Yeah I have no doubt some women could compete but there's too many problems. Women carry more body fat, can't build muscle as well because of the lack of testosterone, there's a much smaller talent pool for women's MMA, especially with no women's UFC ((Which I'd like to see change)) and most men are going to have reservations about going full force against a female opponent ((or even accepting a fight against one, there's no positive spin possible for the guy taking that fight.))
Sorry for being so negative about this, I just think it's a kind of dumb thing to talk about when we don't even have women in the UFC yet, and that I'll argue for, there's some great female fighters out there, they train hard and deserve respect.
I'd argue that these issues are connected. Western society holds fighting as a male-only activity. History and logic says that there is no reason why women couldn't be as successful or able at fighting. The physiological differences give women advantages in certain areas while giving them disadvantages in others. There are minor biological differences from race to race, but there's no argument made for keeping South-East Asian, African, Indian, or European fighters segregated.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is that MMA organizations couldn't sell fights between a man and a woman, so they keep the sexes separated. Organizations can hardly build interest in women fighting other women. However, even in modern MMA, there are still huge disparities in strength but it doesn't stop fights from happening. Someone who is 220 is not going to be as strong as someone walking into the fight at nearly 280 but it happens. There are certainly factors that would make it difficult in practice, particularly the weight cutting, but I don't think it's nearly as concrete a difference or deficit as some people are implying. If a woman feels comfortable fighting in a weight class without cutting weight, then let her. I don't see how it would be different than someone like Fedor who has never played the weight cutting game. A highly skilled BJJ or muay thai practitioner who is a woman could probably give a shit about a strength disadvantage, and they could certainly stand a chance. Maybe you've never known a woman capable of knocking out men, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
If a woman feels comfortable fighting in a weight class without cutting weight, then let her.
Except there is absolutely no way to make sure that you don't have women doing drastic and unhealthy (much more so than their male counterparts) weight cuts in order to compete. That's what it comes down to. And that's not even considering steroids to make up for the strength gap.
The amount of weightcutting that goes on to stay competitive in the male MMA world is staggering, with serious (though poorly-understood) long-term health implications for the athletes. There are already calls to amend the rules to help limit the amount of weightcutting that can go on. When you start putting enormous amounts of wealth and prestige on the line, you're giving athletes a huge incentive to partake in very risky behavior to gain a competitive advantage.
Adding women's physiology to the mix just worsens the problem to a large degree, as described previously.
We're discussing modern-day, mainstream, sanctioned MMA. Not Japanese freakshows or early-American MMA which was very nearly legislated out of existence.
Toney-Couture was modern-day and sanctioned. And a freakshow. And took place on a PPV maincard for the biggest MMA promotion in the world.
Fedor-Bigfoot was a freakshow too, in terms of how they matched up physically.
Like I said before, I'd pick Cyborg to beat Toney - that includes in a modern-day, sanctioned MMA matchup.
We're discussing modern-day, mainstream, sanctioned MMA. Not Japanese freakshows or early-American MMA which was very nearly legislated out of existence.
Toney-Couture was modern-day and sanctioned. And a freakshow. And took place on a PPV maincard for the biggest MMA promotion in the world.
Fedor-Bigfoot was a freakshow too, in terms of how they matched up physically.
Like I said before, I'd pick Cyborg to beat Toney - that includes in a modern-day, sanctioned MMA matchup.
Toney-Couture was a hilarious (in a bad way) moneygrab, and everyone involved - including the the fighters, UFC management, sponsoring athletic commission, judges, ref, announcers, commentators, and ring girls - should be ashamed for having participated in it. But, they were at least both experienced athletes in the same weight class! Not that that means anything.
Fedor-Bigfoot was a normal, sanctioned match between two fighters in the same weight division. Fedor-Choi Hong-man, that was a freakshow between two vastly disparate fighters.
If a woman feels comfortable fighting in a weight class without cutting weight, then let her.
Except there is absolutely no way to make sure that you don't have women doing drastic and unhealthy (much more so than their male counterparts) weight cuts in order to compete. That's what it comes down to. And that's not even considering steroids to make up for the strength gap.
The amount of weightcutting that goes on to stay competitive in the male MMA world is staggering, with serious (though poorly-understood) long-term health implications for the athletes. There are already calls to amend the rules to help limit the amount of weightcutting that can go on. When you start putting enormous amounts of wealth and prestige on the line, you're giving athletes a huge incentive to partake in very risky behavior to gain a competitive advantage.
Adding women's physiology to the mix just worsens the problem to a large degree, as described previously.
The argument that women shouldn't be able to compete at all because men have set a standard of unhealthy fight preparation just doesn't fly with me, I guess. Women are allowed to compete against one another and against men in high school and collegiate wrestling, which is where MMA inherited its weight-cutting practices from, so why not allow them to make that decision for themselves in MMA, as well? I completely agree that it presents a larger risk to women, but as you said, it's also an unhealthy and questionable practice by men and is past due for increased regulation. I don't have any naive belief that women will be as popular or prevalent in the sport of MMA, or that they'll ever be allowed to compete against men, but I do think that at the core it's the result of cultural sexism that hasn't yet been pushed out. I hope that no one takes that the wrong way, I don't mean to say that anyone in this thread is in any way a sexist person, just that sexism that exists in Western culture is manifesting itself in the segregation of men and women in athletic competition, and MMA in particular.
