Continued from the Official Women's MMA Discussion Thread #5
Invicta FC 8 - Likely in February 2014
Women's Bantamweight Division - A bit of striking history
The topic of why there have not been that many good female strikers in the Women's Bantamweight Division has come up very once in a while and I attempted, in brief, to answer that question a few months ago. In spoiler tags is the question and my answer for people interested.
I decided to post this here because I have been asked to have a place people can see this in the past, so here it goes:
I'll take a stab at this subject. It is long with a number of issues involved so what I am going to type up will be short and not cover everything. Think of my comments as a general outline.
When it comes to women's involvement in combat sports there has actually been, off and on, some money in kickboxing and boxing. So women interested in combat from the standup have had no real reason to get into women's MMA early on in its development. I think the earliest women's MMA matches took place back in the late 1990s.
It has taken some time for large numbers of women strikers to really take notice of women's MMA as the big money for boxing and kickboxing has dropped while interest and money for women's MMA has improved. So you are seeing more and more skilled women with strong striking backgrounds entering women's MMA.
Grappling has traditionally not offered women or men much money. Just look at the work opportunities for wrestlers in general until MMA took off. Women in grappling had it even worse then their male counterparts. As a result serious women in grappling took to MMA earlier then their striking counterparts.
Another take on historical development of women's MMA comes from just looking at it from a North American standpoint. That means looking at the 135lbs weight class, long the predominate weight class for women in North America. Many professional female MMA fighters in North America decided that they would try to meet one another at 135 so that they would make a real weight class and not have a bunch of mismatched catchweight fights that often made women's MMA look bad.
Early on at 135 there were different fighters with a variety of backgrounds but still there were more "high end" grapplers then strikers for the reasons I mentioned above. Jennifer Howe* (best known as striker with a boxing base) having defeated known strong grapplers in Amanda Buckner, Tara LaRosa and Judy Neff was seen as the best women in North American women's MMA.
Roxanne Modafferi, already fighting over in Japan along with a number of other women from around the world, came over and defeated Howe in two different matches. Tara LaRosa soon defeated Modafferi taking the top spot in the weight class for a very long time. Grapplers were taking over what could be called the top ranks of the women's 135 weight class.
(Late edit: I suspect that if Debi Purcell, a capable striker of the early days, had had more opportunities to fight her skills set might have contributed encouraging the early women of MMA at 135 to be better strikers.)
You could look at the fighters from this time period and see grapplers like:
Judy Neff
Tara LaRosa
Amanda Buckner
Laura D'Auguste
Roxanne Modafferi
Megumi Yabushita
Shayna Baszler
Ginele Marquez
Hitomi Akano
Middle
Tonya Evinger
Vanessa Porto
Cat Zingano
Sarah Schneider
Miesha Tate
Alexis Davis
More recent
Sheila Bird
Sarah D'Alelio
Liz Carmouche**
Lauren (Taylor) Murphy***
Ronda Rousey
Sara McMann
Kaitlin Young, Julie Kedzie, Gina Carano (although she actually fought more at 140 but she figures into this subject to a certain degree) and Sarah Kaufman. I'll add, late, Valerie Letourneau. A good striker who has never quite been able to stand on her feet against top grapplers, much like how Modafferi beat her to get into the TUF House.
Leslie Smith made a move into the 135 ranks but she has gone down to fight at 125 to develop her ground game before attempting to go back up in weight class. Kerry Vera might have helped add some much needed striking skills to the ranks but she hurt her neck and back several times and hasn't fought in years but she is looking to make a comeback as I understand it.
It is too early to say what will happen with Amanda Nunes, she is 2-2 in her fights at 135 since dropping down from 145. The strong grapplers like Davis and D'Alelio have taken her apart. (Edit to add: Or Germaine de Randamie for that matter.)
It has been difficult to be a striker at 135 for a long time.
