Featuring two women's title fights at Etihad Stadium on Saturday—or Sunday, if you're in Australia—UFC 193 is making history in professional sports.
As one of the few professional sports leagues that features female athletes on a truly equivalent platform, the UFC has already made history a few times. First, when women debuted in the promotion by headlining a pay-per-view at UFC 157 in 2013, and then again when The Ultimate Fighter Season 18 featured a co-ed cast, with Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate as the coaches. Now, Rousey defends her title against world champion boxer Holly Holm, while Joanna Jedrzejczyk faces Valerie Letourneau in a strawweight bout.
Although it took 20 years, with UFC President Dana White famously saying we would "never" see women in the UFC, when the company finally did come around, it was the full 180 degrees. The UFC dove right in, treating the success of women in the promotion as a given rather than a risky investment and having Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche as the main event for their debut.
It was a laudable decision, and as White has also famously said, he credits it entirely to Rousey (Warning: Video contains strong language). In 2012, three months before women debuted in the UFC, he told Ariel Helwani, "I'm putting my toe in the water, and I'm checking it out. There's no doubt, for people who say, 'Oh, this is the Ronda Rousey show,' f--king right it is. You're absolutely right. I'm not trying to shy away from that and say, 'Oh no, we're getting into women's MMA.' This is the Ronda Rousey Show."
Now, less than three years later, the two title fights headlining UFC 193 are for the two women's divisions in the promotion. And it's in an arena with a capacity of 70,000—potentially breaking UFC 129's record attendance.
The inclusion of women in the sport has come a long way in what seems like a short time. Via telephone, retired UFC fighter and current Invicta matchmaker Julie Kedzie reflected on the journey and the significance of UFC 193.
"I think it's huge," Kedzie said. "It's been a two- or three-year span. And now, not just one female fight headlining a card, but two, and it happens to be in a huge arena. Just the fact that (Ronda Rousey has) transcended, what she's brought to the division...the fact that we get to see people who are at the top of their divisions, in the top of their craft, who happen to be women, I think, is really, really significant to the whole sport. I think it shows how much can be accomplished in such a short period of time. And how much more we can do."
Rousey is a phenomenon, to be sure. She's racking up accolades and making history left and right, and she's paved the way for fans to discover other high-level female fighters. Rousey hasn't done it alone, but Kedzie feels she's accelerated the furthering of women's MMA.
"I think that back in the day, when the powers that be and the big wigs didn't have any interest in female fights, because they’d only seen maybe a handful, and they didn’t think they could make money off it," Kedzie said. "It really does go back to what Rousey has done star power-wise, and how she's been able to cross so many genres and bring everything together, and show how much money there is in really good, solid divisions of fighting. It really is the Rousey effect. She's done something amazing.
"And it's not to say all the other women haven’t. It just happens to be what she's done, the attention she's gotten, the power that she has, to open the door. And the talent that's coming after her is really, really fantastic. I mean, Jedrzejczyk, I would watch her fight every day. And we wouldn’t have seen her in the UFC if it hadn’t been for Rousey."
With UFC 193, we're seeing doors open for more than just undiscovered MMA fighters.
"Before there was always maybe a little bit of a stop sign, but now every little girl at home who wants to be a female fighter, or active female fighters, can realize not only can they get into the UFC, which was unheard of five years ago, now they can headline a UFC," Kedzie said. "Now, they can be the one bringing that attention and selling out arenas.
"It’s hugely significant for women’s MMA, because every time a female fight goes on (television), especially in the UFC because it's such a big platform, some young woman or some girl gets the inspiration to keep going.
"The power of possibility is amazing. And that kind of hope and that kind of encouragement, from seeing something in action, can't be understated. It’s huge."
UFC 193 is showing the world something we've never seen before. It's a considerable gesture for a sport that has historically been fairly exclusionary toward women. And it's an important part in the far-reaching implications of women in televised combat sports events—contributing to the eventual dissolution of gender roles.
"(MMA) is something that is accessible to everybody, and everybody has a drive to either see it or be a part of it," Kedzie said. "It's not, 'every little girl wants to be a princess' anymore. It’s every little girl gets to decide whether she wants to put on her princess gear or she wants to put on boxing gloves."
Or both, I suggested.
"Yeah exactly! It's a really, really nice thing to see. Back in the day, women weren’t encouraged to be educated, (because) they’d get the vapors, or they can't read too many books because it's bad for their little brains. Then it was like 'oh, women can't fight, it’s against their nature.' That's not true. It's in some women's natures to read all the books and some women’s natures not to," Kedzie said.
"It's in some men's natures to read all the books, and (some) not; some men really want to beat the s--t out of people and some women really want to beat the s--t out of people. And I think that it's really cool that we're finally acknowledging that it's a human drive. Not a male or female drive."
For Kedzie, who started fighting professionally in 2004, the admission of women into the UFC has affected her personally. She said she "bawled (her) eyes out" when Rousey and Carmouche walked to the Octagon at UFC 157. But UFC 193 holds a particular significance for her.
"I was with Holly Holm in her beginning in MMA, and I was her boxing sparring partner for some of her pretty big boxing fights. And now, the fact that she's fighting on the biggest stage in the world, for the biggest title in the world for women, all eyes on her—basically I’m going to be tearing my hair out, freaking out, screaming at the television," Kedzie said. "To see somebody that I've worked so closely with get the shot of a lifetime, it just makes my heart swell up."
Kedzie—and rightly so—seems to view the significance of UFC 193 as, in part, dividends from her journey, from toiling in the early days of contemporary women's MMA to her current position in the industry.
"It makes it that much more amazing that women are in the UFC because people in my generation of fighters kept working, we kept pushing," she said. "And so now, there's this huge thing, where these women are on the biggest stage in the world and they’re headlining, and not only that, one of them is somebody who I was there for her first MMA fight."
While Kedzie didn't offer predictions, she did have this to say about the matchup: "I have tremendous faith in Holly Holm. I absolutely 100 percent believe Holly Holm has the ability to beat Ronda Rousey. ... Holly has probably the best footwork you're going to see. Strength-wise, and athleticism-wise, I think that she's going to be one of the better athletes that Ronda’s faced.
"Technique-wise, I think her boxing is extremely good. It's exciting to see somebody not stay in the pocket, get in and out and move around. And I think that could work really, really well against a very overwhelming fighter like Rousey. ...(Holm) is not somebody to be bullied.
"I think what Rousey has going for her, which is really great, is her ability to get into the situation very, very quickly. She doesn't wait on the outside, she doesn't check to see what's going on, she engages immediately," Kedzie said. "(Rousey) is an amazing technician. Her ground game is out of this world and her transitions are genius. The Cat Zingano armbar was amazing, it was mind-blowing to me. The way she can evolve on the fly with her transitions is really good."
While you can typically find Kedzie on Twitter where she live-tweets events, we probably won't see much of her for this card.
"I think 193 is going to be so significant to me that...I’ll probably actually stay away from Twitter that night," she said. "Because I'm going to be gripping the couch and crying and yelling. Because that's what I always do when my friends fight. To see my friend compete for the biggest title in the world of MMA, just...yeah. I'm going to have a really hard time communicating with people that night."
The main card for UFC 193 kicks off Saturday at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT on PPV.
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