I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be allowed to compete. I'm saying the way the sport is set up today, they are at an enormous competitive disadvantage and the only way for them to overcome that gap is through dangerous means (drugs, weight cutting). There is nothing inherently wrong with women competing against men in MMA. It's simply a practical issue.
If you can address those two problems, then there's no real reason they shouldn't be able to compete competitively and professionally.
However, both drugs and weight cutting are an institutional problem at this point, and it's going to take a lot of work to fix them.
Women are not as fast, they can't lift as much, they can't pack the same punch and they're all around less physically strong. We've had modern womens results comapred to mens for over a hundred years now with games in the olympics in all aspects of what a human athlete can do and women always trail behind the men in physical tasks.
What I'm saying here is that they can't match up to male athletes on a fair level and everything from training to fight day would be an uphill battle for a woman if she competed in a male division
It's really dumb of you to think women should compete with men in MMA. Not even women want this
At top levels of competition men have about a 10% advantage in olympic lifting, despite the fact that there are far fewer women competing and have a natural disadvantage due to hip size. Women have a distinct advantage in any heavy cardio related task especially the longer it gets in duration. To just keep restating men are stroner, women are weak simply shows ignorance to how the sport of MMA works.
145lb man vs 145 woman both equally trained, the man has a power advantage the woman has a endurance advantage... and you think the woman stands no chance?
Brock was 45 lbs heavier than Velasquez on fight day... so Brock trounced him with all that extra muscle and power right?
Fedor has all those losses to guys much larger than him right? Guys stronger, in better shape and lower BF%?
Lb for Lb, women can compete on the same level as a man a vast majority of the time. Saying otherwise shows a distinct lack of training with high level female athletes. We're not talking about some housewife stepping in the ring with rampage. The hypothesis is someone like Cyborg Vs a man of the same size. I'm for one not counting her out.
I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be allowed to compete. I'm saying the way the sport is set up today, they are at an enormous competitive disadvantage and the only way for them to overcome that gap is through dangerous means (drugs, weight cutting). There is nothing inherently wrong with women competing against men in MMA. It's simply a practical issue.
If you can address those two problems, then there's no real reason they shouldn't be able to compete competitively and professionally.
However, both drugs and weight cutting are an institutional problem at this point, and it's going to take a lot of work to fix them.
I agree they may be at a disadvantage, but I don't think it's insurmountable without drugs. Considering how much controversy over steroid abuse constantly surrounds MMA, as it is, I don't think it would be any bigger of an issue with women. I expect that most women competing in MMA would probably drop weight and just ignore the risks, like most men do. These are no more the average woman than a male MMA fighter is an average male. They're genetic outliers or people with freakish drives to improve themselves and I think that they could become competitive on some level, and even if it's not the highest level of the sport, that shouldn't prevent them from participating any more than it should prevent someone like Dan Severn. The bottom line is that it's too big of a business risk for any of the NA organizations to try, but aside from the cultural norms there's no real justification for it. I completely believe that Cyborg could beat her fair share of male fighters in her weight class.
Women are not as fast, they can't lift as much, they can't pack the same punch and they're all around less physically strong. We've had modern womens results comapred to mens for over a hundred years now with games in the olympics in all aspects of what a human athlete can do and women always trail behind the men in physical tasks.
What I'm saying here is that they can't match up to male athletes on a fair level and everything from training to fight day would be an uphill battle for a woman if she competed in a male division
It's really dumb of you to think women should compete with men in MMA. Not even women want this
At top levels of competition men have about a 10% advantage in olympic lifting, despite the fact that there are far fewer women competing and have a natural disadvantage due to hip size. Women have a distinct advantage in any heavy cardio related task especially the longer it gets in duration. To just keep restating men are stroner, women are weak simply shows ignorance to how the sport of MMA works.
Is this true? Can I get a link for that? I find that very difficult to believe.
And how do women have a cardio advantage? Like, how does it manifest itself? Because glancing at a list of records in a marathon run, the top woman in the world wouldn't be in the top 10 for mens competition.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
Yeah I'm not sold on the argument that institutional weight cutting and doping, combined with the physiological characteristics of women, mean that they shouldn't compete because it's inherently "more dangerous". We're talking about MMA here. The sport in and of itself is dangerous. What we're arguing about are boundaries and standards, not some sort of immutable law of the land.
Any professional athlete, and many amateur athletes, feel compelled to participate in activities like doping and weight cutting in order to compete. That's human nature. Women already do it when they're fighting against women. Having them fight against men doesn't somehow magically increase their competitive drive. These are professional athletes, not weekend warriors. They already want to be the best, and they'll do whatever it takes to be the best.
