If there is one thing that I always say would make this world a better place, it’s that more people should listen to me. This time I’m talking about women’s MMA and its introduction into the UFC. Anyone who has read any of my articles or listened to my radio show will know where I stand on women’s MMA coming into the UFC – I’m not against it, but I think it needs to be a slow, patient and progressive process. For some reason the UFC brass decided not to listen to my opinion-oriented advice, which leaves us where we are today!
Let’s put one thing on the table now: I am not against women’s MMA, or women’s MMA coming into the UFC. Do I think it has the same potential to garner eyeballs that the male oriented aspect of the sport does? If history tells us anything I would say “no”.
Women’s MMA has always been on the fringes on the sport (and sports in general). There have been few well known names, outside of Gina Carano and Cris “Cyborg” Santos; neither of whom are in the UFC as of now, and Carano has walked away from MMA altogether. More recently, Ronda Rousey has been making a name for herself with a number of convincing wins. The UFC brass obviously felt that it was time to cash in on this notoriety, and as such we will see Ronda Rousey headline the UFC 157 card against Liz Carmouche. BIG MISTAKE.
Having the women’s first fight headline the card should never have been a consideration. You’re taking a fringe aspect of the sport that not a lot of people are accepting of yet, and trying to shove it down their throats on a pay-per-view card. Now granted, if a person were to take the time to look at the UFC 157 card they would see that it’s a pretty quality event. However, all the UFC is doing at this point in time is pushing the main event. People are going to step away from this event based solely on the fact that they believe that it’s a women’s only event* (*please note: rhetorical research only).
I know that most of this probably does just sound like rhetoric, but the initial ticket sales for this event have been significantly slower than what would generally be expected – only 5,000 tickets sold in the first week. Not every UFC event is a sell-out, or even gets off to a fast start, but this one is off to a tortoise-like start no getting around it. A card that also has Dan Henderson, Lyoto Machida, Rashad Evans, Big Nog’ and Urijiah Faber (to name only a few) should be garnering a lot more interest from the ticket buying public.
I suppose like many other things, the UFC will just have to learn the hard way. Women’s MMA could have (and still could) become a firmly entrenched part of the sport if it’s introduced to the mainstream public properly – slowly and subtley. Women’s sports in general still are not largely accepted by the mainstream sports watching audience, which is why we don’t WNBA on primetime… and also while there aren’t any other female sports leagues of note.
Take my advice Dana White. Slow it down a notch and then return on your investment will come. Put some women’s MMA matches on free cards, build some momentum and acceptance. Don’t force people into something they don’t understand or fully accept, or the results could be disastrous.
