She's a Knockout!

by L. A. Jennings

  In 2008, Stefanac took a group of American women to New Zealand to compete in the “Princesses of Pain” fight card against a team of Aussies. A documentary crew filmed them before and after the fights, and in the ensuing months, Stefanac found herself being bombarded by promoters and matchmakers who wanted her girls for their shows. At the time, her team of professional women was one of the best sources for scouting talented fighters. Working with her former partner, matchmaker Sam Wilson, Stefanac placed many of her fighters at the forefront of local and international MMA venues, but she always fought for the best representation for her girls. She revealed that people would call her and ask to book certain fighters, but instead of referring to them by name, they would ask for “George Lucas’s daughter” or the “porn star.” And she told them no. In an interview, she stated, “No, if you don’t know their names, you don’t get them. For me it wasn’t about money, or promoting myself, it was about making [my girls] better people.”[8] Stefanac did not just make her fighters better, she made the MMA community take notice of women for their skill and not just their looks.

  WMMA Grows

  WMMA maintained popularity in Asia, where women first gained recognition as practitioners of the sport. Emily Kwok is a BJJ powerhouse who competed in MMA in Korea’s Smackgirl promotion and was the first Canadian woman to receive a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. She competed in numerous BJJ world tournaments, winning a gold medal in the Absolute Division of the Pan Ams in 2007. Kwok won both of her amateur and professional bouts at Smackgirl, which presented WMMA until late 2008, when it closed its doors. Smackgirl is a memorable part of WMMA history, and its demise was sad. The promotion allowed many female fighters to get their feet wet and demonstrated the legitimacy of WMMA. Furthermore, many of the fighters, especially the Korean ladies, wore amazing costumes reminiscent of the outfits popular in professional wrestling. But while the costumes may have been similar to those worn by the “divas” in professional wrestling circuits, Smackgirl was more than a spectacle; it was a legitimate and important part of WMMA history.

  The success of the UFC led to the creation of several other MMA promotions, although none would ever recreate the zeitgeist of the Ultimate Fighting Championships. On August 22, 2006, Bodog Fight held its first show in Costa Rica and featured Tara LaRosa defeating Amanda Buckner with a rear naked choke. LaRosa is another pioneer of WMMA, with an extensive MMA career spanning more than a decade. Her first professional victory, in 2002, at a Hook-n-Shoot bout, marked her in the forefront of the bantamweight division. Throughout the next ten years, LaRosa won bouts against such top-tier fighters as Roxanne Modafferi, Hitomi Akano, Julie Kedzie, Shayna Baszler, Alexis Davis, and Carina Damm. In 2013, she participated in the historic mixed-gender season of the Ultimate Fighter, the UFC’s reality show competition that pits professional MMA fighters against one another in a tournament-style setting. The 2013 Ultimate Fighter season eighteen cohort consisted of both male and female fighters who were coached by either Ronda Rousey or Miesha Tate. The show is discussed more thoroughly later in this chapter, but the upset on the first night, when longtime veteran LaRosa lost to up-and-coming Sarah Moras, was, honestly, to be expected but still disappointing. LaRosa’s lengthy career, however, is best remembered by her earlier days and dominating fight record of twenty-one wins and four losses.

  In 2007, ZUFFA purchased Japan’s PRIDE Fighting Championships and tightened its hold on the MMA entertainment market. Other rival MMA promotions would slowly decline and eventually die in the shadow of this martial arts monopoly; however, in 2007, the Showtime television network hopped on the MMA bandwagon and started its own promotion, Elite Xtreme Combat, or Elite XC. Elite XC’s first show, dubbed “Destiny,” was headlined by Renzo Gracie and Frank Shamrock on February 10, 2007. This was the first televised MMA event since the UFC had used pay-per-view to distribute its promotion. Shamrock was famously disqualified for kneeing Gracie when he was down, but the other fights were more straightforward. Two women, Gina Carano and Julie Kedzie, were also on the fight card, and their presence would catapult WMMA from the sidelines toward the center of the MMA phenomenon. The UFC had the monopoly on televised MMA events, and many MMA fans had never seen women in the cage. Showtime provided viewers with a WMMA bout, and both the women’s skills and looks changed the way fans thought about female fighters.

