A Smack in the Face
It's been a banner year for female MMA.
In the United States, Pro Elite has made Gina Carano (Pictures) a poster girl. Bodog has introduced fans to Tara LaRosa, Amanda Buckner (Pictures), Rosi Sexton and Carina Damm. Fatal Femmes Fighting has delivered cards with a great blend of international talent.
The progress isn't just stateside either. Canadian promotions TKO and ECC have begun featuring female MMA. The female fight scene continues to grow in Brazil and also in Japan, where DEEP hosted Hisae Watanabe (Pictures)'s dethroning, K-GRACE's one-night jackpot of a tournament provided compelling fights and storylines, and G-Shooto continued to develop young talent.
Yet the fertile crescent of female free-fighting -- Smack Girl -- has been startlingly dry. The promotion's silence this year should end this Thursday in Tokyo with the Queen's Hottest Summer card at Korakuen Hall. However, despite a great card, the future of Smack Girl isn't as promising as their promotional materials suggest.
A quick history lesson: Smack Girl was born out of the milestone ReMix event in December 2000. Although ReMix was not the first important female MMA event, it served as a true coming-out party for women in the sport.
Ladies Legends Pro-Wrestling had dabbled in MMA in the mid-90s, holding pivotal MMA cards in which female pro-wrestlers such as Shinobu Kandori, Yumiko Hotta and Rumi Kazama competed in vale tudo. Results ranged from considerably impressive to woefully brutal. Those events, alongside the equally important U-Top Tournament in 1996, also introduced the world to two monsters of early female MMA: the 6-foot-3-inch, 330-pound Russian judoka Svetlana Goundarenko and her Russian judo teammate, the 230-pound Irina Rodina.
The December 2000 ReMix was what most people think HOOKnSHOOT Revolution was, before Jeff Osborne (Pictures) ever dreamed of an all-female fight card. The event summoned the best females in MMA, providing the first real glimpses of Marloes Coenen (Pictures), Megumi Yabushita (Pictures) and Erin Toughill (Pictures). It showed women could throw down and female MMA could grow in a way that wouldn't yield nauseating comparisons to female boxing.
Now we're on the eve of the biggest Smack Girl event of the year. The card is strong from top to bottom. The Next Cinderella Tournament finals will push great young female talent to the forefront. The mid-card has some quality scraps. Three title fights are on the bill, and the main event is a rematch four years in the making. Normally this kind of lineup would prompt me to write an unnecessarily verbose preview that exhaustively details the fighting style of MMA unknowns -- just the kind of article I love writing.
But not this time.
Something bigger is at stake here. Smack Girl came out of the womb trailblazing, burning bras in the face of convention. Yet, somehow, seven years later, anything that could be construed as positive progress for female MMA has evaporated, and Smack Girl seems to be about as forward-thinking as Fordyce's Sermons.
Some of the problems facing Smack Girl are not the promotion's fault, nor are they particularly changeable. As a niche promotion, Smack Girl's product does not lend itself to lucrative sponsorship. Many fighters, especially those from abroad, have long complained that low purses, even by female-fighting standards, have driven them to seek fights elsewhere. Accordingly, it was only a matter of time before big-money promoters such as Pro Elite and Bodog lured away top women.
Financial woes aren't my particular gripe, though. In fact, I'm rather sympathetic in that regard. I understand that thin wallets are often the norm with promotions such as Smack Girl. When big-budget ballers roll into town, smaller international promoters have to survive with what they have. However, Smack Girl has completely squandered the resources they have (or had), and they continue to mismanage their product.
Female MMA has miserably watered-down rules in many venues. Stateside, many athletic commissions have three-minute rounds for females. California has inexplicably pathetic two-minute rounds. In Japan, DEEP has conservative female MMA rules. However, no set of in-ring regulations are worse than Smack Girl's, despite the fact that they're the very promotion that has stood for females' right to fight.
Worse than Smack Girl's use of giant mittens masquerading as gloves is the promotion's insistence on 30-second time limits on the ground, especially considering the majority of females in Smack Girl have grappling backgrounds. Worse yet, Smack Girl's typical rules prohibit ground-and-pound.
