WMMA in the UFC, how much is ideal? *Poll*

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WMMA in the UFC, how much is ideal?


  • Total voters
    49

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
C'mon man. Are you seriously comparing Magnana to Ngannou?

Francis - 11-2 (7 KO, 4 subs) with notable wins over former UFC champ (Arlovski), brutal KO over fromer K1 champ (Reem) and just went 5 rounds in a title fight with somebody who you just created a thread on inferring he's the UFC HW GOAT.

Magnana - 11-9 (6 wins via decision) on a 5 fight losing streak who is more known for her slutty social media posts than her fighting ability.





Edit: I'll also add that you're cherry picking your examples here. You're taking a HW (traditionally known as the least technical division) and comparing them to a straw weight. The smaller weight classes have always received more praise for the technical abilities so it may be better to use any fighter in Fly weight. Ngannou was the last guy to challenge the title so lets go with Borg, Reis or Elliot. How would they compare to Magnana on a technical level?
My point is we can speculate on the skill levels of all the fighters we watch, but we have to go by the results we see in the cage. There is a subjective judgement we can make based on the way people step or feint or avoid getting submitted, but we have to go by the actual data we have. Magana is a bad example, but to examine how the women compare to the men, we can look at the bare bones numbers the ufc provides and see how they compare. I just pulled somr data from UFC.com which focuses on offensive stats, and the UFC app which includes defensive stats. The categories I chose were striking, submissions, takedowns, significant strike accuracy, significant strike defense and grappling defense. These categories, I feel, encapsulate what we would call technical execution. This is how fights have actually manifested in the cage. In the table below, you see the champ and top 5 (by ufc.com rankings) in the Men's Welterweight division and the Women's Strawweight division. I chose these two because the UFC only has 4 womens divisions, but only 2 have formal rankings. As such, rather than considering 115 the lowest weight, I'm considering it as the halfway point of the two ranked divisions and welterweight as a similar halfway point between men's divisions. Other criteria for comparing divisions could be used, e.g. based on comparable number of fights. Also, a larger sample size could be used, but I honestly just didn't feel like doing the work. In the table below you can see the results.


View: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ob9fliUOp2WOpJgiQFEaJYdIS5CIbbu7eVTnYdFKGaM/edit?usp=sharing


SW Women generally speaking land strikes at a higher rate 60% of the time versus 44% of the time for WW men. Their submission rate is about the same. WW men outperform SW in takedowns 40% to 26% of attempts. Most interestingly, women's significant strike accuracy and defense is the same as men's. Grappling defense, the men outperform the women 77% to 69%.

We can suspect that the reasons for differences in striking and grappling are attributable to men's WW having some more grappling based fighters while women's SW has more strikers. The other categories being more or less the same indicate that the technical ability you're likely to see is pretty much the same if you're watching a women's Strawweight fight or a men's Welterweight fight, at least when involving any of the top 5 or in title fights. And honestly, it's rare at least one female participant in a fight on a main card (which is the most watched part of an event and the only part you pay for) isn't going to be in the top 5.

Now we can of course point to things like style, showmanship, the way a punch look when it's thrown, the way a person sets up their submissions or takedowns, and say we don't like it. We can also say that if the women were operating at the men's strength and speed, there would be different consequences, but that's because there are differences between how women and men have operationalized MMA. In some cases, it may also be due to less years spent training, but then should women be penalized for that when there are fewer paid opportunities for them in most of MMA's feeder sports like boxing, wrestling, kickboxing and BJJ? We could say they should be barred entry until the feeder sports catch up, but today plenty of men are jumping directly into training "MMA." To me, separating them into another org or on their own cards is just discriminatory if they can participate with the same technical proficiency and stimulate fan interest. I think the best is yet to come for WMMA. Due to monetary considerations, we're just at the tip of the iceberg. Personally, I'm enjoying watching the sport develop all over again in a way.

EDIT: Changed the table settings on the doc, but it's not displaying for some reason. The link is there, but I'll try screencapping it.
 
Last edited:

SensoriaUtopia

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Jan 17, 2015
3,353
2,652
Respectfully whether a womens like 10% or 40% or 70% of her strikes has no bearing on my enjoyment of the fight. Unless its a women title fight or top 5 contender fight its just boring and not entertaining for me to watch it. I much rather have about 1 womens fight every other card, not 3 per card. Those votes are interesting, even amongst hardcore, only about 30% like it the way it is. Looks like 70% of even the hardcores want only title fights or title fights and top 5 contender fights.
 

