...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor UFC Needs A Women's Division
There's definitely a market for a women's division. It'd probably be one of the more exciting divisions in UFC. There's already a few stars capable of helping to sell a pay-per-view. With EliteXC going under it would make a lot of sense to sign some of the fighters who competed on their network televised cards. Cards that drew good ratings for MMA and introduced a handful of fighters to the world. Their fights were exciting and it's clear that none of them were pushed too hard, too quickly. These fighters are certainly capable of delivering in the octagon and they've shown it.
It's just a shame that UFC officials are too squeamish to create a women's division. It's not like they have too many titles to defend. There's 5 champions and 12 pay-per-views. Each champion is only allowed to fight 3 times a year usually. That means that there should be 1 title defense on 9 of the pay-per-views and 2 defenses on 3 of them. But there have been times where UFC runs a pay-per-view with no titles defenses at all, which is considered a rip-off by a lot of people I talk to. Adding one more division and 3 more title defenses per year sounds like a good proposition, especially considering that women's fights are a burgeoning commodity.
In this day and age I don't think anyone should ever have a problem with two women fighting, whether it be boxing or MMA. I don't see what the issue is and, quite honestly, if someone does have a problem with it they need to evolve past the 19th century. In the days of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin it's absurd to have reservations about watching women compete in MMA bouts.
The ignorance Dana White and UFC officials show towards this issue is exactly the same type of ignorance shown by many in the mainstream media when it comes to MMA in general. Even today there are still people who call MMA a bloodsport and denounce it as the most barbaric sport ever created. So why will Dana and others in the UFC show themselves to be just as ignorant by discriminating against female fighters? Have they forgotten where they come from? Do they not remember the infamous, "human cockfighting" label they were slapped with years ago? Now they're doing the exact same thing to female fighters. They're discriminating against these women who only want to be able to do what they've trained so hard for. They're not asking for special treatment, they just want to be treated the same as the men.
The fighters in the octagon have proven that they're not barbarians with antiquated ideals. Now's the time for UFC officials to do the same. Create a women's division and let them fight. The company will be better for it.
DON'T GO YET... WE SUGGEST THESE MMATORCH ARTICLES, TOO!
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