It seems like that point ("women will put themselves at more risk") is really a discussion about standards and regulation, not men vs. women. Fighters shouldn't be doing that shit, period, regardless of gender. Saying, "The sport has shitty rules which make it dangerous for everyone but even more dangerous for women" isn't an argument for not allowing women to fight men. It's an argument to fix the rules.
They already want to be the best, and they'll do whatever it takes to be the best.
Exactly, and the answer is not to incentive them to do even riskier activities in pursuit of bigger paydays, the answer is to reduce the incentives for the risky behavior altogether.
It seems like that point ("women will put themselves at more risk") is really a discussion about standards and regulation, not men vs. women. Fighters shouldn't be doing that shit, period, regardless of gender. Saying, "The sport has shitty rules which make it dangerous for everyone but even more dangerous for women" isn't an argument for not allowing women to fight men. It's an argument to fix the rules.
To me, this has to do with one thing only: fighter safety. That should be paramount, for both the health of the fighters and the health of the sport. Incentivizing a certain class of fighters into riskier behavior is antithetical to that.
Clean up the sport, or talk about catchweight non-ranked / exhibition matches, but until then it's silly to try and shoehorn women into men's MMA.
Yeah I'm not sold on the argument that institutional weight cutting and doping, combined with the physiological characteristics of women, mean that they shouldn't compete because it's inherently "more dangerous". We're talking about MMA here. The sport in and of itself is dangerous. What we're arguing about are boundaries and standards, not some sort of immutable law of the land.
Any professional athlete, and many amateur athletes, feel compelled to participate in activities like doping and weight cutting in order to compete. That's human nature. Women already do it when they're fighting against women. Having them fight against men doesn't somehow magically increase their competitive drive. These are professional athletes, not weekend warriors. They already want to be the best, and they'll do whatever it takes to be the best.
It seems like that point ("women will put themselves at more risk") is really a discussion about standards and regulation, not men vs. women. Fighters shouldn't be doing that shit, period, regardless of gender. Saying, "The sport has shitty rules which make it dangerous for everyone but even more dangerous for women" isn't an argument for not allowing women to fight men. It's an argument to fix the rules.
Seems like a fine and dandy regulation then, that women should fight women and men men to avoid disparities in safely cutting weight.
They way I see it, the most dangerous risks in MMA are compounded by cutting weight. If that affects women significantly more than men, I say that's a good reason to divide leagues by gender.
You talk about the competitive drive of women not growing and leading them to more irresponsible weight cuts or supplements or what have you. I think that competitive drive is going to take them some entirely new places if they start accumulating loses, and especially if they feel those loses are due a difference in strength or weight. After loses, many fighters start looking for excuses, simply fixed and easily spotted external factors that aren't really their fault. I doubt women on the whole are made of stuff so much sterner than men that they don't succumb to that particular vice.
That said, if Christiane Santos was unleashed upon the 145 men's division, I would tune in and cheer her the fuck on. I doubt she'd crack the top, but maybe she takes out Leonard Garcia, and that would be a precious gift from the universe to me.
I'm honestly not particularly invested in either standpoint. I love fighting, I like watching it. I want to have competitive divisions that ensure long term fighter safety. I recognise that almost every rule and regulation in Unified MMA is arbitrary and based on bullshit.
They already want to be the best, and they'll do whatever it takes to be the best.
Exactly, and the answer is not to incentive them to do even riskier activities in pursuit of bigger paydays, the answer is to reduce the incentives for the risky behavior altogether.
It seems like that point ("women will put themselves at more risk") is really a discussion about standards and regulation, not men vs. women. Fighters shouldn't be doing that shit, period, regardless of gender. Saying, "The sport has shitty rules which make it dangerous for everyone but even more dangerous for women" isn't an argument for not allowing women to fight men. It's an argument to fix the rules.
To me, this has to do with one thing only: fighter safety. That should be paramount, for both the health of the fighters and the health of the sport. Incentivizing a certain class of fighters into riskier behavior is antithetical to that.
Clean up the sport, or talk about catchweight non-ranked / exhibition matches, but until then it's silly to try and shoehorn women into men's MMA.
I understand that you're being pragmatic about it, and get where you're coming from mostly. To me, though, the situation wouldn't be as it is, segregated, if it weren't for our society viewing women as physically weak and in need of protection or sheltering. I mean, if women can compete in coed wrestling, throwing strikes into the mix shouldn't change the situation enough to say it's necessarily too dangerous for women to compete against men.
edit: I'm also not trying to argue that all MMA should be coed, just that in the ideal world it would be a choice whether to compete strictly against your own sex. Right now, it's entirely dictated by the idea that women are too weak to handle the male competition.
Ok, here's my statement regarding why women shouldn't fight men.
Show me how many women's fights end in a ridiculous KO vs how many men's do. I don't think I've ever seen or heard of a woman knocking out another woman like Dan Henderson did to Shitpsing (coined by Mayhem). That's all the answer I need.
Also, in regards to Brock vs Cain, there are several pictures (provided mainly by B:L) that show Cain hitting Brock behind the back of the head. Albeit, even though as big of a Brock homer as I am, I still didn't see him winning that fight with the striking he showed. If you want to over generalize something by one fight, by all means do it, but that's hardly a starting point for an argument. Brock has been notorious for having a poor stand up game (see: Carwin vs Lesnar).