SensoriaUtopia

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Jan 17, 2015
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Where's the option to have 0 wmma fights in the UFC ever?

I thought about that but I felt that was too extreme. I think the champs deserve to get recognition having their fights in the ufc, I dont think we need to clear out all WMMA from the UFC, just the non top 5 fightrs. Because 90% of the chicks fights are fucking horrendous.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
Respectfully whether a womens like 10% or 40% or 70% of her strikes has no bearing on my enjoyment of the fight. Unless its a women title fight or top 5 contender fight its just boring and not entertaining for me to watch it. I much rather have about 1 womens fight every other card, not 3 per card. Those votes are interesting, even amongst hardcore, only about 30% like it the way it is. Looks like 70% of even the hardcores want only title fights or title fights and top 5 contender fights.
But if you discount how they're fighting, what is it you don't like about it? Also, WMMA only accounted for 4% of total MMA fights in 2017 based on Fightmatrix data so it's hardly like anyone is being overexposed.
 

SensoriaUtopia

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Jan 17, 2015
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kneeblock @Kneeblock

My man, you are throwing up stats about strikes landed and thrown, but I don't understand what any of that has to do with the enjoyment I get or the technical level I see. I women's fight might have a lot of strkes landed, maybe their defense in that fight was horrible, not sure what those stats show other than activity.

Just not seeing how it is relavant
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
kneeblock @Kneeblock

My man, you are throwing up stats about strikes landed and thrown, but I don't understand what any of that has to do with the enjoyment I get or the technical level I see. I women's fight might have a lot of strkes landed, maybe their defense in that fight was horrible, not sure what those stats show other than activity.

Just not seeing how it is relavant
How do you evaluate technique besides offensive and defensive success? All that's left is how it looks when a person uses their body. If there's not much disparity between offensive and defensive success, the argument is basically that the way it looks when someone uses their body should be enough to segregate their workplace. Does that sound familiar?
 

SensoriaUtopia

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Jan 17, 2015
3,353
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By watching the fight.

You are simply throwing out fight stats

2 guys can fight in an ammy bout have a lot of strikes thrown and landed and lots of takedowns and sub attempts and knockdowns, but they could both be subpar fighters, even for ammy level.

Then you can have 2 guys fight in a high level fight, lots of feints, lot of clinching, some strikes here and there, both guys kind of cancelling each other out but having a super technical and elite fight

You are throwing out stats and giving a false premise in my view of that showing technical ability when my example illustrates that falseness of that premise.

One you get past the top 5 in each division, the technical ability is few and far between and the entertainment value even less so for me. Sees like for most actually, about to 2 to 1 who have voted. I respect your view on how you feel about WMMA, I just will only ever like it in very small doses, 1 fight every other card or so.

It is what it is, the first class fighters in WMMA are sparse.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
By watching the fight.

You are simply throwing out fight stats

2 guys can fight in an ammy bout have a lot of strikes thrown and landed and lots of takedowns and sub attempts and knockdowns, but they could both be subpar fighters, even for ammy level.

Then you can have 2 guys fight in a high level fight, lots of feints, lot of clinching, some strikes here and there, both guys kind of cancelling each other out but having a super technical and elite fight

You are throwing out stats and giving a false premise in my view of that showing technical ability when my example illustrates that falseness of that premise.

One you get past the top 5 in each division, the technical ability is few and far between and the entertainment value even less so for me. Sees like for most actually, about to 2 to 1 who have voted. I respect your view on how you feel about WMMA, I just will only ever like it in very small doses, 1 fight every other card or so.

It is what it is, the first class fighters in WMMA are sparse.
From a personal aesthetic point of view, it's easy to understand where you're coming from, but no sane person, no matter how much they've trained is going to evaluate fights solely on the basis of feints and cancelling each other out. The rules of MMA actively try to disincentivize it as do the reward systems (e.g. POTN). I appreciate this side of fighting as well, but I'm not sure it's more prevalent among men. Maybe we can do a feint counter with an event and try to determine whether men or women do it more.

