Sean O’Malley has some thoughts about women’s MMA.
On a recent episode of his TimboSugarShow podcast, O’Malley was shooting the breeze with his coach Tim Welch and two friends when, for some reason, Welch brought up an old, since-deleted, Islam Makhachev Tweet proclaiming that “this is not a woman’s sport.” This got O’Malley’s wheels turning, leading him to suggest this thought experiment.
“What if there was a ‘WUFC’?” Sean O’Malley said. “What if they had their own program? Would it last? Would they be able to sell pay-per-views, would they be able to sell out arenas? I’m just asking. What if it was the ‘WUFC’? It’s still the UFC, it’s still Dana, it’s still the UFC pushing these fights and promoting them – would it last?”
For the first 20 years of its existence, the UFC did not promote women’s bouts of any kind. Then, in 2013, the UFC held its first female fight when Ronda Rousey defended her UFC bantamweight title against Liz Carmouche at UFC 157. The promotion hasn’t looked back since, with women comprising roughly 20 percent of the current roster and 16 percent of the promotion’s fights in 2022. That being said, women only main events six of the UFC’s 42 events in 2022, and O’Malley suggests that women may not be as entertaining as their male counterparts.
“We’re not saying they’re bad,” Sean O’Malley explained. “We’re talking from a pure entertainment point of view. Look at the WNBA, look at the NBA. There is a few girls fights that are very entertaining. There is a few…
“WNBA – WUFC, I’d like it. I think it’d be interesting… We’re not talking skill, they’re very, very skilled. I’m talking from a pure entertainment perspective. Like, ‘I can’t f****** wait for this fight.’”
While it’s unlikely the UFC ever bifurcates its male and female divisions, the promotion used to have a business relationship with the all-female Invicta FC, and still recruits heavily from its roster of fighters.
O’Malley doesn’t have much time to parse out the complexities of gender dynamics in professional sports though, as “Sugar” is currently scheduled to face Aljamain Sterling for the bantamweight title in the main event of UFC 292, which takes place at the TD Garden in Boston on Aug. 19. But perhaps O’Malley can ask his co-headliners for perspective as women’s strawweight champion Weili Zhang will defend her title against Amanda Lemos in the co-main event.