Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey Talk Things Out (Sort Of)

And these chics need to shut their filthy little mouths and square off god damnit.

They agree that it’s a combination of talent and marketability that are critical to keeping WMMA viable for MMA fans. I just think they have different ideas about where the balance is centered.

If WMMA wasn’t in at least some degree of peril right now in the major leagues, I think I’d be siding 100% with Miesha Tate. Rousey could fight Alexis Davis, winner of that getting the winner of Tate vs. Kaufmann. Kaufmann has definitely earned it. What’s more, Rousey will be a bigger name once she’s fought on a main card or two and continues to generate exposure. She and an opponent could get interviewed at a UFC event in cross promotioning, and maybe they could get her on talk shows. I’d just rather she breach the mainstream a bit before getting a world title shot in another division with an already established challenger, but there may or may not be time.

Um, I feel like this might be a derail but I somehow wrote all this up it doesn’t seem like it would be really all that hard to book a women’s division with the talent available, or expand downward either.

In addition to the Cyborg vs. Yamanaka and Tate/Rousey/Kaufmann/Davis, it seems obvious to book Carmouche vs. Nunes. In addition I’d do Kedzie vs. Baszler, and hire a couple of W145 fighters that could set up a title eliminator so the W145 Champion doesn’t stay potentially inactive between Cyborg’s fight in December and whenever Rousey wins her two fights at W135 (if she does). If Yana Kunitskaya is available without M-1 attached, use her. Other possibilities are Milena Dudieva, Cindy Dandois (although only against Kunitskaya), Edianne Gomes, and I suppose Romy Ruyssen. Hire as many of those names as possible to generate a viable division here (again though, only hire Dandois if you can get Kunitskaya without M-1 attached, since Dandois does have an outside shot of being a world champion in SF and her one loss is a quick stoppage by Kunitskaya). If Shana Nelson (formerly Shana Olsen) is still under contract, have her fight Sarah D’Alelio. Winner keeps their job. If Shana is gone, make D’Alelio vs. Julia Budd since Budd needs a rebound match. I wouldn’t outright fire Shana but I also wouldn’t rehire her right now unless she gets a win or two on the indies. If Kerry Vera is somehow still under contract, Germaine de Randamie could use a squash match (no offense to Vera). If Vera does put on a good showing even she loses, keep her. If she gets annihilated, cut her. Try and hire Lauren Taylor and Ashley Sanchez to shore up W145 a bit longer term. Try and get back Gina Carano if possible, but the existence of the division should not depend on her.

Send feelers to Marloes Coenen about when she would be available to negotiate. Ditto Sara McMann. Attempt to hire Holly Holm, Rin Nakai, Bethany Marshall, and Tonya Evinger, Vanessa Porto, Valerie Letourneau to augment the W135 division.

Establish a W125 division with a 8-woman Grand Prix including 4 alternates. Re-hire Hitomi Akano and Carina Damm, and try to hire (in no particular order) Tara Larosa, Cat Zingano, Angela Magana, Maiju Kujala, Sheila Gaff, and Barb Honchak for the main field. For the alternate bracket hire Aisling Daly (she’s overqualified for the alternate bracket but I’d rather not put her in the main field since she did lose in the first round of the Bellator tournament), Sally Krumdiack, Hanna Sillen, and Reyna Cordoba in the alternate bracket. Also try to hire Heather Clark, Marianna Kheyfets, Michelle Ould, Katja Kankaanpaa, Karla Benitez, and Sofie Bagherdai.

Should Megumi Fujii, Jessica Aguilar, Rosi Sexton, or Zoila Frausto Gurgel ever become available snatch them up immediately for W125.

There, you have two fully viable divisions in W125 and W135, and W145 is at least strong enough to survive the next year-and-a-half or so, by which point maybe more people will become available at that weight (Randi Miller and Tay Stratford I suppose are possibilities once they actually start their pro careers). Even if some people turn you down you still have enough women to build three divisions around (or rather two divisions and a miniature division).

Easy as cake (although you have no idea how much legwork I had to do to find all those fucking names, find pictures, and evaluate their records and level of competition; I was thinking about doing a fanpost but good lord even if I just did W125 instead of everything I don’t want to have to do 18 biographies; and before anyone says Roxanne Modaferri she’s on a 4-fight losing streak so she’s not an option right now).