ESPN’s Micheal Woods published a feature the other day on Women’s Mixed Martial Arts. The feature talks about the growing popularity of Mixed Martial Arts, and the lack of attention in a growing female MMA niche. In this article, Woods speaks with two big names in the women’s MMA niche, Felice Herrig and Tara LaRosa.
Tara LaRosa
LaRosa, who fights at the Philadelphia Fight Factory, talks about how she became interested in practicing MMA. After watching Royce Gracie work some magic on the much bigger Ken Shamrock in 93, LaRosa became immediately interested in the sport. But it wasn’t until college that she started practicing Judo. As one would expect, there are very few females training at most MMA gyms. In fact, the gym that I train at, currently has zero. Those who have walked through the door, unfortunately walk through it twice, once in, once out. Referring to the small population of female fighters in mixed martial arts gyms that LaRosa is accustom to, LaRosa states:
“That’s not unusual for females in this sport,” she explains to ESPN.com. “That’s usually been the case wherever I’ve trained. The first day you come in, they usually want to test you. They put me in with a guy that’s notorious for going balls out, for not pulling punches. If I didn’t complain, I was good. I didn’t.”
In addition to speaking with LaRosa, my man Augie Schumatti from MMAWoman.com has a few good paragraphs written about him. Schumatti “hooks up fighters with promoters coast-to-coast who desire the presence of women on their card”. So far he has been able to successfully sign up over 50 female fighters.
Do looks help female mma fighters?
One of the last topics discussed in the article refers to how looks can help a woman mma fighter. We all know Gina Carano, Felice Herrig, Michelle Waterson. Although both great fighters, looks haven’t hurt them achieve a spotlight in woman’s mma. When interviewed, Felice supports this statement:
GINA CARANO Source: NBC.com
“The looks thing works to my benefit,” she says. “The female athletes that get the most recognition are the best-looking ones. I do want to set aside the stereotype that you can’t have the whole package. People don’t think that an attractive woman would be a good fighter. Usually good-looking fighters don’t fight as well, that’s what I’m going for.”
To read the full article, be sure to visit ESPN.com.