What I'm getting at with the numbers is that outside of aesthetic preferences, there is little evidence that the men perform better than the women outside key areas, at least in the comparison I did. More data might show more of a disparity, but I just don't have time to do that work right now. The main point is that what you are proposing is to exclude or limit opportunities for them to participate in a workplace based on arbitrary aesthetic preferences. That's what I take issue with. It's entertainment, after all, so aesthetics do play an important role, but the small size of this poll is hardly representative of the larger MMA fanbase which has shown sufficient interest in WMMA for the UFC to actually expand their offerings. End of the day, women are just as good at not getting hit, landing big shots and submitting as men. They land strikes overall more and wrestle less. And they only account for 4% of total MMA viewing options. They're already barely part of the sport as it is. No need to marginalize them further.
 

SensoriaUtopia

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Jan 17, 2015
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I respect the heck out of them, I just don't enjoy the fights much, unless it's the cream of the crop of the women's fighters. I actually think in some capacity they should be in the ufc, which is why I did not even bother giving the option to vote on no WMMA in the ufc. I just would enjoy the cards much more if its a combo of men's fights and womens title fights and top 5 contender fights. It's as simple as why I can't watch women play basketball. I know at the highest platform they have good skill and and I respect them playing hoops but you will never find me buying a ticket to see a WNBA game. How can I force myself to enjoy watching women play basketball same, some story with WMMA.

Just how it be
 
M

member 603

Guest
Um guys... What part of "SSSSSSSSSHHHH!!!!!!!! Mackenzie Dern just signed to the UFC, DON'T ruin this for me" did we not understand? As long as she's in the UFC, WMMA is allowed to stay
 

WEWEREONABREAK

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Jan 16, 2015
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I thought about that but I felt that was too extreme. I think the champs deserve to get recognition having their fights in the ufc, I dont think we need to clear out all WMMA from the UFC, just the non top 5 fightrs. Because 90% of the chicks fights are fucking horrendous.
Fair enough. But would you want chopped up carrots in your ice cream? Imho, people should, as much as possible, be allowed to choose what they consume.
 

jason73

Yuri Bezmenov was right
First 100
Jan 15, 2015
72,789
134,171
Strikes landed shouldnt matter if the strikes dont even hurt and cause zero damage
 

CHiLLEN

All hail the Irishman
Feb 8, 2016
459
812
I say this to everyone that asks about watching females in sports. If they were naked, we would see great viewing numbers.

Look, I think its great that the ladies are getting prime time slots in the UFC. It's needed to build the sport, and build the WMMA. If women were stuck with Invicta, it would stagnate in growth at times. Whereas with the UFC, their on the big stage, big opportunities up for grabs, in and out of the Octagon.

Eventually the sport will probably reach where the skill level is somewhat elite, due to young ladies being inspired to start mma early. Fights will be more pleasing on the eye, and more finishes. It should eventually pay dividends with the UFC getting onboard with wmma.
 

SensoriaUtopia

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Jan 17, 2015
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So here is case in point what I am talking about

We saw 3 really really good men's fights on this card so far. None of them sucked. Now the next 3 fights are women's fights, Kish vs Kim actually has good technical ability showing but I am bored out of my gord. The fight is just plain boring, nothing interesting, I see two girls with good technical ablility but the fight is so fucking boring, just pitter pitter here, pitter patter there

Its all subjective but I am already channel flipping, and my interest wont come back until 7pm est when the women's fights are done and its back to mens fights.

Seriously, this Kish vs Kim fight is boring as fuck, I wonder how many times I wrote boring in this post, just trying to get my point across LOL
 

SensoriaUtopia

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Jan 17, 2015
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Also, this UFC on Charlotte from 2 ago they just released the prelim viewship and it actually set an alltime record low viewership number for a ufc fox prelim card. I am telling you having those 3 straight shitty women's fights had a lot to do with it. I hate bringing up the UG but the only time I lurk on the UG is the fight card threads to see how people are scoring rounds and almost ever poster who made a comment during those 3 fights where saying how fucking boring those 3 chick fights where.

There was about a half round of fun in there for me, the 2nd half of round 3 of Kish vs Kim, the first 2 rounds of that and the other 2 chick fights sucked. Shoot even on the fight event thread on this site just about every poster on here was saying the fights where boring.

The chick fights almost always are awful, unless its a champ or a top 5 women's , dont want to see it, put them in invicta.

FoSho