Smack Girl does have "Smack Girl Special Rules," which allow for unlimited time on the ground and full ground-and-pound. These rules have been used rarely, though, and almost always for fights involving Yuka Tsuji (Pictures) and Megumi Fujii (Pictures). Smack Girl has said they have the safety of fighters in mind and these rules are suitable for Tsuji and Fujii because they're elite fighters. While that may sound logical, it is absolute B.S.
Tsuji and Fujii have competed in unrestricted MMA rules in Smack Girl against foreigners with virtually no MMA experience. Last November, Fujii sent Australian kickboxer and MMA neophyte Serin Murray out on a stretcher after leglocking her. Earlier this year Tsuji pulverized American novice Thricia Poovey in a full-rules mismatch. Yet, on its upcoming card, two of Smack Girl's title fights, Hitomi Akano (Pictures) vs. Takayo Hashi (Pictures) and Yoko Takahashi (Pictures) vs. HIROKO, will use the typical rules of quick stand-ups and no ground-and-pound.
It is bad enough that Smack Girl continues to use rules that reinforce the gender inequalities they supposedly fight against. However, the promotion's whimsical, hypocritical rationale and implementation of those rules is flat-out irresponsible. Yet that's only a fraction of the issue here.
This Thursday's main event will see a compelling rematch between current Smack Girl 115-pound champion Yuka Tsuji (Pictures) and the only woman to defeat her, Brazilian fighter Michelli Tavares. The two met in July 2003 in DEEP, with Tavares snagging Tsuji in a triangle armbar. Since then Tsuji, 17-1, has dominated her weight class and figures to be the favorite in the rematch.
However, as intriguing as this match may be, it isn't the fight that should be happening. Not on Smack Girl's biggest card of the year. The promotion could have staged the biggest fight in female MMA history. They blew it.
Here's why: Yuka Tsuji (Pictures) and Megumi Fujii (Pictures). Those two women are often allowed to fight under Smack Girl's less restrictive rules for good reason. They may be the two most talented females in MMA.
With female MMA still developing, it's rare that great talent collects in a single weight class. Often females have to jump up and down in weight for match-ups. However, Tsuji and Fujii, pound-for-pound queens, both weigh 115 pounds.
Why have these two never met in the ring? Tsuji has been Smack Girl's champion for two years without a true challenge. Meanwhile, Fujii has moved up and down the scale and fought woefully overmatched opponents because no one wants to fight her. Both women compete regularly in Smack Girl, but we aren't going to see them fight anytime soon.
Last month Fujii debuted in Bodog. Takeshi Nagao, head of Smack Girl's parent company, Kilgore, recently said Bodog has refused to let him book Fujii against Tsuji due to Fujii's Bodog deal. Hence the biggest potential fight in female MMA is in limbo, though it could have happened anytime in the last two years, when Tsuji and Fujii were thrashing nobodies in Smack Girl. While Smack Girl did virtually nothing to retain Laura D'Auguste and Amanda Buckner (Pictures), two of their champions, this is even worse. Letting this fight not happen is inexcusable.
Nagao has promised changes to Smack Girl after this upcoming card. The promotion will broadcast events online. Make no mistake, that's fantastic. There will be more opportunities to see quality international competitors, but that's not the elixir needed here.
Kilgore and Smack Girl executives need to look at what they can easily change. Namely, stop treating showcase fighters as second class by subjugating them with ridiculous rules. Yoko Takahashi (Pictures) was fighting her ass off in a cage under vale tudo rules 10 years ago. Hitomi Akano (Pictures) is an elite-level competitor who has fought both Larosa and Buckner. Takayo Hashi (Pictures) is a world-class grappler with a fantastic résumé.
I could go on and on straight down Smack Girl's roster, but I shouldn't have to. Not treating them as equals to their male counterparts is textbook hypocrisy.
And cut the indefensible mismatches and gross mishandling of talent. Smack Girl has alienated nearly all the strong foreign talent they helped put on the map, from Toughill to Modafferi to Coenen to D'Auguste to Buckner to Ward. Stop the endless stream of international kickboxing converts and pony up to retain the true foreign talent you find.
Enough is enough. Without overhaul and reform, other promoters will continue to build, and Smack Girl will be buried under its own foundation.