  Gina Carano: The “First Lady” of WMMA

  Gina Carano stepped confidently into the cage, knowing that her undefeated record was due to her skills as a kickboxer. She felt a bit unsure about what would happen if Julie Kedzie took her to the ground, but if she could remain standing, she would undoubtedly win. There were those who believed that Carano was not well-rounded enough to be considered the first great female MMA fighter in the larger fighting community. Until this point, women were on the periphery of a growing sport that was still fringe itself. But on this night, on the first televised show on the Showtime network, MMA would be available for fans to watch at home without purchasing a pay-per-view event. Among fighting legends Renzo Gracie, Frank Shamrock, and Antonio Silva, Gina Carano and Julie Kedzie stood waiting as the cage door was shut and locked behind them.

  Carano began her fighting career in the sport of Muay Thai and had a professional record of twelve wins, one loss, and one draw. She took her first professional MMA fight in 2006, and, within two years, had an undefeated record of seven wins. But her first big victory was in 2006, when she defeated Elaina Maxwell and became the first woman to appear in the Strikeforce lineup. Strikeforce was the second-largest MMA promotion in the United States, and beginning in 2009, its fights appeared on CBS and HBO in the United States. The first fight between Carano and Maxwell, however, was not televised, even though it was the first female fight on such a large fight card. Some critics suggested that Carano’s victory over Maxwell was a poor decision, but the two fought again, this time in a professional Muay Thai bout, and Carano defeated Maxwell for a second time. Maxwell would go on to fight some of the rising stars in WMMA, including Miesha Tate, who was eager to get back in the cage after being defeated by Kaitlin Young at a Hook-n-Shoot tournament. Tate defeated Maxwell by unanimous decision. Carano, meanwhile, went to Elite XC on February 10, 2007, to compete in the first televised MMA match between two women.

  Gina Carano and Julie Kedzie Make History

  In the cage on that historic night were twenty-four-year-old Gina “Conviction” Carano and twenty-five-year-old Julie “Fireball” Kedzie. Like many other women, Kedzie began her professional MMA career at the Hook-n-Shoot promotion in 2004. Carano is often dubbed the first “face of WMMA,” but she was certainly joined by another great pioneer of the sport. Kedzie, who has a long and storied career in MMA, is one of the more personable and funny women in the fighting world. In an interview with Fightland magazine, she gives several humorous anecdotes about her early fighting career, from not knowing how to cut weight to soiling her pants during a show and meeting Vladimir Putin moments thereafter. Kedzie already had a dozen fights before she met Carano in the cage and was ready to take on the newcomer. Carano had only three professional MMA fights before her Showtime debut. She competed in Strikeforce, another MMA promotion that would eventually be swallowed by ZUFFA, and won her first three fights. Carano was a Muay Thai champion who had trained extensively in Thailand, and Kedzie was a grappling expert who trained under catch wrestler Erik Paulson, so the matchup was perfect. Carano was already being praised for her beauty, even before commentators noted her superior striking skills.

  As the referee called the women to the center of the ring, he told them to prepare for “three 5-minute rounds,” but the announcer quickly explained that while that was standard for men, the women would only do “three 3-minute rounds.”[9] The distinction is interesting; women may be able to compete amongst the men, but the time they were allotted in the cage was shortened significantly. Today, women in the UFC fight under the same conditions as their male colleagues, but in this first televised WMMA fight, th
e women were restricted to shorter rounds.

  It was common knowledge that while Carano was an incredible Muay Thai fighter, she was uncomfortable fighting on the ground. During the fight, Kedzie desperately tried to take Carano to the ground, but she took a number of hard strikes in the process. By the end of the second round, the commentators and even Kedzie seemed surprised that she had been able to continue standing after receiving so many punches, knees, and kicks. When the fight came to an end, the girls both jumped up, grabbed one another’s hands, and raised them in victory. They smiled, laughed, and repeatedly hugged, as the promoter of Elite XC congratulated them on their historic appearance on televised WMMA. The commentators noted that both women still needed work as fighters, which was a bit demeaning considering how many of the male fighters in the event could have used the same advice. Nevertheless, as the fight ended and the women received a standing ovation, it was a hallmark moment for the growing sport of WMMA. When interviewing Carano after her unanimous victory, the commentator asked what she felt the fight had done for WMMA. The victor smiled and asked the audience if they wanted to see more, and the crowd cheered with what was obviously a resounding “Yes!”