They already want to be the best, and they'll do whatever it takes to be the best.
Exactly, and the answer is not to incentive them to do even riskier activities in pursuit of bigger paydays, the answer is to reduce the incentives for the risky behavior altogether.
It seems like that point ("women will put themselves at more risk") is really a discussion about standards and regulation, not men vs. women. Fighters shouldn't be doing that shit, period, regardless of gender. Saying, "The sport has shitty rules which make it dangerous for everyone but even more dangerous for women" isn't an argument for not allowing women to fight men. It's an argument to fix the rules.
To me, this has to do with one thing only: fighter safety. That should be paramount, for both the health of the fighters and the health of the sport. Incentivizing a certain class of fighters into riskier behavior is antithetical to that.
Clean up the sport, or talk about catchweight non-ranked / exhibition matches, but until then it's silly to try and shoehorn women into men's MMA.
I understand that you're being pragmatic about it, and get where you're coming from mostly. To me, though, the situation wouldn't be as it is, segregated, if it weren't for our society viewing women as physically weak and in need of protection or sheltering. I mean, if women can compete in coed wrestling, throwing strikes into the mix shouldn't change the situation enough to say it's necessarily too dangerous for women to compete against men.
I just think that in coed MMA (and indeed, most coed sports) the number of women to be successful would be vanishingly small. I frankly don't care if a woman does fight a man, I mean, they can do what they want, and maybe it would be a good fight too. But to allow it in an organization would only mean that you rarely see women fight. It would have to be done as one shot affairs, exhibition matches or something. I mean, isn't that why there's women's divisions in sports in the first place? If they always competed against men they'd never come out on top.
I just think that in coed MMA (and indeed, most coed sports) the number of women to be successful would be vanishingly small. I frankly don't care if a woman does fight a man, I mean, they can do what they want, and maybe it would be a good fight too. But to allow it in an organization would only mean that you rarely see women fight. It would have to be done as one shot affairs, exhibition matches or something. I mean, isn't that why there's women's divisions in sports in the first place? If they always competed against men they'd never come out on top.
That's true, I realized it might have seemed that was what I was arguing for so I edited my post, but not quickly enough. I don't think MMA should be strictly coed, just that ideally women would have some choice in the matter.
I just think that in coed MMA (and indeed, most coed sports) the number of women to be successful would be vanishingly small. I frankly don't care if a woman does fight a man, I mean, they can do what they want, and maybe it would be a good fight too. But to allow it in an organization would only mean that you rarely see women fight. It would have to be done as one shot affairs, exhibition matches or something. I mean, isn't that why there's women's divisions in sports in the first place? If they always competed against men they'd never come out on top.
That's true, I realized it might have seemed that was what I was arguing for so I edited my post, but not quickly enough. I don't think MMA should be strictly coed, just that ideally women would have some choice in the matter.
Yeah, we're on the same page then. I think getting an audience for such a fight could be tricky, but if you get a guy and a girl that want to duke it out, power to em.
I train BJJ, and I roll with girls regularly. Its kinda sad, they tell me that most of the guys aren't willing to spar with them, for whatever reason. I don't have a problem with it. Though I will say that none of them have posed a threat to me, including (shockingly) the judo black belt who is training for the olympics. Granted all she did was hold me in a neutral stalling position, but I'm just a white belt and on paper she should have killed me.
Okay, to help out with changing the subject, BJ Penn has also been making a lot of comments, mostly through twitter, on how testosterone replacement therapy is too easy to exploit.
It's Showtime also posted the match-ups for their 70MAX tournament. Here's an article about it. I don't have that much knowledge on kickboxing, but I've seen several of these guys in pretty recent fights and they were damn entertaining.
Also, also, Dana is saying that Tito is cut if he loses his fight. I'm sure that he'll just be cut to Strikeforce, but I hope he sticks to it this time. I'm tired of Tito's giant head popping up every other year.
I have no problem sparring with women, I do every week, but I'm not sure I'd be okay with actually fighting one. That may be sexist but it's really not something I'd feel comfortable with.
It's not that I don't think men should hit women, if some woman was violent towards me and I couldn't leave or diffuse the situation first I wouldn't feel bad about knocking her out at all, but entering a ring with a woman is still something that feels really wrong to me for some reason. :rotate:
edit: Giorgio Petrosyan is going to wreck that tournament. :^:
Seems It's Showtime is streaming the event live. Nice!
Hopefully we'll be spared a Flemish Maxwell Powers though.
Peter Ebel on
Fuck off and die.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
I'm all for letting women fight men in kickboxing.
Sorry, couldn't resist. :twisted:
Kickboxing can be really exciting, except the same problems with giant gloves and boxing come into play with kickboxing. I really, really wish they would just use webbed MMA gloves.
Metal JaredMulligan WizardRhode IslandRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
Wow, stayed away for a few days and it's been a should women be allowed to fight men throw down!
