Because.. it is trivial. (not to rag on your very sweet comment tho)

In effect, the gender segregation is still present and will be for quite while.

Not to mention, UFC President Dana White's long-standing assertion that "Women will never fight in the UFC. Those types of fights aren't interesting enough".

So yeah, the decision to include women in bantam/lightweight divisions is purely business driven.


The UFC first gained Bantum & Light divisions when they absorbed the WEC in 2010/11.

This was part of Zuffa, UFC's parent company, consolidating their assets following the decline of MMA's popularity. 2005/06

So essentially; Dana & Zuffa realized the easiest way re-ignite interest in the UFC was to include female fighters on the same card.

The alternative being:
Create a separate "Women's UFC" franchise with all the low-draw problems from before + the notorious low-draw attached to women's franchises i.e. - WNBA, LPGA, etc.

Any groundbreaking policies here are purely PR benefits for a company struggling to stay relevant. And moreover, solvent.


So yeah, UFC isn't all-of-a-sudden concerned for the plight of women fighters..

It's just another gimmick to sell seats/PPV.

I'm not really sure why we we're trivialising the fact that they dropped the "women's"/"men's" labels.

It's not really that small a deal, she's saying both men and women are just UFC fighters. There's no Women's UFC organisation and Men's UFC organisation.

It's deeper than just the title labels, they are all employed (or contracted, whatever the payment structure is) by the *one* company, who she believes treats both genders the same.

The organisation is sex blind as an employer. This is a big and commendable point.

I think it really may be as sex blind as she implied.

What I mean is I don't know that it's forbidden by the UFC for men to fight women (though the fighting commission(s) might prohibit it), and as you said, she is implying it's an option.

She won't fight a man but some day perhaps we'll see a woman who will and the winner will hold both the men's and women's championship title. Wouldn't that be something.

But then again it wouldn't be very sporting or enjoyable by fans if there isn't ever a woman strong enough to beat a man in her own weight class. For that reason alone man vs. woman probably won't ever happen.

I scrolled to the bottom of that page, and what did I see? Listings of WOMAN'S bantam weight, and bantam weight! It seems they DO have 'woman's divisions' separately after all.
From the ufc.com page

Women's Strawweight Joanna Jedrzejczyk March 14, 2015 (UFC 185: Pettis vs Dos Anjos) 0
Flyweight Demetrious Johnson September 23, 2012 (UFC 152) 5
Bantamweight TJ Dillashaw May 24, 2014 (UFC 173: Barao VS. Dillashaw) 1
Women's Bantamweight Ronda Rousey December 6, 2012 4
Featherweight Jose Aldo f1 April 30, 2011 (UFC 129)

etc.......

It seems the divisions are based solely on weigh regardless. Seems women as of now are in two divisions. See divisions here http://www.ufc.com/discover/sport/weight-classes

I don't watch UFC, so is this bantam weight category populated only by women then? Because that's the impression I got from the video and if that's true then it's a de facto women's league within the UFC, they just don't call it that.

I understand your train of thought, but I tend to disagree with your assessment.

Despite the [horrible] interviewer's attempt to put the term "separate but equal" into Ronda's mouth, she is not pretending that domestic violence is commonly an equal-opportunity offense. It's not a matter of someone actively making a decision to segregate women as the victims and men as the perpetrators of domestic violence, but it is a fact of nature that in domestic violence it's almost exclusively men who beat women. She simply doesn't want to contribute in the social consciousness to the acceptance or disregard of women accepting beatings from men.

That's a very different situation than a sporting organization deciding to create a separate company with a different name and different rules to corral and promote all their women independently from the rest of their male-only "real" organization. UFC is probably the only sports organization that puts women on the same plane as their male counterparts and even features their fights as the main event above male bouts (at least in Ronda's case).

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Next, UFC with pistols. Gotta keep pushing the boundaries.

As pointed out this has nothing to do with the NHL. And it's also not the North American Hockey League which is a separate league in its own right. This is the Ligue Nord-americain de Hockey, a Quebec semi pro league manned to a large degree by retired enforcers from the NHL and guys who never made it that far. To play in the league you have to be born in Quebec or played junior hockey there. And yes the marketing of this league is probably aimed at the UFC/WWE/WCW crowd.

The vast majority of people never have contact with police officers.

The vast majority of people who HAVE contact with police officers are treated civilly and go on with their lives.

The vast majority of people know that you don't give a bunch of shit to police officers. If you do, you take a chance on an outcome that won't make you happy.

The vast majority of people who are arrested on a weekly basis know that they will pay a small fine, or do a couple of days in jail, and take it as a cost of doing business.

A small number of police contacts end up with someone being treated for a bruise or cut, or a loose tooth, or pepper spray in the eyes.

A small number of police contacts end up dead and the vast majority of them instigated the violence.

You people expect cops to act perfectly, have the negotiating skills of Henry Kissinger, the compassion of Mother Theresa and the patience of Job, the martial skill of a UFC fighter, and the targeting skill of Annie Oakley, when what you should be doing is looking at your own behavior and seeing how that leads to your own fate.

You're just going to keep arguing so I don't see the point of this. But I'll rebut some things.

You go and tell the family it doesn't matter that their son died.

My mother was choked and raped in my parents bed by an intruder when I was not yet 3 years old. The defensive wounds on her body were said by the authorities to be from her struggling until the very end.

Also I live with a trained UFC fighter, who was a champion in Southern California. I asked him this and you fight until you black out, you do not stop because you're getting choked, if anything it makes you more desperate.

You keep citing the Legal right to something as if that matters to me. It doesn't, I'm stating unequivocally that what they did was wrong, it doesn't matter what the law says. Just because a law says you can do something does not make it a just law.

It is their laws, it is the laws of the state. The police are a part of that state and they are sent by the owners of the state to enforce those laws. We do not have a democracy in the US anymore. This is like defending the SS because Hitler told them what to do, they have no defense.

We're done here, we will never agree because we have lived completely different lives. I understand that and I hope you do as well.

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LOL what's he talking about? Plenty of UFC fights end with fighters hugging or shaking hands. You have the rare exceptions from idiots like Bisping and the Diaz brothers but most high level fighters are very sportsmanlike.