good article on female MMAers

Discussion in 'MMA' started by Davey Bones, Dec 22, 2007.

  1. Davey Bones

    Davey Bones New Member

  2. Su lin

    Su lin Gone away

    Interesting stuff there Domino, not had chance to read it properly (currently trying to get my pre Christmas house work done! :woo: ). Interesting to see women coming through though. Do you think the comments about being good looking helping them cuts through to the male mma fighters or not?

    Will read properly later over a glass of wine :D
     
  3. Davey Bones

    Davey Bones New Member

    I think that it helps women more than men to be good looking in this particular sport.

    Men can get away with being pretty ugly but still be respected MMAers. Exhibit A, the ever-hideous Tim Sylva. Fat, lots of rolls, and butt ugly, yet still gets major bucks for fights and is always a crowd draw.

    Female MMAers, hell female MAers in general, need the appearance to help them for some reason. It's a femininity thing, I suspect. Guys want female celebs to look like females. It's kinda like that scene in "GI Jane" where the Dep't of Defense is looking to get a female SEAL. All the big and athletic women were rejected because they "lookied like men" or "looked like lesbians", where Demi Moore's character was picked because she looked like a "straight woman". Anyone who puts a female MMAer out there ios going to want something the straight boys can fawn over, and someone who looks like Ice from the "American Gladiators", who, while probably the better athlete, just doesn't gel with modern American standards of beauty.

    Gina Carano is the current example (and BanditShaw's response on the "Babes" thread where I orioginally posted her pics was the classic example of why men are jerks when it cmoes to this. He actually called her out for having cellulite around her butt, but if it were a guy posing for his weigh in, no one would care what his ass looked like, except maybe me... ):
    [​IMG]
    Gina Carano (right) and Julie Kedzie (left). Neither wearing lots of makeup, but both look VERY feminine.

    Compare with Debi Purcell. [​IMG]
    She's an amazing fighter, and the ONLY female associated with the IFL; she's Marco Rua's assistant coach. She'll never make covers of mags, though, I suspect as she's just not feminine enough. She looks like one of the old school Gladiators, whereas Gina Carano brings a certain femininity to even that. Which sucks as I suspect that Debi Purcell is probably the better fighter, lol.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2007
  4. Su lin

    Su lin Gone away

    Good points there and there are many stereotypes when it comes to women doing any martial arts I suppose.Even I get the "oh you don't look the type of woman to do kf" because I look pretty feminine.

    Will be interesting to see what happens though and will be really great to have some women to look up to who have achieved something in ma,not that there aren't any at all now,but there are relatively few.

    Hell,I may even take up MMA myself! :)
     
  5. Davey Bones

    Davey Bones New Member

    What needs to happen is that a major org needs to pick up women's MMA. Dana White is an ass, so the UFC and WEC are both out. IFL is restucturing, it could take the lead; the other leagues have females, but get such limited airplay most people have never even heard of them!It's a shame, really.

    Leave it to Chuck Norris to be groundbreaking with the WCL.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2007
  6. Su lin

    Su lin Gone away

    Thing is it's like that in so many sports. One of the women I look up to a huge amount in cycling gets barely any recognition or decent sponsorship as women's cycling just hasn't really been picked up. I think there are many more stigmas around women fighting, especially professionally,much more so than men stepping into the ring.
     
  7. timex

    timex Valued Member

    great post Domino-thanks!!

    It seems to be really hard to find a good MMA gym.

    There seems to be a lot of franchises springing up all over the country-but I tend to feel they are questionable, but have to admit I have not visited one
    near me yet. I could be wrong.
     
  8. Scarlet Mist

    Scarlet Mist Banned Banned

    As much as I like fighting, I am much more likely to be a fan of a female fighter who is hotter than she is skilled than of one who is more skilled than she is hot.

    Satoko Shinashi is the best of both worlds:

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf9W9luyxHw"]MMA queen Satoko Shinashi - YouTube[/ame]

    Damn. I almost have an orgasm every time I watch that video.
     
  9. callsignfuzzy

    callsignfuzzy Is not a number!

    I'm a fan of the idea of women's matches. In fact I'm slightly acquainted with Bodog fighter Molly Helsel via another forum. I think it's got a chance to achieve better comparitive success than women's boxing. In part, and I'm hoping to not come across as being completely sexist on this, it seems to me that a greater number of women pick up grappling faster/better than they pick up striking, and thus can parlay their skills more readily into MMA. However, just a quick glance at the Sherdog forums whenever the topic comes up leads me to believe that by and large, even fans of MMA are generally NOT fans of womens MMA. Call it sexism or what have you, but at this point it seems to me that the majority of people who watch MMA aren't ready for women's matches to go mainstream. I think it's a shame, but at least there's been what I think is a fair degree of progress. Give it ten years or so (fingers crossed), and maybe it'll be more accepted.
     
  10. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

    Seriously. You don't have to know much about Judo to look at that video and go "that's what Judo should look like."
     
  11. Su lin

    Su lin Gone away

    Well, I need to find out more about women and MMA now I have been to 1 lesson!
     

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