Dana White on Tuesday told ESPNW the UFC would finally implement a women's 125-pound division, which will be introduced as part of Season 26 of The Ultimate Fighter and whose winner will become the inaugural flyweight champion.
"Women's fighting has become very popular," White told ESPNW. "I waited for a while to pull the trigger on this division, and I think it's time. I'm ready to do it now."
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This has been the division fans and fighters alike have been calling for. You've had women fighting at bantamweight who were too small for the weight class. You've had women competing at strawweight who struggled to make weight, like former title challenger Valerie Letourneau, because they were too big for 115 pounds.
With the dangers of weight cutting being a more prominent issue, the addition of a flyweight division only makes more sense: Why have fighters cutting too much weight when the body isn't made for it? Why have fighters compete at a weight against women who are too big for them?
"This is the true chance to be the 125-pound champ I always knew I was going to be," current bantamweight Jessica Eye said. "For all the women that fight at 125, it's the true chance at stardom and the true chance at being able to be a world champion. It's a very large jump from 115 to 135, so I'm happy they finally found some middle ground for us."
"We need this division in the UFC," strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk said. "There are more good female fighters coming into the UFC. Some fighters from 135 will drop to 125 because the division is too big for them, and some fighters from 115 will go up because they are starving themselves. We need to think about our future."
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The only drawback is that having more weight classes (12 in total) also means it will be harder for champions to stand out. Personalities like Conor McGregor just don't fall from the trees.
But creating the women's flyweight division should have been done from the outset when the bantamweight division started up in 2013. At that time, there were more 125-pound fighters than at 135. It's the same thing at 115 pounds: It is the deepest division in Women's MMA. The reasoning of not adding another weight class was absurd, as fighters like Eye and Jedrzejczyk would have been perfect for the division.
Instead, the UFC was slow to the draw. Thankfully, it finally realized it needed to make this change before it was too late.
Steven Muehlhausen is an MMA and Boxing writer and contributor for Sporting News. You can find his podcast, "The Fight Club Chicago," and subscribe on iTunes. You can email him at [email protected] and can find him on Twitter @SMuehlhausenMMA.
