Reporter
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I am asking that same question in regards to Santos and the absence of the entire world of female MMA in the number one MMA promotion in the world.
It isn’t as if Dana White and the Fertitta brothers haven’t thought about adding a women’s division. The face of female MMA fighting, Gina Carano has had discussions with Dana White about starting a female MMA division in the UFC. Nothing ever materialized and no other discussions have been reported since then.
It is almost insulting to MMA purists to think that the idea of adding female MMA to the UFC started and ended with Gina Carano.
With so many talented female MMA fighters emerging around the world, the absence of women in the UFC makes no sense.
Cris Santos may not have the “sex appeal” of a Gina Carano, but the UFC could turn her into a money making machine.
Sports fans love to see great competition and watching an athlete the caliber of Santos in the UFC is enough to break the barrier wide open.
In addition to Santos, there is plenty of female MMA competition out there ready for an opportunity. Marloes Coenen, Yuko Yamanaka, Shana Olsen, Sarah Kaufman, Tara LaRosa, Rosi Sexton, Cindy Dandois, and of course, Gina Carano are all great female MMA talents that could step into the cage tomorrow and steal the show at a UFC event.
Could a female MMA fight in the UFC appeal the same way as a male MMA fight? Have you seen some of the mismatches that the UFC have tried to pass off as main-events?
Gina Carano vs. Cyborg headlined a Strikeforce MMA show on Showtime last year. This was the first time that two females headlined a national MMA event. 13, 976 people paid $736,000 to watch them fight as 856,000 fans tuned in to watch the main-event. I can’t even imagine the kinds of numbers that this fight could have done with the UFC hype machine behind it.
It took years for the biggest promoters in boxing to feature women, but this is 2010.
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Cyborg – Carano Highlights
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There is no good reason that this biggest company in MMA doesn’t sanction female fights. Are the UFC afraid of an accident involving a female fighter?
Those same kinds of risks are taken every time by males in the UFC, yet it isn’t an issue. Is someone worried that a female fight could outshine a card of male MMA fights? What would happen if a female fight won Fight of the Night? Does this have anything to do with getting sanctioned in New York? There is no good answer to this question and I don’t know if we will ever get one.
In the end, I do think that the UFC will host a women’s division before the end of the decade. There are just too many great female MMA fighters out there to be denied. It isn’t fair to keep them out of the UFC cage because of their gender. I just hope that Dana White and the rest of Zuffa do the right thing before it’s too late.
There will always be pretty fighters like Gina Carano who are capable and marketable. But fighters like Cris Cyborg come along once in a lifetime. Age will catch up with Cyborg at some point like most athletes and the myth surrounding her will be lost. The UFC fans deserve to see someone as exceptional and dominant as Cyborg fight inside of the fenced octagon.
It looks like the greatest male MMA fighter of all time will never fight in the UFC. That isn’t Dana White’s fault. Yet, Dana White would have nobody to blame but himself for keeping arguably the greatest female MMA fighter of all time out of the UFC.
It is time to take down the wall, bring in Cyborg, open up a female MMA division, and end the double standard.
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Eric Gargiulo is the head writer and Editor-In-Chief for CamelClutchBlog. Check out the Camel Clutch Blog for more of Eric’s writings on the WWE, the UFC, sports, video games, and more. Eric’s writings have been featured on CNNSI.com, FoxSports.com, NBCSports.com, WWE.com. and Yahoo News.
Also check out Eric’s online stores DietCrash and DietDrinks for all of your weight loss needs and dieting supplements.
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I really like the fight between Cyborg and Carano. I saw a lot of videos by Carano and I am very impressed of her. She has the beauty as well as the talent. But Cyborg is the most talented between this 2 girl fighters. When is the next fight of Cyborg?
Twitter: CamelClutchBlog
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Nathan,
Thanks for the comment but I respectfully disagree. Not enough talent depth? Yes you have Cyborg who is heads and tails above the rest, but the rest is a very even playing field. Are you going to tell me that the UFC middleweight division is full of top talent? Other than a handful of guys, the heavyweight division is also a very lopsided. Sadly that ignorance is due to the lack of MMA coverage. There are plenty of female MMA fighters and a few darn good ones.
I don’t take Dana White too seriously when he cites lack of quality fighters and then signs James Toney (and earlier Kimbo Slice and Mark Coleman although they are gone now).
Eric´s Last Fabulous Post [type] ..Remembering a Class Act – Trent Acid
Twitter: accbiggz
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Dana White has said that they are not considering a female division for the UFC at this point in time because there is not the depth needed, and he is 100% correct. As it stands right now there are maybe 1-3 top fighters in each weight class which isn’t a division in the slightest. It’s something that female MMA will have to foster and expand upon before receiving acceptance by the UFC.
As for:
“It isn’t as if Dana White and the Fertitta brothers haven’t thought about adding a women’s division. The face of female MMA fighting, Gina Carano has had discussions with Dana White about starting a female MMA division in the UFC.”
There is an interview out there that has Dana mentioning that he was only interested in Gina Carano vs. Cyborg and that fight would have taken place within the WEC and the reason they chose not to pursue it was because it was a one-off fight and nothing including a division, which above are is the reason the UFC doesn’t have on.
“There is no good reason that this biggest company in MMA doesn’t sanction female fights. Are the UFC afraid of an accident involving a female fighter?”
As mentioned above there is a very good reason the UFC does not feature female at this time… it’s because there is a lack of top level female mixed martial artists. That’s the only thing holding progress back and we are still 5-10 years away from seeing that happen with younger women entering the sport. These things take time and won’t be fixed over night, but let’s be clear: the future is very bright.
Twitter: thatgirlisfunny
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Nathan,
You bring up some good points about the depth of experience. Women are working to improve their skills. As you mention, that takes time…hopefully, not 5 to 10 years! But then again, it takes that kind of time to build a deep level of women prepared to mix it up in the octagon. And I would be satisfied with women getting a start in the WEC! Thanks for taking the time to express your thoughts on this issue. If we don’t talk about it, people might think we women have gone away. Pus, we women are good at filibustering – where’s Dana? We’ll talk his ear off until he gives in
Cheryl´s Last Fabulous Post [type] ..Dana White – We Want Cyborg in the UFC!