Of the strikers only Kaufman and Carano actually managed to do really well. Kedzie has always just managed to get into the bottom of the top ten before getting knocked back down again.
As money has come in women's MMA you are seeing strong strikers entering the different weight classes. At 135 you see Miriam Nakamoto and Holly Holm as examples.
Like I mentioned above this is a pretty simplistic, not in-depth, overview of why the 135 women's MMA weight class is grappler heavy and doesn't have a great deal of really strong strikers.
There are probably other fighters worthy of noting that I didn't cover but this is a limited look at this very big topic.
* Jennifer Howe, in her earliest fight, described jiu jitsu as her strength but boxing took over as her best skill set as her career developed. Just an interesting side note.
**Carmouche is a decent brawler but she depends on her wrestling to win her fights, particularly the tough ones.
***Lauren Murphy has some boxing skills but she uses her bjj/wrestling to get people to the ground so she can ground and pound them not unlike Carmouche. (Note: I added Murphy recently due to feeling she is deserving of mention the newer list of women of note in the 135 weight class with a strong emphasis on grappling in their fighting.)
--
On others strikers in Women's MMA there was a thread not all that long ago (make that months ago now) in the Heavies full of suggestions, gifs, and videos along with a decent list (second link below) from myself that covers this topic.
Any Good Strikers (Women's) MMA?
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f2/any-good-strikers-wmma-2554627/
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/showthread.php?p=86669241#post86669241
--
Link to TUF 18 Women's Contestant fights Playlist on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqaeN0J5wv5mIsCRQuUeKIpT8J_qItzIl
(Since so many people are checking out the fighting capabilities of the women of TUF 18 I figure that the Playlist might come in handy.)
--
The last Invicta FC Roster and New Prospects thread:
Invicta FC Roster and New Prospects
(I'll update the roster and prospects so it is up to date.)
--
Women's MMA List by Weight Class Thread:
Women's MMA List by Weight Class
(A fairly comprehensive list of all women active in MMA over the past year and a half to two years.)
Invicta FC 8 - Likely in February 2014
Women's Bantamweight Division - A bit of striking history
The topic of why there have not been that many good female strikers in the Women's Bantamweight Division has come up very once in a while and I attempted, in brief, to answer that question a few months ago. In spoiler tags is the question and my answer for people interested.
I decided to post this here because I have been asked to have a place people can see this in the past, so here it goes:
I'll take a stab at this subject. It is long with a number of issues involved so what I am going to type up will be short and not cover everything. Think of my comments as a general outline.
When it comes to women's involvement in combat sports there has actually been, off and on, some money in kickboxing and boxing. So women interested in combat from the standup have had no real reason to get into women's MMA early on in its development. I think the earliest women's MMA matches took place back in the late 1990s.
It has taken some time for large numbers of women strikers to really take notice of women's MMA as the big money for boxing and kickboxing has dropped while interest and money for women's MMA has improved. So you are seeing more and more skilled women with strong striking backgrounds entering women's MMA.
Grappling has traditionally not offered women or men much money. Just look at the work opportunities for wrestlers in general until MMA took off. Women in grappling had it even worse then their male counterparts. As a result serious women in grappling took to MMA earlier then their striking counterparts.
Another take on historical development of women's MMA comes from just looking at it from a North American standpoint. That means looking at the 135lbs weight class, long the predominate weight class for women in North America. Many professional female MMA fighters in North America decided that they would try to meet one another at 135 so that they would make a real weight class and not have a bunch of mismatched catchweight fights that often made women's MMA look bad.
Early on at 135 there were different fighters with a variety of backgrounds but still there were more "high end" grapplers then strikers for the reasons I mentioned above. Jennifer Howe* (best known as striker with a boxing base) having defeated known strong grapplers in Amanda Buckner, Tara LaRosa and Judy Neff was seen as the best women in North American women's MMA.
