Women's MMA is definitely younger than men's, but at the same time, the women have the luxury of not having to reinvent the wheel, as (to my knowledge) there are either none or very few female MMA gyms, so they're training with the guys, and have the same ~20 years of MMA history to draw from in what works and what doesn't.
The interesting thing about the Rousey's armbar is that everyone knows it's coming, and presumably, would look to defend against it above all else, and yet she still has an astonishing number of wins with it. A lot of that has to do with her being well-rounded elsewhere, and a lot of is has to do with the fact that she's really, really good at armbars.
Women's MMA is primarily disadvantaged by the dearth of women in college / high school wrestling, which means that most of them are starting later than the guys who graduated from greco roman wrestling and parlayed that into MMA. It's a big advantage, due almost entirely to discrimination, but one that will likely be obviated over time.
Ronda, on the other hand, grew up in an athletic household as the daughter of the first women's judo champion, and that mother routinely pushed her towards a similar path. She maybe didn't get a chance at college wrestling (or maybe she did, hell if I know), but she got the relevant training regardless, which puts her ahead of the rest of the pack.
Ronda's got a leg up, and it probably won't persist ad eterneum, but for now, and probably the immediate future, she's the best, and she's earned it. If she stops being the best, the question really is whether the talent vacuum rushes in around her, or gets occupied by the single person that beat her, and all that.
To be fair, the UFC began with no weight classes, and only started implementing weight classes as capitulation to the regulatory bodies who were trying to shut them down.
In brief, the sport was being banned and outlawed in various sates for being too dangerous, and in order to attain "legal" status, the UFC negotiated with gaming boards to determine rules. Some of those rules are stupid, some are undoubtedly prudent, but the rules largely exist because without them, the state of Nevada (and others) wouldn't have allowed the UFC to continue.
I don't have any special insight as to whether or not those gaming commissions mandate a separate women's class or not, and the UFC head honcho Dana White had previously stated that he'd never allow women's MMA in the UFC at all, but I suspect that his opinion has been changed by how competitive the women's division actually is.
I honestly couldn't say. Probably. I mean, the guy is a marketeer more than anything else, so it's worth taking his every word with a grain of salt... nevertheless, I think that when he first said it, it would have been hard to get women in the UFC that people would watch. There weren't any stars in the making. Now, there's a 50/50 shot as to what the gender of the best fight will be in any given UFC event. The Waterson/Magana fight was (in my opinion) the fight of the night in the TUF 21 finale.
Whether his change of opinion is sincere or profit motivated isn't any of my concern, but outside of Gina Carano, Cyborg and maybe three other ladies, the state of women's MMA at the time was pretty horrible, but just few years later and it's pretty great.
Yes, the general opinion has changed once it had been realized that women's bouts are not going to lose them million pounds a night.
The UFC earns money from pay-per-view, and if nobody's watching, then nobody's paying, and they either put on a much cheaper production, diluting the brand, or they lose massive amounts of money.
There are plenty of women's sports, and even quite a few women's MMA leagues and productions, so it's not like there had been no opportunities. The UFC were the first ones to be able to sell unstaged women's fights to the general public, and they should be commended for it.
It's not. While her skill level might be as high as an elite male fighter's of the same weight, her strength isn't.
Sexual dimorphism is real and it wouldn't be entertaining to see her pounded into the ground by an amateur thaiboxer -- same as it isn't fun seeing both Serena and Venus Williams being effortlessly beaten by a thirty-something nobody male tennis player
Even when you look at the obviously mismatched fights of, say, Yuki Nakai v Gerard Gordeau, it's not pretty, it's assymetrical, but the little guy won https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yko1xLF7AQU
In a complete contrast to Rhonda running her normal game against Gegard Mousasi, in a sparring back in 2012 -- as you say, not really entertaining, if perhaps instructive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9xjs2fWJEs
The interesting thing about the Rousey's armbar is that everyone knows it's coming, and presumably, would look to defend against it above all else, and yet she still has an astonishing number of wins with it. A lot of that has to do with her being well-rounded elsewhere, and a lot of is has to do with the fact that she's really, really good at armbars.
Women's MMA is primarily disadvantaged by the dearth of women in college / high school wrestling, which means that most of them are starting later than the guys who graduated from greco roman wrestling and parlayed that into MMA. It's a big advantage, due almost entirely to discrimination, but one that will likely be obviated over time.
Ronda, on the other hand, grew up in an athletic household as the daughter of the first women's judo champion, and that mother routinely pushed her towards a similar path. She maybe didn't get a chance at college wrestling (or maybe she did, hell if I know), but she got the relevant training regardless, which puts her ahead of the rest of the pack.
Ronda's got a leg up, and it probably won't persist ad eterneum, but for now, and probably the immediate future, she's the best, and she's earned it. If she stops being the best, the question really is whether the talent vacuum rushes in around her, or gets occupied by the single person that beat her, and all that.