SCRAPP! FIGHT MAGAZINE
October - 2016
9
saw MMA as the future, made
the move (starting in the re-
gionals, but it didn’t take
long), and dethroned Rousey.
There’s nothing to say that
can’t happen again. There’s
nothing to say it will, but for
the UFC, as a business, it feels
like opening up a feather-
weight division is a no-brainer.
Dana White stalling and claim-
ing otherwise feels akin to
NHL commissioner Gary Bet-
tman insisting his southern
hockey experiment is going
well. It’s short-sighted at best,
disingenuous at worst.
The financial incentive is there.
Cyborg is already headlining
cards. If your argument is that
no one outside her would be
able to headline a card in a
new women’s featherweight
division, go back to the ban-
tamweight experiment. Who
besides Rousey headlined a
UFC card as a female? Here’s
a trivia answer for you: no one
at 135lbs until she lost. The
first female headlined card not
involving Rousey was techni-
cally the finale of The Ulti-
mate Fighter 20, when Carla
Esparza defeated Rose Nama-
junas to become the first ever
UFC women’s strawweight
champion. Since then, Joan-
na Jedrzejczyk, Miesha Tate,
Holly Holm, and a Paige Van-
Zant/Rose Namajunas pairing
have been used as headliners.
Amanda Nunes, the current
bantamweight champ who
won the title from Tate at UFC
200, will likely meet Rousey
for her first title defense. That
will mark her second head-
lining bout, if it goes ahead.
Point being, if the lack of star
power is your argument, it’s
weak. Women aren’t exactly
headlining a ton of cards as
it is. That’s fine. Star power
takes time to grow.
The ugly (yet valid) complaint
that does lurk in the shadows
is the previous drug test failure
of Justino, back in her Strike-
force days. Some trepidation
over building a division around
a fighter who proved to be
taking a banned substance in
the past is reasonable. Yet as
the years have progressed, Cy-
borg has passed all her drug
tests to date, including under
the heightened USADA re-
gime. When names like Alistair
Overeem, Josh Barnett, An-
derson Silva, Jon Jones, Chael
Sonnen, Wanderlei Silva, and
a host of others remain draws,
why shouldn’t Cyborg?
When you get right down to it,
a women’s featherweight divi-
sion is just good business. Do-
ing it now, while Justino is still in
her early 30s, is good business.
Strike while the iron is hot. She
has the skills to carry the divi-
sion for a few years if necessary,
and by that time, it will have
caught up, enough that if she
either declines or retires, the
weight class will be capable of
surviving without her.
In the end, it would also elimi-
nate the arbitrary, unhealthy
cut down to 140 pounds
for Cyborg, something the
UFC seems to have done on
a whim. Maybe it’s a way of
convincing smaller girls to
move up in weight, but estab-
lishing an actual division, with
a title, and contracts, would
be enough to convince more
— and frankly better — fight-
ers to make the jump.
Not convinced? Then you
probably never will be, but
if you’re a fan of women’s
MMA, then you should know
that now is the time.