In my personal opinion if a woman wants to fight a man (or vice versa), and they both understand the consequences I'm all for it. I understand the social implications of any man fighting any woman but that's not really my problem, I believe two consenting adults should be able to do what they want to do.
As for what would happen to the MMA promotion that put on the event? Well they would get skull fucked out of existence by the media shit show that would be put on through ESPN/The View/Daily Show/Local News etc etc. It would generate lots of talk. I'm sure there would be some that would find it a good thing because it promotes gender equality but most would state what many people in this thread have brought up regarding body fat/muscle/etc disparities causing a major issue and the possibility for major injury.
I would like to see what women's groups would think about it. It would be a tough issue for them because it is promoting equality but if the women got beaten badly and got seriously injured that would be a MAJOR issue, that would probably get MMA banned from many many many states.
As for the whole "Could women win" thing, yeah I think some women could beat some men, but it seems like genetically the men would have a significant advantage. Not an insurmountable one, but I think that if a man at peak physical condition, fought a women of equal skill at the peak of her physical condition, most of the time the man would win (though this is MMA and anything really can happen)
Also, fuck Brett Rogers, seriously, fuck that guy. I'm all for handcuffing his hands behind his back and letting him 'fight' cyborg if what he was alleged to do is true.
Jose Aldo
Raphael Assuncao
Mike Brown
Alex Caceres
Darren Elkins
Kenny Florian
Manny Gamburyan
Leonard Garcia
Pablo Garza
Matt Grice
Tyson Griffin
Josh Grispi
Mark Hominick
Yves Jabouin
Chan Sung Jung
Erik Koch
Ricardo Lamas
Chad Mendes
Diego Nunes
Michihiro Omigawa
Nam Phan
Dustin Poirier
George Roop
Macken Semerzier
Cub Swanson
Javier Vazquez
Rani Yahya
Jason Young
Tiequan Zhang
Also, also, Dana is saying that Tito is cut if he loses his fight. I'm sure that he'll just be cut to Strikeforce, but I hope he sticks to it this time. I'm tired of Tito's giant head popping up every other year.
ONLY if he loses?
Time to wait for the inevitable draw->INSTANT REMATCH or a no contest.
Jose Aldo
Raphael Assuncao
Mike Brown
Alex Caceres
Darren Elkins
Kenny Florian
Manny Gamburyan
Leonard Garcia
Pablo Garza
Matt Grice
Tyson Griffin
Josh Grispi
Mark Hominick
Yves Jabouin
Chan Sung Jung
Erik Koch
Ricardo Lamas
Chad Mendes
Diego Nunes
Michihiro Omigawa
Nam Phan
Dustin Poirier
George Roop
Macken Semerzier
Cub Swanson
Javier Vazquez
Rani Yahya
Jason Young
Tiequan Zhang
which ones could cris cyborg beat
you decide!
... Alex Caceres?
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
Haha B:L, nice one.
Really, I just hate that Tito is taking up a card spot from other deserving fighters. I'm sorry dude, but you're fucking boring, you haven't won a fight in years, and based on your health history you have no business setting foot inside the cage. Unless that skeleton is made of adamantium and you have mutant healing powers, you need to stop fighting.
Dong Hyung Kim takes on Carlos Condit. Big step up for my Korean grapple fucker. He took a tainted win against Nate Diaz, but I'll still yell out CHOKE all throughout, albeit a little less enthusiastically. I'm good with either fighter winning this and I hope for a good showing from both of them. DHK's striking is talked about in hushed voices around the camp fire. Truly a thing of legend, since no one has seen it. I doubt we ever will.
Siver takes on Wiman. I don't really remember a damn thing about Wiman so I'm going to assume he's a wrestler with some boxing. I hope Siver can utilise his TDD like he did against Sotiropoulos and maybe knock this guy out. If this goes to decision and the deciding factor is positional control on the ground, I am going to be angry.
Oh shit, Njokuani fights again. Crush this noisome Briton with your mighty shins!
Stun Gun had better lose, if he grapplefucks Condit and officially becomes the WW Jon Fitch I won't be happy.
Dennis Siver's about to take another step towards actual title contention and cementing his place in my heart as my favorite UFC lightweight.
I'm totally utterly curious to see how Faber gets past Cruz's crazy long arms and wonky striking style to get in strikes of his own and some takedowns, if he can then he'll win.
Dong Hyung Kim takes on Carlos Condit. Big step up for my Korean grapple fucker. He took a tainted win against Nate Diaz, but I'll still yell out CHOKE all throughout, albeit a little less enthusiastically. I'm good with either fighter winning this and I hope for a good showing from both of them. DHK's striking is talked about in hushed voices around the camp fire. Truly a thing of legend, since no one has seen it. I doubt we ever will.
Siver takes on Wiman. I don't really remember a damn thing about Wiman so I'm going to assume he's a wrestler with some boxing. I hope Siver can utilise his TDD like he did against Sotiropoulos and maybe knock this guy out. If this goes to decision and the deciding factor is positional control on the ground, I am going to be angry.