  Carano went on to win her next three fights, which included a victory over Kaitlin Young, a fighter who would go on to compete in the all-female Invicta Fighting Championships and the UFC. In her final fight, she fought Cris “Cyborg” Justino as the main event on the August 15, 2009, Strikeforce card. This highly anticipated bout between the undefeated Carano and the 7–1 Justino was an incredible fight; however, it started long before they entered the cage.

  Cris “Cyborg” Justino

  The female body is historically described as soft and slight, as opposed to the hard, strong bodies of men. In her assessment of athletic women and bodybuilders, “Holding Back: Negotiating a Glass Ceiling on Women’s Muscular Strength,” Shari Dworkin contends that women who strength train find themselves constrained by “ideologies of emphasized femininity that structure the upper limit on women’s bodily strength and musculature.”[10] Women seeking to increase muscle mass are often described derogatively, with masculine characteristics. This critique is heightened when women participate in historically male sports, especially sports that have been denounced for excessive violence.

  Gender ideals suggest that women should be passive and lack the strength of men, while men are aggressive and driven by sex. These ideals generate the many criticisms that female fighters behave in an “unfeminine” or “manly” manner because of their participation in an aggressive sport. This criticism grows when a woman’s physique does not adhere to cultural expectations. Analyzed later in this chapter, the fight between Carano and Justino was centered on Justino’s supposedly masculine appearance. Internet pundits ruthlessly criticized Justino for her well-developed musculature and created the narrative of Carano as the (beautiful) underdog by titling the fight “Beauty and the Beast.”

  Dworkin claims that many women who work out often feel that they are limited by society’s idealization of them as female. In her interviews, many women stated that they wanted to be strong but did not want to look like a man. The majority of the contemporary martial arts community recognizes the validity of women participating and competing in combative sports. Female fighters work hard to increase strength and develop precise technique. Most professional athletes have bodies that differ greatly from runway models, although different sports require specific musculature development. Athletes tend to focus on creating the strongest version of their bodies to be competitive, rather than to try to adhere to some impossible, culturally idealized feminine body standard.

  More than any other fighter in WMMA history, Justino’s name has become synonymous with a “masculine” female body. In a basic Internet search of her name, the first suggestion to pop up is “Cris Cyborg Steroids,” followed by “Cris Cyborg Is a Man.” In 2011, Justino was stripped of her Strikeforce title when she tested positive for anabolic steroids. Following her one-year suspension, she reentered the fighting circuit with a renewed dedication to her sport and won her subsequent fights, but she continued to receive flack for her offense, which is understandable to many fans. It is interesting, however, to see a fighter like Sean Sherk bounce back from his steroid infraction, while Justino remains maligned by many in the MMA world. In 2013, she announced her intention to drop to the bantamweight class to fight Ronda Rousey, but the UFC seemed hesitant to sign her, despite the predictions from numerous fans and experts that she was the only woman able to defeat the champion Rousey. Cris Justino is one of the most famous female fighters today, and love her or hate her, as some people do with vitriolic vigor, in 2009, she roundly and decidedly defeated Gina Carano in what would be the most viewed WMMA fight to date.