In the United States, Pro Elite has made Gina Carano (Pictures) a poster girl. Bodog has introduced fans to Tara LaRosa, Amanda Buckner (Pictures), Rosi Sexton and Carina Damm. Fatal Femmes Fighting has delivered cards with a great blend of international talent.
The progress isn't just stateside either. Canadian promotions TKO and ECC have begun featuring female MMA. The female fight scene continues to grow in Brazil and also in Japan, where DEEP hosted Hisae Watanabe (Pictures)'s dethroning, K-GRACE's one-night jackpot of a tournament provided compelling fights and storylines, and G-Shooto continued to develop young talent.
Yet the fertile crescent of female free-fighting -- Smack Girl -- has been startlingly dry. The promotion's silence this year should end this Thursday in Tokyo with the Queen's Hottest Summer card at Korakuen Hall. However, despite a great card, the future of Smack Girl isn't as promising as their promotional materials suggest.
A quick history lesson: Smack Girl was born out of the milestone ReMix event in December 2000. Although ReMix was not the first important female MMA event, it served as a true coming-out party for women in the sport.
Ladies Legends Pro-Wrestling had dabbled in MMA in the mid-90s, holding pivotal MMA cards in which female pro-wrestlers such as Shinobu Kandori, Yumiko Hotta and Rumi Kazama competed in vale tudo. Results ranged from considerably impressive to woefully brutal. Those events, alongside the equally important U-Top Tournament in 1996, also introduced the world to two monsters of early female MMA: the 6-foot-3-inch, 330-pound Russian judoka Svetlana Goundarenko and her Russian judo teammate, the 230-pound Irina Rodina.
The December 2000 ReMix was what most people think HOOKnSHOOT Revolution was, before Jeff Osborne (Pictures) ever dreamed of an all-female fight card. The event summoned the best females in MMA, providing the first real glimpses of Marloes Coenen (Pictures), Megumi Yabushita (Pictures) and Erin Toughill (Pictures). It showed women could throw down and female MMA could grow in a way that wouldn't yield nauseating comparisons to female boxing.
Now we're on the eve of the biggest Smack Girl event of the year. The card is strong from top to bottom. The Next Cinderella Tournament finals will push great young female talent to the forefront. The mid-card has some quality scraps. Three title fights are on the bill, and the main event is a rematch four years in the making. Normally this kind of lineup would prompt me to write an unnecessarily verbose preview that exhaustively details the fighting style of MMA unknowns -- just the kind of article I love writing.
But not this time.
Something bigger is at stake here. Smack Girl came out of the womb trailblazing, burning bras in the face of convention. Yet, somehow, seven years later, anything that could be construed as positive progress for female MMA has evaporated, and Smack Girl seems to be about as forward-thinking as Fordyce's Sermons.
Some of the problems facing Smack Girl are not the promotion's fault, nor are they particularly changeable. As a niche promotion, Smack Girl's product does not lend itself to lucrative sponsorship. Many fighters, especially those from abroad, have long complained that low purses, even by female-fighting standards, have driven them to seek fights elsewhere. Accordingly, it was only a matter of time before big-money promoters such as Pro Elite and Bodog lured away top women.
Financial woes aren't my particular gripe, though. In fact, I'm rather sympathetic in that regard. I understand that thin wallets are often the norm with promotions such as Smack Girl. When big-budget ballers roll into town, smaller international promoters have to survive with what they have. However, Smack Girl has completely squandered the resources they have (or had), and they continue to mismanage their product.
Female MMA has miserably watered-down rules in many venues. Stateside, many athletic commissions have three-minute rounds for females. California has inexplicably pathetic two-minute rounds. In Japan, DEEP has conservative female MMA rules. However, no set of in-ring regulations are worse than Smack Girl's, despite the fact that they're the very promotion that has stood for females' right to fight.
Worse than Smack Girl's use of giant mittens masquerading as gloves is the promotion's insistence on 30-second time limits on the ground, especially considering the majority of females in Smack Girl have grappling backgrounds. Worse yet, Smack Girl's typical rules prohibit ground-and-pound.
