Rhonda Rousey?

[punisher73]

Cant argue with the test results, but cant a gifted woman put on like 10 lbs more muscle than the competition naturally? And manbeast? If you would put me next to her I would dwarf her and with 16 inch arms I consider myself fit, but a long shot from Hulk. Also what about Brock, he was huge, he came from the WWE. He weighed in close to 280. Did he get checked up for roids? Maybe he was even clean during his MMA days, seen as he got a gut, but I am sure when he bulked up for the WWE it wasnt just protein shakes he took.

Yes, you can have muscle mass and still be "natural". The point was Cyborg put on a large amount of muscle mass very quickly and started showing characteristics of steroid use in women. Reread my whole post, I said compared to the other women in the sport. She tested positive for Stanozolol ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanozolol ) which if you read the quick article is a favorite due to the strength gains vs. alot of size gains as a bodybuider would want. She was a member of Chute Boxe, and if you look at alot of their fighters before fighting in the US, there was alot of speculation about roid use (Wanderlei Silva Pride vs. UFC size/weight for one; they didn't test in Japan, and in the US they do alot more and he now fights 20lbs lighter).

As to why she failed the drug test. One good speculation is that her husband at the time was her manager/coach. She fought in Sept. 2011, and they divorced in Dec. 2011. Could be he purposely messed up the cycle/protocol, on the other hand about 4-5 other MMA fighters have been caught using this as well. So who knows.

 

[Buka]

Womens MMA will eventually make it's way into the UFC. I hope it's sooner rather than later. I wish Dana White would pull his head out of his you know what and let the women rock. There's a whole lot of dedicated Martial fighters out there that just happen to be female. They sacrifice as much as the men (socially, even more so) and have fighting talent that the average street male would sell his soul for.

I want to see them in the UFC.

 

[punisher73]

Womens MMA will eventually make it's way into the UFC. I hope it's sooner rather than later. I wish Dana White would pull his head out of his you know what and let the women rock. There's a whole lot of dedicated Martial fighters out there that just happen to be female. They sacrifice as much as the men (socially, even more so) and have fighting talent that the average street male would sell his soul for.

I want to see them in the UFC.

Dana White is looking at the money aspect. Right now, it is not big money to have women fighters. When it becomes large enough and starts drawing crowds that actually want to see the fights, then the UFC will start. They need to get some of the more "middle level" well known promotions involved with the women's fights to get that to happen.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Are there currently a lot of high-level females MMA fighters out there? I've only seen a few fights with female fighters and most of those looked more amateur than pro. Rousey is a top-notch martial artist and I'd gladly watch more matches with female fighters at her level.

I suspect Dana White may be right about the size of the talent pool. If there are 100 times more men competing than women (which may be understating the case) and if the UFC takes only the top 1 out of 1000 fighters, then there are going to be a lot more high-level male competitors for the UFC to work with.

On the other hand, once you do have a substantial pool of female fighters they may hopefully display some of the high-level technique I've come to expect from the lighter weight mens divisions - for the same reasons. Small guys spend a lot of their time in the gym having to roll with bigger guys, so they tend to develop a higher average level of technique then you see in the heavyweights. I could see women training with mostly guys having to deal with the same pressures to develop good technique.

 

[Steve]

Are there currently a lot of high-level females MMA fighters out there? I've only seen a few fights with female fighters and most of those looked more amateur than pro. Rousey is a top-notch martial artist and I'd gladly watch more matches with female fighters at her level.

I suspect Dana White may be right about the size of the talent pool. If there are 100 times more men competing than women (which may be understating the case) and if the UFC takes only the top 1 out of 1000 fighters, then there are going to be a lot more high-level male competitors for the UFC to work with.

On the other hand, once you do have a substantial pool of female fighters they may hopefully display some of the high-level technique I've come to expect from the lighter weight mens divisions - for the same reasons. Small guys spend a lot of their time in the gym having to roll with bigger guys, so they tend to develop a higher average level of technique then you see in the heavyweights. I could see women training with mostly guys having to deal with the same pressures to develop good technique.

Kind of a catch 22. Without a market, there isn't going to be much incentive for top level female athletes to train and compete. And without the top level female athletes training and competing, there will never be a large market.

The fallacy, though, is that the UFC is deep at every weight class and this isn't exactly true. The weight classes ebb and flow with regards to depth. The heavy weight division, for example, remains pretty shallow. There are only a handful of truly top level guys, and then a bunch of gate keepers.

Below are really the competitive athletes in the HW division:

Junior Dos Santos
Cain Velasquez
Alistair Overeem (if he can figure out how to pass a piss test)

Then you have a slew of guys who are gatekeepers, either because they've peaked talent-wise or are just well past their prime:

Frank Mir
Minotauro Noguiera
Big Country Roy Nelson
Ben Rothwell
Fabricio Werdum
Shane Carwin
Gabriel Gonzaga
Chiek Kongo
Antonio Silva

And finally, some guys with room to grow:

Stefan Struve
Shane Del Rosario
Dave HErman

That's all I can literally think of in the HW division. There might be more guys under contract, but essentially, you have three guys who are viable champions, and they're so much better than everyone else, it's nuts. Then you have several guys who can put together competitive fights against each other.

The point is, in order to get the elite level female competitors into the sport, there has to be an elite level venue in which they can compete.