Oh shit, Njokuani fights again. Crush this noisome Briton with your mighty shins!
Fuck you man, Dre is a top bloke, met him a bunch of times and he got robbed against Lentz, lost by having his leg held onto....
As for Condit DHK, I really don't see how Condit being "good off his back" is going to mean anymore than it does for anyone else against a concrete blanket like Dong.
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I'd argue that these issues are connected. Western society holds fighting as a male-only activity. History and logic says that there is no reason why women couldn't be as successful or able at fighting. The physiological differences give women advantages in certain areas while giving them disadvantages in others. There are minor biological differences from race to race, but there's no argument made for keeping South-East Asian, African, Indian, or European fighters segregated.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is that MMA organizations couldn't sell fights between a man and a woman, so they keep the sexes separated. Organizations can hardly build interest in women fighting other women. However, even in modern MMA, there are still huge disparities in strength but it doesn't stop fights from happening. Someone who is 220 is not going to be as strong as someone walking into the fight at nearly 280 but it happens. There are certainly factors that would make it difficult in practice, particularly the weight cutting, but I don't think it's nearly as concrete a difference or deficit as some people are implying. If a woman feels comfortable fighting in a weight class without cutting weight, then let her. I don't see how it would be different than someone like Fedor who has never played the weight cutting game. A highly skilled BJJ or muay thai practitioner who is a woman could probably give a shit about a strength disadvantage, and they could certainly stand a chance. Maybe you've never known a woman capable of knocking out men, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
Except there is absolutely no way to make sure that you don't have women doing drastic and unhealthy (much more so than their male counterparts) weight cuts in order to compete. That's what it comes down to. And that's not even considering steroids to make up for the strength gap.
The amount of weightcutting that goes on to stay competitive in the male MMA world is staggering, with serious (though poorly-understood) long-term health implications for the athletes. There are already calls to amend the rules to help limit the amount of weightcutting that can go on. When you start putting enormous amounts of wealth and prestige on the line, you're giving athletes a huge incentive to partake in very risky behavior to gain a competitive advantage.
Adding women's physiology to the mix just worsens the problem to a large degree, as described previously.
Toney-Couture was modern-day and sanctioned. And a freakshow. And took place on a PPV maincard for the biggest MMA promotion in the world.
Fedor-Bigfoot was a freakshow too, in terms of how they matched up physically.
Like I said before, I'd pick Cyborg to beat Toney - that includes in a modern-day, sanctioned MMA matchup.
Toney-Couture was a hilarious (in a bad way) moneygrab, and everyone involved - including the the fighters, UFC management, sponsoring athletic commission, judges, ref, announcers, commentators, and ring girls - should be ashamed for having participated in it. But, they were at least both experienced athletes in the same weight class! Not that that means anything.
Fedor-Bigfoot was a normal, sanctioned match between two fighters in the same weight division. Fedor-Choi Hong-man, that was a freakshow between two vastly disparate fighters.
Also, I have to share this photograph.
The argument that women shouldn't be able to compete at all because men have set a standard of unhealthy fight preparation just doesn't fly with me, I guess. Women are allowed to compete against one another and against men in high school and collegiate wrestling, which is where MMA inherited its weight-cutting practices from, so why not allow them to make that decision for themselves in MMA, as well? I completely agree that it presents a larger risk to women, but as you said, it's also an unhealthy and questionable practice by men and is past due for increased regulation. I don't have any naive belief that women will be as popular or prevalent in the sport of MMA, or that they'll ever be allowed to compete against men, but I do think that at the core it's the result of cultural sexism that hasn't yet been pushed out. I hope that no one takes that the wrong way, I don't mean to say that anyone in this thread is in any way a sexist person, just that sexism that exists in Western culture is manifesting itself in the segregation of men and women in athletic competition, and MMA in particular.
If you can address those two problems, then there's no real reason they shouldn't be able to compete competitively and professionally.
However, both drugs and weight cutting are an institutional problem at this point, and it's going to take a lot of work to fix them.
At top levels of competition men have about a 10% advantage in olympic lifting, despite the fact that there are far fewer women competing and have a natural disadvantage due to hip size. Women have a distinct advantage in any heavy cardio related task especially the longer it gets in duration. To just keep restating men are stroner, women are weak simply shows ignorance to how the sport of MMA works.
145lb man vs 145 woman both equally trained, the man has a power advantage the woman has a endurance advantage... and you think the woman stands no chance?
Brock was 45 lbs heavier than Velasquez on fight day... so Brock trounced him with all that extra muscle and power right?
Fedor has all those losses to guys much larger than him right? Guys stronger, in better shape and lower BF%?
Lb for Lb, women can compete on the same level as a man a vast majority of the time. Saying otherwise shows a distinct lack of training with high level female athletes. We're not talking about some housewife stepping in the ring with rampage. The hypothesis is someone like Cyborg Vs a man of the same size. I'm for one not counting her out.
