Let’s just revisit this topic in 24 months and see where it really stands…

Because everyone has an opinion on where womens MMA is going to eventually land.. Whether good or bad, for better or for worse..

Personally, I think there is room for womens MMA like there is room for other womens sports.. However, I’m more of a realist myself & I dont think this will be a bright topic for discussion within the next 6-9 months.. It will fizzle down to reality and take it’s place on the back burner like all womens sports eventually do.. They’ll no doubt have a one off thing here and there to spark a little interest every now and then.. But it will never be as hot as it was on Saturday night.. Regardless if Gina won or not.. It was a novelty for Mainstream America.. Much like the Kimbo ordeal.. Of course people wont forget who these women were and how they came to be.. They just wont care as much now that the big one off event is over and done with IMO..

Strikeforce could have gone with a beauty and the beast disparity in the run up to the fight with Carano, but they just focused on the beauty. That probably got a lot of eyeballs, but now they’ve got a champ no one’s heard of (casual Carano fans, anyhow). Strikeforce had better focus on her athleticism and intensity, but it’s their own fault if they’re starting from scratch. If/when the rematch comes along, they can do the beauty/beast thing then. The lop-sided coverage/hype for Carano made it hard to feel objective about supporting her. Seeing Gina turning away and seeming to say “don’t hit me, don’t hit me” with her body language throughout the five minute round really makes the promotion look bad. How they wanna promote athleticism?

I guess Coker also voted for Cyborg in the Best Female MMA fighter sherdog poll :)

She is promotable, but she cannot be promoted in the same way that Gina was for a variety of reasons. Language is one, and her looks is another (unfortunately).

Gina wasn’t just promoted as a fighter, she was, “the face of women’s mma.” The stupidity of calling her that before her fights (no matter how true it is/was, is another rant for another time). Lots of Gina’s promotion/popularity came from American Gladiators, posing in Maxim and stuff like that. Cyborg can’t do that, so they’ll have to promote Cyborg like the rest of the champions they have.

Aside from promoting Cyborg, it’s imperative Strikeforce develop interesting challengers for her.

Let’s face it, much of the hype from this fight came from the fact that Cyborg and Carano are such polar opposites. Cyborg fits the bill as a vicious fighter nicely. She’ll draw much better if she is fighting some kind of foil. People love the good vs. bad angle.

big surprise there.

This thread among the many others since Saturday have barely broken a hundred post’s in each thread.. Yet all retains to womens MMA…

Now change the thread title and add Couture, Fedor, Silva etc.. name to the title and it gets 200 plus respectively on each thread…

We’re the minority here and the ones that are truly showing any interest at all in what happened on Saturday.. The big sites and news outlets (if they did any press at all about it) have since pulled it off the site and moved on to other topics.. This is your barometer for how much interest womens MMA is going to get from the mainstream audience..

The main thing about other womens sports is they are all “FREE” to watch.. SF has essentially said they have a plan in motion to convert to PPV which changes the entire outlook on what’s worthy of the consumers dollar in this economic crisis… Womens MMA wont be as effected as other womens sports because unlike all other womens sports, womens MMA wont be segregated on it’s own.. It will be funneled in with mens MMA and sprinkled on a card every now and then..

All other womens sports have essentially broken off on their own, although the revenue streams come through the mens counterparts first and foremost..

Bottom line is it isnt going anywhere, but it isn’t going to be what it is at this point right now in the coming weeks.. The fight game is here today & gone tomorrow style of business. Just like movie stars & musicians .. It’s all about what have you done for me lately.. The novelty will now wear off and everyone (meaning the majority) will now go about their daily business and womens MMA will fall into it’s place, where ever that place may be…

I personally think Cyborg will be very hard to promote.

I don’t think female MMA can be remotely popular without a cute face as the champion.

I know everyone is trying to avoid this subject, as it’s uncomfortable, and everyone who’ll try to voice it will be acused of misogyny:)) But the ease of promoting Gina Carano was in huge part coming from the fact that she was very attractive. Cyborg’s attributes and looks (I leave face alone) from the neck and down are like a man’s. She moves like a man, she fights as a man and her body looks like a man’s body. If you look around the internet you’ll see hundreds of videos of Gina weight-ins with thousands of comments, mostly about how hot she is. She is very popular, because she can fight, she’s very attractive, and has very cool personality. I don’t think women’s mma is only about fighting! Hell – man’s sports are not only about fighting. Good looking guys are being watched by girls – and it’s not a secret. St- Pierre, Couture etc are popular because they can fight, are inteligent and eloquent, and have the looks. It’s important for girls and guys – every boy want’s to be like St-Pierre, and every girl want’s to be his girlfriend (I know – it’s an exaggeration) or at least watch him fight in his tight slips:) This is just the nature of things. You need to have a complete package, and I believe Gina has and Cyborg doesn’t.