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UFC women's bantamweight and featherweight champion Amanda Nunes

Why does the UFC stand for women empowerment in MMA?

Having once been a promotion that was against allowing women to compete in MMA, the UFC has come a long way in the last eight years. Since holding their first women's fight in 2013, the UFC has stood up for and encouraged the surge of female empowerment in combat sports.

The rise of globally popular stars like Gina Carano, Ronda Rousey, Cris Cyborg, Joanna Jędrzejczyk, Valentina Shevchenko and Amanda Nunes have transformed the face of women's MMA. Many women across the have become aware of MMA in recent years due to UFC's female stars.

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The promotion started off with just one women's division in 2013 and now boasts four active, heavily stacked divisions for female fighters.

Nowadays, women often headline blockbuster pay-per-views and feature on every fight card. The women have also broken numerous records over the years. Amanda Nunes is the only champ-champ in the UFC who has successfully managed to defend both her titles more than once.

The strawweight title fight between Weili Zhang and Joanna Jędrzejczyk at UFC 248 is considered one of the greatest fights of all time.

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MMA is one of the very few sports in the world where female athletes are paid on the same scale as their male counterparts. On this International Women's Day, let's look at why the UFC has always stood for women's empowerment in MMA.

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1) Abundance of world-class female talent

There's no dearth of riches when it comes to talent in women's MMA today. The UFC women's roster is filled with world-class athletes who can light up the grandest of stages with their incredible performances.

Dana White was once adamant that women wouldn't compete in the UFC. He has since publicly acknowledged that he’s very happy to have been proven wrong by the fantastic female talent he's worked with over the years. White said that some of the female performances he’s personally witnessed inside the octagon changed his views on women's MMA.

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In an interaction with MMA Fighting, the UFC president said that he was blown away by how technically sound female fighters are. He thinks that women's MMA is as popular as it is today only because of the immensely talented women who compete inside the octagon:

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“There’s always going to be this, it’s changing rapidly, but there’s always going to be this chauvinist side to men that men don’t want to see women getting pinned up against the cage and hit with elbows and getting cut, things like that. So I thought. It’s very popular now. The difference is, the reason that the women’s MMA has taken off and it’s so big is because these women are legit. Really good, very technical, and it’s amazing and I never saw it coming.”

2) Female talent gives UFC the edge over boxing promotions

Female boxers are not as popular as female MMA fighters and the boxing promotions are likely to blame. What Dana White and the UFC found here was an opportunity to gain a crucial edge over boxing.

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The promotion's focus on women's MMA captured the attention of fans like never before. On the other hand, women's boxing wasn't promoted enough because of a traditionally conservative attitude about females competing in the sport.

According to Professor Dale Spencer, author of Ultimate Fighting and Embodiment: Violence, Gender, and Mixed Martial Arts, the decision-makers in the world of boxing still believe that women are only fit for 'holding ring cards and walking around half naked at the events'. He said that boxing reflects an older style of masculinity:

"I think boxing in the main is a reflection of an older style of masculinity. Those who watch boxing, and those who embrace boxing, are protective and defensive about boxing in relation to MMA. They definitely have perceptions of women holding ring cards and walking around half naked at the events, not putting on a pair of gloves and fighting it out. I think some of the work that has been done relatively recently by [Elise] Paradis and various other people has kind of shown that women have generally been rejected in boxing circles."
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The snub by boxing diverted most female combat sports athletes towards MMA, providing the UFC with the opportunity to be exclusively home to world-class female talent. Now that they are performing brilliantly at the elite level, the fans are more inclined towards MMA compared to boxing.

Women's professional boxing champion Claressa Shields said that the sexism she experienced during her boxing career led her to switch to MMA with the Professional Fighters League. In an interview with TMZ Sports, Shields branded boxing 'sexist', indicating the massive pay-gap between male and female athletes in the sport:

"These men are fighting for multiple millions that haven't accomplished half of what I accomplished, but I'm supposed to just be happy?" she said. "Like yeah, go ahead and pay me $300K and then offer me $150,000 for the next fight?"

UFC has the best female talent, promotes them in the right way, pays them well and reaps the benefits of its foresightedness whereas women's boxing is clearly struggling to keep up.

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3) The emergence of superstars like Ronda Rousey

UFC 157: Rousey v Carmouche
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The constant presence of female stars on pay-per-views today makes it hard to believe that former UFC bantamweight queen Ronda Rousey is the only reason the promotion launched women's MMA. Women's MMA has gone through much darker times in the past when the UFC's doors were completely shut to it.

All of that changed when Dana White spotted Ronda Rousey fighting inside the cage. White has previously admitted that Rousey was the catalyst for the UFC's decision to allow female fighters to compete in the organization.

In an interview with MMAFighting's Ariel Helwani, White revealed how Rousey was at the center of all his plans concerning women's MMA:

"I'm putting my toe in the water, and I'm checking it out. There's no doubt, for people who say, 'Oh, this is the Ronda Rousey show,' [expletive] right it is. You're absolutely right. I'm not trying to shy away from that and say, 'Oh no, we're getting into women's MMA.' This is the Ronda Rousey Show."
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"I don't know how long this is going to last. This could last a year. This could be forever. The 135-pound division could fill up with tons of talent, and we could have tons of great fights. I can't honestly sit here and predict what's going to happen, but don't kid yourself, this is absolutely the only reason this is happening is because of Ronda Rousey."

Since her debut against Liz Carmouche at UFC 157, there has been no looking back. Rousey took the world of MMA by storm and went on to become one of the most dominant champions in UFC history. She was also one of the most popular fighters in the UFC before Conor McGregor.

Ronda Rousey became the first ever UFC and MMA fighter to win the Best Fighter ESPY Award at the 2015 ESPN ESPY awards. She pipped many popular combat sports athletes such as Floyd Mayweather Jr to the podium which speaks volumes about her abilities as a fighter.

During her time in the UFC, Ronda Rousey was also the highest-paid fighter in the promotion. The likes of Amanda Nunes, Valentina Shevchenko, Rose Namajunas, and Zhang Weili are the ones now carrying the legacy of women's MMA forwards.

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Edited by
John Cunningham
 
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