Roxanne Modafferi, already fighting over in Japan along with a number of other women from around the world, came over and defeated Howe in two different matches. Tara LaRosa soon defeated Modafferi taking the top spot in the weight class for a very long time. Grapplers were taking over what could be called the top ranks of the women's 135 weight class.
(Late edit: I suspect that if Debi Purcell, a capable striker of the early days, had had more opportunities to fight her skills set might have contributed encouraging the early women of MMA at 135 to be better strikers.)
You could look at the fighters from this time period and see grapplers like:
Judy Neff
Tara LaRosa
Amanda Buckner
Laura D'Auguste
Roxanne Modafferi
Megumi Yabushita
Shayna Baszler
Ginele Marquez
Hitomi Akano
Middle
Tonya Evinger
Vanessa Porto
Cat Zingano
Sarah Schneider
Miesha Tate
Alexis Davis
More recent
Sheila Bird
Sarah D'Alelio
Liz Carmouche**
Lauren (Taylor) Murphy***
Ronda Rousey
Sara McMann
Kaitlin Young, Julie Kedzie, Gina Carano (although she actually fought more at 140 but she figures into this subject to a certain degree) and Sarah Kaufman. I'll add, late, Valerie Letourneau. A good striker who has never quite been able to stand on her feet against top grapplers, much like how Modafferi beat her to get into the TUF House.
Leslie Smith made a move into the 135 ranks but she has gone down to fight at 125 to develop her ground game before attempting to go back up in weight class. Kerry Vera might have helped add some much needed striking skills to the ranks but she hurt her neck and back several times and hasn't fought in years but she is looking to make a comeback as I understand it.
It is too early to say what will happen with Amanda Nunes, she is 2-2 in her fights at 135 since dropping down from 145. The strong grapplers like Davis and D'Alelio have taken her apart. (Edit to add: Or Germaine de Randamie for that matter.)
It has been difficult to be a striker at 135 for a long time.
Of the strikers only Kaufman and Carano actually managed to do really well. Kedzie has always just managed to get into the bottom of the top ten before getting knocked back down again.
As money has come in women's MMA you are seeing strong strikers entering the different weight classes. At 135 you see Miriam Nakamoto and Holly Holm as examples.
Like I mentioned above this is a pretty simplistic, not in-depth, overview of why the 135 women's MMA weight class is grappler heavy and doesn't have a great deal of really strong strikers.
There are probably other fighters worthy of noting that I didn't cover but this is a limited look at this very big topic.
* Jennifer Howe, in her earliest fight, described jiu jitsu as her strength but boxing took over as her best skill set as her career developed. Just an interesting side note.
**Carmouche is a decent brawler but she depends on her wrestling to win her fights, particularly the tough ones.
***Lauren Murphy has some boxing skills but she uses her bjj/wrestling to get people to the ground so she can ground and pound them not unlike Carmouche. (Note: I added Murphy recently due to feeling she is deserving of mention the newer list of women of note in the 135 weight class with a strong emphasis on grappling in their fighting.)
--
On others strikers in Women's MMA there was a thread not all that long ago (make that months ago now) in the Heavies full of suggestions, gifs, and videos along with a decent list (second link below) from myself that covers this topic.
Any Good Strikers (Women's) MMA?
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f2/any-good-strikers-wmma-2554627/
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/showthread.php?p=86669241#post86669241
--
Link to TUF 18 Women's Contestant fights Playlist on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqaeN0J5wv5mIsCRQuUeKIpT8J_qItzIl
(Since so many people are checking out the fighting capabilities of the women of TUF 18 I figure that the Playlist might come in handy.)
--
The last Invicta FC Roster and New Prospects thread:
Invicta FC Roster and New Prospects
(I'll update the roster and prospects so it is up to date.)
--
Women's MMA List by Weight Class Thread:
Women's MMA List by Weight Class
(A fairly comprehensive list of all women active in MMA over the past year and a half to two years.)
Last edited:
