With the sport still mired in a critical point in its development, her task will be similar to the one previously entrusted to Carano and Santos: Prove that female fighters deserves to share the stage on equal footing with their male counterparts. Now comes Rousey, who arrived seemingly out of nowhere during the last year to become women's MMA’s newest top gun. When Santos proved unworthy by testing positive for steroids in the wake of her 16 second brutalization of Hiroko Yamanaka in December, well, let’s just say nobody was shocked. She was dominant almost to a fault and for the most part, people tuned in to her fights just to see what hapless challenger would be fed to her next. “Cyborg’s” sheer ferocity - which frankly may never be equaled - made her a marketable star, but it wasn't as if the audience (either male or female) could ever relate to her. For her, heart and motivation were never at issue and her three-year run through the sport’s upper echelon can most accurately be described as a reign of terror. In nearly every way, Santos seemed like the anti-Carano. Carano appealed to the sport’s male-dominated fanbase, but she repeatedly had trouble making weight, fought only sparingly between 2007-09 and by the time Hollywood came calling with movie offers she already had one foot out the door after her August 2009 loss to "Cyborg." Looking back, her moniker as “the face of women’s MMA” maybe should have been instructive that her heart wasn't really in it. She seized that mantel with her 135-pound title win over Miesha Tate on Saturday, giving fans plenty of reasons to hope that female fighting is finally about to find its stride.Ĭarano may have had good looks and skills enough to advance to a 7-0 record in Stikeforce and EliteXC, but for her, there was always something missing. Women's MMA's new "it" fighter, of course, is Ronda Rousey. Now, their failures - if you want to call them that - have given way to a new torchbearer, one that so far seems better equipped to wear the crown than either of her predecessors. With all the benefits of hindsight, it’s clear that both Carano and Santos were always too limited to truly be the transformative figures the sport needed them to be. Rousey takes torch as WMMA's 'it' fighterįor a time, we assumed Gina Carano would be the fighter to lead women’s MMA into its own. Then, for an even shorter while, we thought it might be Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos. You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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