I agree they may be at a disadvantage, but I don't think it's insurmountable without drugs. Considering how much controversy over steroid abuse constantly surrounds MMA, as it is, I don't think it would be any bigger of an issue with women. I expect that most women competing in MMA would probably drop weight and just ignore the risks, like most men do. These are no more the average woman than a male MMA fighter is an average male. They're genetic outliers or people with freakish drives to improve themselves and I think that they could become competitive on some level, and even if it's not the highest level of the sport, that shouldn't prevent them from participating any more than it should prevent someone like Dan Severn. The bottom line is that it's too big of a business risk for any of the NA organizations to try, but aside from the cultural norms there's no real justification for it. I completely believe that Cyborg could beat her fair share of male fighters in her weight class.
Any professional athlete, and many amateur athletes, feel compelled to participate in activities like doping and weight cutting in order to compete. That's human nature. Women already do it when they're fighting against women. Having them fight against men doesn't somehow magically increase their competitive drive. These are professional athletes, not weekend warriors. They already want to be the best, and they'll do whatever it takes to be the best.
It seems like that point ("women will put themselves at more risk") is really a discussion about standards and regulation, not men vs. women. Fighters shouldn't be doing that shit, period, regardless of gender. Saying, "The sport has shitty rules which make it dangerous for everyone but even more dangerous for women" isn't an argument for not allowing women to fight men. It's an argument to fix the rules.
Exactly, and the answer is not to incentive them to do even riskier activities in pursuit of bigger paydays, the answer is to reduce the incentives for the risky behavior altogether.
To me, this has to do with one thing only: fighter safety. That should be paramount, for both the health of the fighters and the health of the sport. Incentivizing a certain class of fighters into riskier behavior is antithetical to that.
Clean up the sport, or talk about catchweight non-ranked / exhibition matches, but until then it's silly to try and shoehorn women into men's MMA.
Seems like a fine and dandy regulation then, that women should fight women and men men to avoid disparities in safely cutting weight.
They way I see it, the most dangerous risks in MMA are compounded by cutting weight. If that affects women significantly more than men, I say that's a good reason to divide leagues by gender.
You talk about the competitive drive of women not growing and leading them to more irresponsible weight cuts or supplements or what have you. I think that competitive drive is going to take them some entirely new places if they start accumulating loses, and especially if they feel those loses are due a difference in strength or weight. After loses, many fighters start looking for excuses, simply fixed and easily spotted external factors that aren't really their fault. I doubt women on the whole are made of stuff so much sterner than men that they don't succumb to that particular vice.
That said, if Christiane Santos was unleashed upon the 145 men's division, I would tune in and cheer her the fuck on. I doubt she'd crack the top, but maybe she takes out Leonard Garcia, and that would be a precious gift from the universe to me.
I'm honestly not particularly invested in either standpoint. I love fighting, I like watching it. I want to have competitive divisions that ensure long term fighter safety. I recognise that almost every rule and regulation in Unified MMA is arbitrary and based on bullshit.
I understand that you're being pragmatic about it, and get where you're coming from mostly. To me, though, the situation wouldn't be as it is, segregated, if it weren't for our society viewing women as physically weak and in need of protection or sheltering. I mean, if women can compete in coed wrestling, throwing strikes into the mix shouldn't change the situation enough to say it's necessarily too dangerous for women to compete against men.
edit: I'm also not trying to argue that all MMA should be coed, just that in the ideal world it would be a choice whether to compete strictly against your own sex. Right now, it's entirely dictated by the idea that women are too weak to handle the male competition.
Show me how many women's fights end in a ridiculous KO vs how many men's do. I don't think I've ever seen or heard of a woman knocking out another woman like Dan Henderson did to Shitpsing (coined by Mayhem). That's all the answer I need.
Also, in regards to Brock vs Cain, there are several pictures (provided mainly by B:L) that show Cain hitting Brock behind the back of the head. Albeit, even though as big of a Brock homer as I am, I still didn't see him winning that fight with the striking he showed. If you want to over generalize something by one fight, by all means do it, but that's hardly a starting point for an argument. Brock has been notorious for having a poor stand up game (see: Carwin vs Lesnar).
I just think that in coed MMA (and indeed, most coed sports) the number of women to be successful would be vanishingly small. I frankly don't care if a woman does fight a man, I mean, they can do what they want, and maybe it would be a good fight too. But to allow it in an organization would only mean that you rarely see women fight. It would have to be done as one shot affairs, exhibition matches or something. I mean, isn't that why there's women's divisions in sports in the first place? If they always competed against men they'd never come out on top.
That's true, I realized it might have seemed that was what I was arguing for so I edited my post, but not quickly enough. I don't think MMA should be strictly coed, just that ideally women would have some choice in the matter.
Also, interview with Keith Kizer about the same.
Yeah, we're on the same page then. I think getting an audience for such a fight could be tricky, but if you get a guy and a girl that want to duke it out, power to em.
I train BJJ, and I roll with girls regularly. Its kinda sad, they tell me that most of the guys aren't willing to spar with them, for whatever reason. I don't have a problem with it. Though I will say that none of them have posed a threat to me, including (shockingly) the judo black belt who is training for the olympics. Granted all she did was hold me in a neutral stalling position, but I'm just a white belt and on paper she should have killed me.
