The growth of women’s mma

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.

Why the public perception of mma is wrong

Meat heads in a cage, bloodsports, thugs…just a few of the derogatory terms associated with mixed martial arts. Bad media and press has given the public a wrong impression of mma, and I have to admit I used to be one of those that believed it all. Considering how much of an avid fan I am now, staying up to the early hours to watch it and having been to live events, people would find that hard to believe! What changed my perception of it? I went down to my local mma gym and met and trained with the guys. It started by accident; a grappler at heart I went along only interested in trying the Sambo class. Explaining that I was only interested in grappling, the guys said to at least sit and watch the striking class that followed on from Sambo; the week after that I decided to join in and the addiction started. What a lot of people don’t realise is how technical the sport of mma is. It’s not just about that perfect take down, or having a good right hook, everything has to be combined together.

There are many mma promotions all over the world, but the UFC is by far the biggest. A lot of the other organisations, such as Pride FC and Strikeforce, were bought out by the UFC when it grew in popularity. The UFC nowadays is a combination of skill sets, with many of the competitors having black belts in multiple martial arts, but that was not always the case. Back in 1993, at the first UFC event, it was a showcase of talents such as a world class Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fighter versus a karateka. There were barely any rules, and it was seen as a way of determining which was the best martial art, rather than who was the best fighter. Today, the UFC has very strict rules, has multiple weight classes, has grown the popularity for mma immensely, and even has 2 women’s weight divisions. The rules are constantly being updated for the safety of the fighters, and there are state governed commissions that make sure the rules are followed. All over the world, these same rules apply for the same reasons, the safety of the fighters first before anything else. No longer is it an ‘any rules go’ sport. but a test of who the fittest, strongest and best mixed martial arts athletes are in the world.

My training nowadays mainly consists of grappling arts rather than striking or mma, but rather than being so quick to judge mma organisations and their fighters, why don’t you head down to your local dojo and give one of the classes a try? You might be suprised by what you find, meet some great people, and maybe even find a new passion!

The pros and cons of being a female in martial arts

I’ve seen some negative posts recently about women in martial arts that may scare the few that would be interested in taking up a martial art away. There are few enough females that decide to take up a martial art as it is, so I’ve decided to dedicate this blog post to show the pros and cons of being a female in martial arts so you can decide for yourself. Having trained in both striking and grappling martial arts (mainly grappling), as well as being a martial arts instructor myself, I have had my fair share of experience at different dojos!

1) Sometimes you will be the only female on the mat, and this is a big issue for a lot of women. However, the guys don’t bite! They are all there for the same reason as you are, to train and have fun! If you go to a dojo that treats women any differently, it’s not a place you should be training anyway. A good instructor treats everyone on the mat as an equal as soon as they walk through the dojo door, and you’ll often find that like attracts like, and the views of an instructor are often shared by the students.

2) As a female, you are more than likely to be one of, it not the smallest person on the mats. When it comes to the grappling martial arts especially, people worry that they will be ‘too small’, or that they’ll ‘get squished’. I won’t lie, at times you will definitely feel crushed, but that’s no different to the times you will have to tap from an arm bar or a choke. You will have to work harder on certain aspects of your game like your escapes, but you also need to remember the advantages you have when you are smaller…the main one being speed!

3) This point is a continuation of point 2…being smaller also means yes you can’t just use strength like some of the guys can, but it means your techniques will be a lot better for it and you’ll soon be beasting the bigger people into the mats!

4) You will sweat a lot and your hair will be an absolute state by the end of class, but you would look the same after any high activity sports class. It’s not a fashion show or a bar, people aren’t bothered by the way you look…they will be more impressed by that perfect throw/submission/punch that you just caught them with!

5) You will have ups and downs with your training, and more so than the males in the dojo due to those lovely things we call hormones…but the highs definitively outweigh the lows and you have to try your best to focus on them. That gold medal represents every ounce of sweat that went into defending that arm bar you were constantly having done on you in class, or it shows the effort put in to perfecting that choke or throw.  Getting that next belt gives you a sense of pride and achievement that you would rarely get elsewhere.

6) The age-old problem of  ‘I don’t want to get too muscular and look like a man’. You won’t! It is biologically impossible without the enhancement of steroids to naturally do so. Men have a lot more testosterone than women, so you won’t end up looking like Arnie, more like Jessica Ennis (if you train reeeeally hard!).

Now for the list of only pros:

7) The group of friends you gain will become like an extended family to you.

8) There is no better way to forget about a bad day than to get on the mat and train. You’ll soon have other things to think about when you have a fist flying towards you, or someone is trying to throw you head first into the mats!

9) You will get to meet and train with people you wouldn’t normally get the chance to, and vastly broaden your social circle…ranging from your friendly local plumber, to a high-flying lawyer.

10) You will feel healthy, fit and strong!

 

Hope you’ve enjoyed my first proper blog post…there will be more to come soon 🙂