Smack Girl does have "Smack Girl Special Rules," which allow for unlimited time on the ground and full ground-and-pound. These rules have been used rarely, though, and almost always for fights involving Yuka Tsuji (Pictures) and Megumi Fujii (Pictures). Smack Girl has said they have the safety of fighters in mind and these rules are suitable for Tsuji and Fujii because they're elite fighters. While that may sound logical, it is absolute B.S.
Tsuji and Fujii have competed in unrestricted MMA rules in Smack Girl against foreigners with virtually no MMA experience. Last November, Fujii sent Australian kickboxer and MMA neophyte Serin Murray out on a stretcher after leglocking her. Earlier this year Tsuji pulverized American novice Thricia Poovey in a full-rules mismatch. Yet, on its upcoming card, two of Smack Girl's title fights, Hitomi Akano (Pictures) vs. Takayo Hashi (Pictures) and Yoko Takahashi (Pictures) vs. HIROKO, will use the typical rules of quick stand-ups and no ground-and-pound.
It is bad enough that Smack Girl continues to use rules that reinforce the gender inequalities they supposedly fight against. However, the promotion's whimsical, hypocritical rationale and implementation of those rules is flat-out irresponsible. Yet that's only a fraction of the issue here.
This Thursday's main event will see a compelling rematch between current Smack Girl 115-pound champion Yuka Tsuji (Pictures) and the only woman to defeat her, Brazilian fighter Michelli Tavares. The two met in July 2003 in DEEP, with Tavares snagging Tsuji in a triangle armbar. Since then Tsuji, 17-1, has dominated her weight class and figures to be the favorite in the rematch.
However, as intriguing as this match may be, it isn't the fight that should be happening. Not on Smack Girl's biggest card of the year. The promotion could have staged the biggest fight in female MMA history. They blew it.
Here's why: Yuka Tsuji (Pictures) and Megumi Fujii (Pictures). Those two women are often allowed to fight under Smack Girl's less restrictive rules for good reason. They may be the two most talented females in MMA.
With female MMA still developing, it's rare that great talent collects in a single weight class. Often females have to jump up and down in weight for match-ups. However, Tsuji and Fujii, pound-for-pound queens, both weigh 115 pounds.
Why have these two never met in the ring? Tsuji has been Smack Girl's champion for two years without a true challenge. Meanwhile, Fujii has moved up and down the scale and fought woefully overmatched opponents because no one wants to fight her. Both women compete regularly in Smack Girl, but we aren't going to see them fight anytime soon.
Last month Fujii debuted in Bodog. Takeshi Nagao, head of Smack Girl's parent company, Kilgore, recently said Bodog has refused to let him book Fujii against Tsuji due to Fujii's Bodog deal. Hence the biggest potential fight in female MMA is in limbo, though it could have happened anytime in the last two years, when Tsuji and Fujii were thrashing nobodies in Smack Girl. While Smack Girl did virtually nothing to retain Laura D'Auguste and Amanda Buckner (Pictures), two of their champions, this is even worse. Letting this fight not happen is inexcusable.
Nagao has promised changes to Smack Girl after this upcoming card. The promotion will broadcast events online. Make no mistake, that's fantastic. There will be more opportunities to see quality international competitors, but that's not the elixir needed here.
Kilgore and Smack Girl executives need to look at what they can easily change. Namely, stop treating showcase fighters as second class by subjugating them with ridiculous rules. Yoko Takahashi (Pictures) was fighting her ass off in a cage under vale tudo rules 10 years ago. Hitomi Akano (Pictures) is an elite-level competitor who has fought both Larosa and Buckner. Takayo Hashi (Pictures) is a world-class grappler with a fantastic résumé.
I could go on and on straight down Smack Girl's roster, but I shouldn't have to. Not treating them as equals to their male counterparts is textbook hypocrisy.
And cut the indefensible mismatches and gross mishandling of talent. Smack Girl has alienated nearly all the strong foreign talent they helped put on the map, from Toughill to Modafferi to Coenen to D'Auguste to Buckner to Ward. Stop the endless stream of international kickboxing converts and pony up to retain the true foreign talent you find.
Enough is enough. Without overhaul and reform, other promoters will continue to build, and Smack Girl will be buried under its own foundation.
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