It's Showtime also posted the match-ups for their 70MAX tournament. Here's an article about it. I don't have that much knowledge on kickboxing, but I've seen several of these guys in pretty recent fights and they were damn entertaining.
Also, also, Dana is saying that Tito is cut if he loses his fight. I'm sure that he'll just be cut to Strikeforce, but I hope he sticks to it this time. I'm tired of Tito's giant head popping up every other year.
It's not that I don't think men should hit women, if some woman was violent towards me and I couldn't leave or diffuse the situation first I wouldn't feel bad about knocking her out at all, but entering a ring with a woman is still something that feels really wrong to me for some reason. :rotate:
edit: Giorgio Petrosyan is going to wreck that tournament. :^:
Hopefully we'll be spared a Flemish Maxwell Powers though.
Sorry, couldn't resist. :twisted:
Kickboxing can be really exciting, except the same problems with giant gloves and boxing come into play with kickboxing. I really, really wish they would just use webbed MMA gloves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh39fyCazeo&feature=player_embedded
Let's focus on what's really important.
Limp Bizkit is back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI
In my personal opinion if a woman wants to fight a man (or vice versa), and they both understand the consequences I'm all for it. I understand the social implications of any man fighting any woman but that's not really my problem, I believe two consenting adults should be able to do what they want to do.
As for what would happen to the MMA promotion that put on the event? Well they would get skull fucked out of existence by the media shit show that would be put on through ESPN/The View/Daily Show/Local News etc etc. It would generate lots of talk. I'm sure there would be some that would find it a good thing because it promotes gender equality but most would state what many people in this thread have brought up regarding body fat/muscle/etc disparities causing a major issue and the possibility for major injury.
I would like to see what women's groups would think about it. It would be a tough issue for them because it is promoting equality but if the women got beaten badly and got seriously injured that would be a MAJOR issue, that would probably get MMA banned from many many many states.
As for the whole "Could women win" thing, yeah I think some women could beat some men, but it seems like genetically the men would have a significant advantage. Not an insurmountable one, but I think that if a man at peak physical condition, fought a women of equal skill at the peak of her physical condition, most of the time the man would win (though this is MMA and anything really can happen)
Also, fuck Brett Rogers, seriously, fuck that guy. I'm all for handcuffing his hands behind his back and letting him 'fight' cyborg if what he was alleged to do is true.
PSN: SoulCrusherJared
lets do this properly
on UFC's page, there are 29 featherweights with records (didnt include those two guys without records whom i've never heard of)
listed here:
Raphael Assuncao
Mike Brown
Alex Caceres
Darren Elkins
Kenny Florian
Manny Gamburyan
Leonard Garcia
Pablo Garza
Matt Grice
Tyson Griffin
Josh Grispi
Mark Hominick
Yves Jabouin
Chan Sung Jung
Erik Koch
Ricardo Lamas
Chad Mendes
Diego Nunes
Michihiro Omigawa
Nam Phan
Dustin Poirier
George Roop
Macken Semerzier
Cub Swanson
Javier Vazquez
Rani Yahya
Jason Young
Tiequan Zhang
you decide!
:?:
ONLY if he loses?
Time to wait for the inevitable draw->INSTANT REMATCH or a no contest.
... Alex Caceres?
Really, I just hate that Tito is taking up a card spot from other deserving fighters. I'm sorry dude, but you're fucking boring, you haven't won a fight in years, and based on your health history you have no business setting foot inside the cage. Unless that skeleton is made of adamantium and you have mutant healing powers, you need to stop fighting.
Dong Hyung Kim takes on Carlos Condit. Big step up for my Korean grapple fucker. He took a tainted win against Nate Diaz, but I'll still yell out CHOKE all throughout, albeit a little less enthusiastically. I'm good with either fighter winning this and I hope for a good showing from both of them. DHK's striking is talked about in hushed voices around the camp fire. Truly a thing of legend, since no one has seen it. I doubt we ever will.
Siver takes on Wiman. I don't really remember a damn thing about Wiman so I'm going to assume he's a wrestler with some boxing. I hope Siver can utilise his TDD like he did against Sotiropoulos and maybe knock this guy out. If this goes to decision and the deciding factor is positional control on the ground, I am going to be angry.
Oh shit, Njokuani fights again. Crush this noisome Briton with your mighty shins!
Stun Gun had better lose, if he grapplefucks Condit and officially becomes the WW Jon Fitch I won't be happy.
Dennis Siver's about to take another step towards actual title contention and cementing his place in my heart as my favorite UFC lightweight.
I'm totally utterly curious to see how Faber gets past Cruz's crazy long arms and wonky striking style to get in strikes of his own and some takedowns, if he can then he'll win.
Fuck you man, Dre is a top bloke, met him a bunch of times and he got robbed against Lentz, lost by having his leg held onto....
As for Condit DHK, I really don't see how Condit being "good off his back" is going to mean anymore than it does for anyone else against a concrete blanket like Dong.