UFC is making female fighters look bad

[CELS]

I completely disagree with the premise of this thread. Female fighters have never had a bigger spotlight. Ronda Rousey is one of the biggest stars in MMA and definitely wouldn't be if she was fighting in Invicta.

But that's not the premise of this thread. The premise of this thread is:

It's great that Ronda Rousey is in the UFC.
It sucks that Alexis Dufresne is in the UFC.
Alexis doesn't need to be in the UFC, just because Ronda is.

I'm speaking on general consensus, not your personal beliefs. You've been around here long enough that you should be able to remember the polls before, during and after the creation of a female division in the UFC.

I was adressing the over-generalization in the post. Using myself as an example of a certain group of MMA fans. And yeah, I'm aware of the people who oppose WMMA, but MMA fans are hardly monolithic.

 

[Char Jawz]

The irony is that everyone thought Reneau was the D-level competitor to pad prospect Dufresne's record. We all saw what happened there.

Dufresne should go fight at FW in Invicta or Bellator. She can't make 135 and if she ever did, she'd have less in the tank than we just saw, if that's possible.

 

[ThePewp]

The UFC is making women look good by giving them a chance.

Cyborg made WMMA look bad when she ran away from Ronda and UFC.
Even if UFC completely absorbed Invicta, there would not be a huge depth just yet.

Oh and without UFC, nobody would care about WMMA. Imagine how much MORE popular that Gina or even Cyborg would have been if UFC just outright bought Strikeforce and booked that?

 

[Charlie77]

The problem has been the matchmaking. The UFC has failed to showcase their top fighters in that division. Look at last year and no one in the top 10 fought more than twice during the year. When your top 5 fighters are sitting on the sidelines, then people only see the worst fighters in the division. Women like Miesha, McMann and Amanda Nunes should be given more fights. Hopefully Holly Holm and Cat Zingano are healthy this year and can be more active to provide a spark in that division. But in the meantime, give the top fighters more exposure.

 

[ThePewp]

Injuries are the bane of any division.

 

[Red Dragoniop]

I've been a fan of WMMA since the early days and I'm very happy that the UFC has female fighters now. But boy, they're messing it all up. A lot of casual fans are under the impression that women can't fight and considering a lot of the fights we've seen in the UFC lately, one can see how they come to that conclusion.

I don't know if anyone watched the fight between Marion Reneau and Alexis Dufresne last night, but that was just painful to watch. Because the female divisions are so shallow, the UFC is bringing in D-level fighters to pad the records for their contenders in order to legitimate their champions. Dufresne, quite frankly, looked like she'd been training less than a year. I know she had a bad weight cut, but that's not a valid excuse.

I wish the UFC would just stop trying so hard to build these new divisions before the talent is there. There are so many incredibly talented female fighters in the world, but it takes time for them to make the leap to become a professional MMA fighter. So fans go around thinking the UFC represents the best female fighters in the world, when many of the female UFC fighters would probably struggle to medal in a regional amateur championship in more than one discipline.

The UFC seems to think they can build a female division as quickly as they can build a male division, as if dedicated female martial artists weren't outnumbered to begin with, never mind female fighters who are willing to fight MMA professionally for loose change, nickels and dimes. People just end up with a totally skewed perception of female fighters.

Bah! Leave low level fighters to low level organizations, regardless of their gender.

TL;DR: Go watch yesterday's fight between Marion Reneau and Alexis Dufresne and cry bitter tears for humanity.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[we rowdy]

As long as Invicta keeps up the amazing pace and quality fights, I don't care what the UFC does.

this

female mma has been established, it's not going anywhere

now that there is fame and money in it you will see better athletes gravitate towards it

this is only the beginning

war female mma

 

[Better Every Day]

The problem has been the matchmaking.

I agree. I feel far more confident about being able to see a good wmma fight by watching a random Invicta FC fight than by watching a random UFC women's bantamweight fight (notice that I've excluded the UFC women's strawweights).

Maybe the UFC needs to hire Julie Kedzie, the InvictaFC match-maker to handle the match-making for the women's divisions.

 

[CatchnShoot]

Dufresne was the favourite going in to the fight, Reneau just beat the brakes off her.

It was a beating, no doubt, but what made it even worse was Rogan crying for the ref to stop the fight.

Dufresne's game was on the ground, she just couldn't get it there.

 

[CatchnShoot]

...

Cyborg made WMMA look bad when she ran away from Ronda and UFC.
Even if UFC completely absorbed Invicta, there would not be a huge depth just yet.
...

Eat a dick.

 

[Catsmasher 5000]

Tempting to reply to every individual comment, but I won't.


I'm not saying there's a bunch of great wmma fighters lurking in the shadows. There's not. There's a pretty big drop-off when you go past the Top 10. But if you look at the best female strikers and grapplers in the world, it's clear that female fighters have a lot of talent. Certainly more than many female fighters in the UFC and, more importantly, there are many female fighters in the world who have more talent than male fighters in the UFC too!

I'm just saying the UFC should raise the bar for female fighters. Professional WMMA just hasn't come that far yet, even though the top fighters in some divisions are amazing.

Are you telling me there's no female fighter, in any discipline, in the world with the striking ability of Matt Riddle? There's still a bunch of male UFC fighters who are fairly mediocre, so it's unfair to compare every female fighter to Jon Jones and use that as proof that female fighters are plainly awful.

I don't deny that male tend to be both technically and athletically superior in every sport. But when people go as far as saying that the best female athletes in any sport are at the level of 14-15 year old boys, it does seem a bit ignorant.

I'd bet on the top ten 15 year old wrestlers at 125 over Carla esparza in an mma bout. Or a wrestling match. Now at 135 against rousey...she'd probably fare a little better.

 

[Better Every Day]

I'd bet on the top ten 15 year old wrestlers at 125 over Carla esparza in an mma bout.

That might be a bad bet, considering that Carla Esparza starred on the boys' wrestling team in high school.

 

[Tugboat]

Her standup sucked and she looked out of place in the octagon.

As far as the beating went, no big deal. A bloody nose, SFW. I'm sure she looked a lot worse the next day.

It was an untelevised prelim fight. What do you expect?

Still love WMMA.

 

[Oedad]

That might be a bad bet, considering that Carla Esparza starred on the boys' wrestling team in high school.

So she was top 15 highschool wrestler? Wow! Link please? There are what 19,000 high schools in the US being varsity isn't that rare of an accomplishment.