Women’s mma has had an exponential growth in popularity over the past couple of years, with there now being 2 divisions in the UFC after Dana White once said that there would never be any women in his organisation. Since the rise of Rousey, people have started to take female fighters seriously. Various organisations such as Invicta, Strikeforce and JEWELS existed before women’s divisions were created in the UFC, but the airtime they deserve was finally granted on mainstream TV with the UFC.
In Europe there are no female only specific organisations, with many of the fighters having fought for Cage Warriors, Invicta FC or now fighting for the UFC. In Japan, women’s mma has been popular for a while, starting with ReMix in 2000, which was re-branded to Smackgirl after 2 events. Other organisations existed beforehand, with women’s mma having been documented since the 1990s, but Smackgirl was a mixed martial arts promotion that focused only on female fighters. In 2008, the company suffered from financial difficulties, and was sold and renamed JEWELS. As well as JEWELS, the promotion Valkyrie ran as a sister company to Cage Force, but this was dissolved in 2011, with a lot of fighters signing with JEWELS and other promotions. JEWELS was absorbed in 2013 by Deep when the head of JEWELS Yuichi Ozono stepped down, and it is now known as Deep Jewels, a company which still runs today.
In the USA, there have only ever been a few major organisations that had female fighters, and most of those only had a few weight categories within a wider organisation. The bigger organisations included Strikeforce FC, Elite Xtreme Combat and Bellator FC. Whist Bellator and Elite Xtreme had a roster of women in various weight categories, Strikeforce had 2 main women’s divisions; the bantamweight and featherweight division. When Strikeforce was bought by Zuffa, the company that owns UFC, the women’s divisions were not automatically absorbed into the UFC like some of the male fighters were, and this left the women worried about their future careers.
Invicta FC was founded in 2012 by Janet Martin and Shannon Knapp, as a way for the women that had been part of Strikeforce to have an organisation to fight within. Invicta FC also formed a partnership with JEWELS to cross promote the world’s top female fighters. It still runs today, and has 5 weight categories, ranging from 105-145 pounds. The bantamweight and straw-weight divisions were 2 of the companies strongest divisions, but after the UFC announced the creation of a bantamweight division with former Strikeforce champion Ronda Rousey at the helm, a lot of the bantamweight fighters signed with the bigger organisation of the UFC. With the success of the women’s division, Dana White announced in December 2013 that the UFC had signed 11 of the world’s best strawweight fighters, including a lot from Invicta. In 2014, it was announced that Invicta FC would be a part of the UFC’s fight pass, meaning you could watch past fights and stream live events, giving the organisation a wider audience.
There have been various reality TV shows with female mma stars, including Ring Girls and Fight Girls, but it has been the 2 Ultimate Fighter seasons that have shown female mixed martial artists in the best light. With the Ultimate Fighter shows, the girls on season 18 go to fight for a contract within the UFC. On season 20, the first all female season, most of the fighters had already signed for the new 115 pound division so the winner of the show got to take home the belt.
With the rise of stars such as Ronda and Joanna Jedrezejczyk, people are starting to take women’s fights just as seriously as those fought by men. Ronda has an 11-0 record, most of which are title defenses, and is untouchable. Relative newcomer Joanna Jedrezejczyk has been destroying the girls in her division in a brutal style. The UFC’s roster of females is ever-expanding, and with Invicta FC still running successfully, the future of women’s mma is looking very bright indeed.