The Evolution of WMMA Weight Classes – Sherdog.com

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One of these fights was at strawweight (115 pounds), the other atflyweight (125 pounds). These are by far the most talent-richfemale weight classes, not only in the UFC but the world. The125-pound weight class was only established in the UFC in December2017. Despite the late start, it is already so strong that, inaddition to the UFCs own fighters, there are enough left forBellatorMMA to have its own thriving womens flyweight division, headedby longtime UFC contender and two-time title challenger LizCarmouche. Meanwhile, womens bantamweight (135 pounds), which has seen the biggest starsin womens MMA history, has become a wasteland. How did we gethere? What might the future hold?

However, 135 pounds soon became the premier division. Granted, thiswas a weight class to which many former featherweights could easilycut. Why do that instead of staying at 145 pounds, especially sincetalent was still lacking in those days? In my mind, there were tworeasons. There was initially a desire to avoid fighting CristianeCyborg Justino, who was head and shoulders above every otherfemale fighter and had ruthlessly beaten down her prey. Later,there was a desire to benefit from the intense star power ofRondaRousey, a woman who represented a perfect storm of qualities in terms ofpopularity.

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Bantamweight was easily the biggest andmost important division, from the time Rousey ushered women intothe UFC in February 2013 until sometime around 2018. In retrospect,we shouldnt have been surprised. Rouseys last fight was inDecember 2016, and with the UFC introducing the flyweight class ayear later, a lot of fighters who could easily make that weightdecided to fight there. That includes ValentinaShevchenko: in my opinion, the greatest pound-for-pound femalefighter ever. In terms of pure skill, the strawweight class wassuperior, too. Mens lightweights are more skilled thanheavyweights for the same reasons.

Lets look at AmandaNunes, easily the greatest bantamweight champion of all-time.She is 5-foot-8, which might not seem so tall at first glance.However, inlooking at a percentile calculator for height, the averagefemale in the United States stands 5-foot-3.8 with a standarddeviation of 2.8 inches, meaning Nunes is taller than 93.3% ofwomen. In her native Brazil, where the average height is5-foot-2.5, she is taller than 97% of women. For the sake ofreference, Nunes is equivalent to a 6-foot-2 man in terms of howshe compares to those of her own gender; and she isnt particularlytall for the weight class, either. Germainede Randamie is 5-foot-9, Holly Holmand KetlenVieira are 5-foot-8, and JuliannaPena and RaquelPennington are only a hair shorter at 5-foot-7. All of thesewomen are muscular and well-built, too. Thus, in terms of sizerequirements, womens bantamweight can be compared to either menslight heavyweight or heavyweight. Its also no surprise that aweight class requiring such exceptional size is far less talentedand skilled than one in which a much larger portion of thepopulation can compete. Also keep this in mind: Just likebasketball and American football attract a lot of physically giftedlarger men, sports like basketball, volleyball and tennis attract alot of physically gifted larger women.

What about the future? Personally, I see the 115- and 125-poundwomens weight classes being the main divisions for a long time tocome. New, talented fighters are constantly emerging in those twoclasses, whereas I cant think of the last time a real blue-chipbantamweight or featherweight prospect came along. Some peoplethink the 105-pound womens weight class is the future and haveeven clamored for the UFC to add it. I disagree. Atomweight isactually going too far in the opposite direction. Not manyathletic, muscular women are petite enough to comfortably make 105pounds on a consistent basis. At that point, youre probablyselecting fighters who are mostly 5-foot or 5-foot-1, and outsideof Asia, that is well below the mean height. Not surprisingly, thetalent level at atomweight is actually far inferior to that ofwomens strawweight. Consider that AyakaHamasaki, viewed by many to be the all-time greatest atomweightfighter, was brutalized and knocked out by a young LivinhaSouza in less than two minutes. Souza was never known for herpunching power and was actually smaller than Hamasaki for thefight, as she barely had to cut any weight. It could be argued thatshe has never been a Top 20 strawweight, even as she improved overthe next few years. However, she decimated the greatest atomweightever.

That is actually a relatively minor objection. Even assuming thetalent level improves, female atomweights just arent interestingto watch for the same reason few people watch mens boxing at 105pounds. Their blows just dont do enough damage. There are hardlyany knockouts at womens atomweight outside of huge skilldisparities, ground-and-pound or exhaustion. Thus, the contestseither take the form of pure point fighting, with little damagesustained by either side, or grappling. Its just too boring fortoo much of the audience, and thats always going to be true, evenif womens atomweight finds its own version of the legendaryRicardo El Finito Lopez.

I do believe there is hope for the heavier weight classesat leastat 135 pounds. As womens MMA becomes more common, more tall,athletic women will pursue it as a career. We wont see skilledwomens bantamweight prospects as often as we see them at 115 or125 pounds, but they will eventually get there. Sadly, Nunes may beretired by the time these talents become serious contenders, but itwont be a wasteland forever. The same cannot be said forfeatherweight and especially lightweight. There will be occasionalsuperstars like Cyborg and KaylaHarrison at those weights, but the size requirements are tooextreme for either division to thrive for the foreseeable future.

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