The UFC first introduced women to their roster in 2013, arguably long after they should have. However if Stephen A. Smith had his way, there would be no female fighters, even to this day.
To put it mildly, Smith is not someone that MMA fans take seriously, in terms of his opinions on the sport. He has regularly been seen botching stats or giving poorly received commentary on how a fight went down.
Nevertheless, his popularity and role with ESPN still sees him in the broadcast position for big UFC events. This has led to bizarre opinions, resulting in beef between he and several members of the community.
View this post on Instagram
Stephen A. Smith Hates Having Women In The UFC
Unfortunately it seems that the bizarre opinions of Stephen A. Smith have struck again. This time it came in the form of some archaic opinions, regarding having women competing in the UFC and other combat sports.
Speaking in a recent interview, he was asked about the fact that women are getting higher executive roles in other sports. However when asked if more f this should happen, he went off on a bizarre tangent.
“First of all, I love it. I think there’s an awful lot of women who are incredibly qualified to do the jobs they’re doing,” Smith said (h/t MMAFighting.
“Where I jump off the bandwagon is where they try to engage physically. For example, I don’t ever want to see a woman boxing a man. I don’t want to see that.
“I don’t want to see a woman in the UFC fighting a man—even though there are some women out there that will kick the dude’s butt.
“When I think about pugilistic sports, I don’t like to see women involved in that at all. I just don’t like it. I wouldn’t pass, I wouldn’t promote legislating laws to prohibit them from doing so, but I don’t want to see women punching each other in the face. I don’t want to see women fighting in the octagon and stuff like that. That’s just me.
“I certainly, what I adamantly would be against is them fighting men. I don’t think that’s cool. I’m not a proponent of that. Plus you don’t ever want to give men a license to believe that it’s all right to be physical with a woman, to be quite honest with you. You don’t want to do that.”
Believe me Mr Stephen A Smith, we like watching you hit pads just about as much as you like watching women fight in the cage. 😂 pic.twitter.com/50yTGbXXlm
— MacMally 🍀 (@MacMallyMMA) February 2, 2021
It would be a shame if Stephen A. Smith got his way, and there were no women in the UFC. Especially when you consider the fact that the 2020 Fight of the Year was between two women, and it was one of the best fights in UFC history, regardless of gender.
What do you think of his comments?
