Female MMA - The State of the Art

In the aftermath of the Gina Carano-Cris Santos fight, I was looking around for inspiration for today's entry.
Here is a sample of the headlines I ran across.....

Do women belong fighting in mixed martial arts?
Baltimore Sun

Does women's MMA have a future?
Baltimore Sun
(Do I sense a pattern with the Baltimore Sun here?)

Carano's loss to 'Cyborg' hurts women's MMA
FOXSports.com

Strikeforce postmortem: Is Santos' win good for women's MMA?
ESPN

Though growing, women's MMA not equal to men's
Florida Today

Female MMA is far from accepted yet.
I keep hearing terms like "not as good as the guys", "lack of depth", "women shouldn't be fighting each other".
And of course "she's ugly, she looks like a man, I don't like her."

Wow.
I thought we had outgrown that kind of thinking.
No Cris Santos is not gonna get in the cage with Brock Lesnar.
Just like Laila Ali has no business in the ring with Mike Tyson.
But that doesn't mean Santos isn't great in her division.
Maybe the WWE and their Diva division has poisoned the minds of sports fans to where they think that a woman cannot be just as good as a man.
(perhaps Lisa Marie Varon will change that idea)

These ladies work just as hard as their male counterparts and should be treated with the same respect.
I'm not saying we should praise sloppy execution in either division.
The women should be (and from what I have seen are) held to the same standards.
But no matter how good some female MMA stars are, they will be judged less than the guys and thats just not right.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger - Black Belt

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a martial arts black belt.


"When I do anything, I do it one hundred percent," she told us, and that is no less true for her religious life than for her martial arts practice (at age fifty, she has a recently attained black belt in karate).
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:IporSP1wqLoJ:www.wie.org/j12/laura.asp+Dr.+Laura+Schlessinger+karate&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

She is a tiny, karate-kickin’ perfect physical specimen, tireless and "hypereducated" (her term).
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:xpwBnN8I1cYJ:choppedliverproductions.com/rants/dr-laura.html+Dr.+Laura+Schlessinger+karate&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

Dr. Laura is a wife, and, of course, she is her kid's mom. She is also a black belt in karate. Whether there is a relation between those two things I will let her say.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:wSxuSF_WC7kJ:www.claremont.org/publications/pubid.177/pub_detail.asp+Dr.+Laura+Schlessinger+karate&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

And she rattled on constantly about taking karate lessons, much like someone who’s, um, found religion. She seemed like a person who could easily cross the line between enthusiasm and obsession.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:HeXX_H2PUd8J:blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2005/11/some_postive_th.html+Dr.+Laura+Schlessinger+karate&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us

Sarah Michelle Gellar - Martial Arts

Sarah Michelle Gellar (born April 14th, 1977) is a Golden Globe-nominated, Daytime Emmy Award-winning American actress. She is probably best known as Buffy Summers in the acclaimed television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

She has since become known as a film actress, having starred in the family film Scooby-Doo (2002) and the sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), the romantic comedy Simply Irresistible, the independent film Harvard Man (2001), the teen drama Cruel Intentions (1999) and the horror films The Return (2006), The Grudge 2 (2006), The Grudge (2004), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream 2 (1997). She was in the tv movie Beverly Hills Family Robinson (1998).

She also provided the voice of April O'Neil in the film TMNT and Ella (better known as Cinderella) in the film Happily N'Ever After.

She has also starred in several films that have yet to be released, including Southland Tales, The Air I Breathe, Suburban Girl and Addicted. She has yet to film the horror film, Alice (2007 Film).

" I do a combo of kickboxing, tae kwon do, basic street fighting and gymnastics for the role," Gellar has said. She also supplements her on-the-job exercise with yoga, Pilates, trampoline work and a cross-training regimen that alternates cardiovascular work with circuit training. "
http://sarahmichellegellar.fanhost.com/press/entry.asp?ENTRY_ID=22

Other reports state that she studied tae kwon do for 5 years and has a brown or black belt.

In 2004, while filming The Grudge in Japan, Gellar visited the famous Japanese swordsmith Shoji Yoshihara (Kuniie III) and bought a Katana from him as a birthday present for her husband. Gellar realized that she needed clearance from the government to remove the sword from the country, and after eventually succeeding, stated that it was "incredibly difficult" to do.

Morgan Fairchild - Martial Arts

Morgan Fairchild, a real-life student of Kung Fu, said she urged the producers to take the fight scenes over the top.
“Sometimes the producers would say, ‘Well, maybe we’ll just water it down a bit,’” she admitted. “And I was, ‘No, no, no! This is what people like! I can give you a good fight; let’s not do little girly pushy shovey stuff. Let’s do real fights.'”
http://telepixtvcgi.warnerbros.com/v2/news/1006/06/3/text.html

Article about Morgan training in Wu-Shu and Fu Jow Pai for 4 years.
http://www.morganfairchildtribute.com/profile.html

technorati tags:ufc, media, pride, japan, mixed martial arts, k-1, news, ifl, whaledog, boxing, martial-arts, karate, silat, health, movies, sports, self defense, thai, recreation

Courteney Cox - Martial Arts

Courteney Cox is an American actress and former fashion model, best known for her role as Monica Bing in the long-running television series Friends. She now plays Lucy Spiller, an executive editor of a tabloid magazine, on the popular drama Dirt on FX Networks.