  Gina and Cris in the Cage

  The matchup between Carano and Justino was the first female title fight for five rounds of five minutes each, with both women weighing in at 145 pounds. The cheers of the crowd were deafening when Justino came straight out of her corner and began striking Carano. Carano’s conditioning, which was praised, was disrupted in the first round, when Justino repeatedly took her to the ground. The crowd screamed Carano’s name, but in the last few seconds of the first round, Justino overwhelmed her with strikes from the mount position. The referee called the fight less than a second before the bell rang to end the round, as the crowd booed. Carano did not get up, and the fight was obviously over. In her postfight interview, tears streamed down Justino’s face as she thanked her opponent and fans. She went on to defeat Marloes Coenen and Jan Finney, but her twelfth fight, against Hiroko Yamanaka, which ended in just sixteen seconds, initiated her fall from grace when she tested positive for anabolic steroids. But Justino worked hard to return to the sport, competing in the all-female MMA venue InVicta.

  As for Carano, after the resounding defeat in the Strikeforce title match, she left the fighting world and entered Hollywood, starring in the 2012 Steven Soderbergh film Haywire, along with celebrated actors Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, and Michael Fassbender. Her performance received little praise, but her acting career has continued, and she initiated the idea that a particularly good-looking fighter could transition from the cage to the big screen. After Carano left MMA, the world was eager to find another “face” of the women’s division, not knowing that the next big thing, Ronda Rousey, was fresh off winning a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics and ready to enter the world of WMMA.

  Strikeforce Builds Its Ranks

  Strikeforce had become the dominant purveyor of professional WMMA in the United States and brought in fighters from throughout the world. Michelle Waterson, the 105-pound “Karate Hottie” from New Mexico, defeated Tyra Parker with a rear naked choke in October 2008, to become the first atomweight to win in a large American fight venue. After a rather spotty appearance of female fighters on Strikeforce cards, the women became a feature of most shows, and fighters like Kim Couture joined the promotion. In 2009, Strikeforce introduced several new weight classes and held more WMMA fights than ever before.

  The 125-pound flyweights were introduced when Jeri Sitzes defeated Lacey Schuckman. Marloes Coenen, the much-loved Dutch featherweight fighter, arm barred Roxanne Modafferi, another longtime fighter, in the first minute of the first round of their November 2009 Strikeforce fight. A few months later, Coenen fell to Cris Justino in their first, but not last, meeting in the cage. In May 2009, Sarah Kaufman defeated Miesha Tate as part of the two-tiered main event and went on to beat Shayna Baszler the following month. Kaufman became the first Strikeforce women’s welterweight champion after defeating Takayo Hashi by unanimous decision on February 26, 2009.

  Kaufman has had a steady career as a bantamweight fighter, with sixteen wins, two losses, and one no contest. She became a subject of debate and some undeserved ridicule in 2011, however, when she was passed over for a shot at the Strikeforce belt against Miesha Tate, and Ronda Rousey was chosen instead. In the bantamweight division, Kaufman continued to rema
in supreme until she lost to Marloes Coenen in October 2010. Meanwhile, another fighter was rising through the Strikeforce ranks.

  Miesha Tate, a former high school wrestler, defeated Coenen in July 2011, to become the new Strikeforce bantamweight champion. Kaufman was scheduled to be her next opponent, but another woman, Ronda Rousey, had a different idea. Strikeforce was an excellent proponent of WMMA and a platform for male fighters as well, but, in 2011, it was purchased by ZUFFA, the parent company of the UFC. The plan, according to UFC president Dana White, was for Strikeforce to continue to operate as a separate promotion, but in January 2013, it was officially closed, and fighters either went to the UFC or lost their contracts.

  Bellator Fighting Championships

  One fight promotion in the United States that survived the ZUFFA monopoly is the Bellator Fighting Championships, or Bellator MMA, as it is currently named. Bellator takes a unique approach to MMA, because it is based on determining the best fighter in a weight class through a tournament, rather than the typical rise in ranks featured in most fight promotions. During each season, a cohort of fighters competes to win their weight-class championships. Bellator is the second-largest fight promotion in the United States, and it has no relationship with ZUFFA and the UFC, other than an occasional spat between the two organizations. On May 1, 2009, Bellator 5 presented their first WMMA bout, between Jessica Penne and Tammie Schneider, 105-pound atomweights. The fight did not last long; Penne overwhelmed Schneider with punches just a minute and a half into the first round. A few weeks later, Kerry Vera defeated Leslie Smith by unanimous decision in the bantamweight division.