Courteney trains in Budokon, a fusion of yoga, martial arts and meditation. (website here: http://www.budokon.com/ )

She is also trained in traditional karate as well, but I don't know what style. 

technorati tags:ufc, media, pride, japan, mixed martial arts, k-1, news, ifl, whaledog, boxing, martial-arts, karate, silat, health, movies, sports, self defense, thai, recreation

Laetitia Casta - Martial Arts

Laetitia Marie Laure Casta is a French supermodel and actress.

Time magazine once named her one of the top ten most influential people of the year.

Casta's career reportedly began when she was discovered by a photographer during a family holiday in her father's native Corsica, at age 15.

Casta was the official face of L'Oréal, Dior, and Chanel. She has appeared in and on the cover of Victoria's Secret catalogs, ELLE magazine, and Vogue magazine. She was featured in Guess? Jeans and Tommy Hilfiger ad campaigns. She also appeared in three consecutive Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions, Rolling Stone, and a Pirelli Tires Calendar.

She once had a close relationship with designer Yves St. Laurent, whose outfits she would regularly wear at public appearances.

Laetitia Casta has appeared on over 100 magazine covers and has been credited, along with Tyra Banks, and a few others, with bringing back the notion of the voluptuous models.

Laetitia has a brown belt in Judo. She feels that her experience with Judo has helped her in her modeling career to have control, to set limits for herself, to not be aggressive and to think with her mind not with her emotions.

technorati tags:ufc, media, pride, japan, mixed martial arts, k-1, news, ifl, whaledog, boxing, technorati tags: martial-arts, karate, silat, health, movies, sports, self defense, thai, recreation

Female MMA - Marloes Coenen

 

Marloes Coenen
Nickname Female Rickson or Rumina
Height 5ft 9in (175cm)
Weight 154lb (70kg)
Born 31 March 1981
Fighting out of Shooto Holland
Town of birth Olst, Netherlands
Fighting style MMA

Marloes Coenen is a Dutch mixed martial artist. Her brothers and grandfather were both into martial arts, the latter having taken jujitsu twenty years earlier, which aided her own transition into the sport. She started training with Martijn de Jong at Shooto Holland while only 14, who recalls "I really had respect for that, because it didn't matter if it rained or snowed. She still kept on coming." She has said in an interview with Martial Arts News Magazine that she is keen to fight Erin Toughill, whom she calls the "personification of arrogance."

Her last fight was a win by submission against Yoko Takahashi at Shooto-G on March 11, 2006. Along with her competitive career, she is planning to study communications sciences in Amsterdam with a view to employment in that sector.

Female MMA - Gina Carano

Name Gina Carano
Record 3 - 0 - 0 (Win - Loss - Draw)
Wins 2 (T)KOs (66.67%)
1 Decisions (33.33%)

Weight 140lbs (64kg)
Style Kickboxing
City Las Vegas
State Nevada
Country USA

Gina Carano is one of the fastest rising new stars of female MMA. Over the past few months she’s gone from being relatively unknown in our sport to becoming one of the figureheads of the female MMA movement.

After becoming the first woman, along with Leiticia Pestova, to be part of the first ever NSAC-sanctioned female fight, Carano followed it up a few months later by becoming the first woman to fight and win a MMA fight for the Strikeforce promotion when she defeated Elaina Maxwell in December.

Now Gina steps back into the spotlight in this week’s episode of “Warrior Nation”, debuting on MSNBC January 23rd, as they chronicle her and Elaina Maxwell’s journey to their Strikeforce showdown.

“I haven’t gotten to see it yet, so I don’t know what to expect, but I know that I was myself throughout the whole taping,” said Gina Carano of her episode of “Warrior Nation.”

http://mmaweekly.com/

Female MMA - Claire Brannan

Name: Claire Brannan
MMA Record: 2-0 kickboxing
Trainer: John Dawson
Weight: 155-165
Home Town: Hartlepool
Fighting Style: Kickboxing
Comments/Notes: 1 of her victories is over a male opponent

http://www.fightergirls.net/

Female MMA - Yvette Burton

Name: Yvette Burton
Fighting Style: MMA
Additional Styles: Han Soo Do / Vale Tudo
Date: February 20,2004
Trainer: Steve "Mauler" Dempsey
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 185-Over
Home Town: Hanwell, London, UK
Fighting Out Of: Hanwell, London, UK
Titles and Accomplishments: 3 of Yvette’s fights have been against male opponents in the UK
Over All Record: 5 amateur fights 3/2

Female MMA - Amanda Buckner

Amanda Buckner

Height 5ft 3in (160cm)
Weight 135lb (61kg)
Fighting out of Academy of MMA
Town of birth Orlando, Florida
Fighting style Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Trainer: Amal Easton

Amanda Buckner is an American mixed martial artist. Her last fight was a Technical KO win against Shayna Baszler in Mix Fighting Championship 7: Russia vs. USA 3, on 3 June 2006. Buckner was a contestant on MMA reality show bodogfight, but lost in her first bout to Tara LaRosa.

Female MMA - Mystee Blackwood

Mystee Blackwood is one of the pioneering Professional MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) women fighters in which she started her career in 2004 in Indiana.

Lockflow interview with Mystee:
http://www.lockflow.com/article_view.php?id=565

http://blog.myspace.com/mysteeblackwood

Female MMA - Shayna Baszler

Shayna Baszler is an American mixed martial artist.
Her last fight was a loss by Technical Knockout against Amanda Buckner at Mix Fighting Championships: USA vs. Russia 3, on 3 June 2006.