Top Ten Reasons there should be 5 minute rounds in Women’s MMA

 

It’s good to have avid supporters of women’s MMA like Fightlinker.com and head of Strikeforce, Scott Coker who are really behind implementing five minute rounds within female MMA. But every once in a while along comes a guy that completely takes our entire culture back about 100 years. This list was created in response to him. If you follow MMA, then you know who I’m talking about. So check out The Top Ten Reasons Why Women Need 5 Minute Rounds only at MiddleEasy.com

 

Or Canada, the UK, Brazil…essentially any place other than Iran. MMA has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the states. Just look back ten years ago. Everyone was scrambling to Wal-Mart in order to stock up on bottled water and Campbell soup, computer companies were completely getting over on the public with y2K ‘bug fixes’ and UFC had just reached its 18th event. Bas Rutten and Pat Miletich were still holding it down in the cage. Now ten years later, we’ve hit UFC 100 (with tons of ‘Fight Nights’ thrown in the mix) and it’s absurd that we’re still debating whether or not it’s acceptable for women to go 5 minute rounds. This is the land of the free. What other country can you eat 103 hamburgers and not only win money but get a videogame contract out of it?

This is America. We don’t just hurdle over boundaries. We strap a couple of sticks of TNT on them, blow them up and celebrate with a Miller High Life. Throughout history, our nation has shattered every obstacle and left a path of rawesome destruction in its wake. The restriction of 3 minute rounds to woman’s MMA will be just another bug on America’s windshield as we run through every red light on the freeway of history.

 

Witnessing a KO is about the same as witnessing the birth of baby Jesus. There’s a lot of sweat and confusion, then all of a sudden everyone is screaming ‘How the hell did that happen?’. You don’t see many KOs in women’s MMA (unless your name is Sarah Kaufmann) and this could be entirely attributed to the lack of minutes available for women to do damage. Despite what Hollywood has taught you, not all knockouts come within a few seconds of the first round. In fact, the more you get punched, the more you are prone to be KOd (I think I heard Joe Rogan talk about this so it has to be true). With an increased level of fatigue, you lower your guard just to reserve enough energy to move around the cage. A lowered guard means an unprotected chin and possibly a future mat nap. Just take a look at Gina Carano vs. Rosi Sexton to refresh your memory. With 9 minutes to scrap as opposed to 15, you’re shaving off valuable ‘oxygen deprivation’ time and if you’re a fan of MMA…that’s like happy hour to us.

So why would the mixed martial arts world deny this privilege to their viewers? But more importantly, why deprive this right to the female fighters? Every chick deserves the right to get knocked out…by another chick.

 

Take a chick like Hitomi Akano. 11 of her 14 wins have come by submission. Her most recent fight was against Cyborg Santos who’s known for her accurate stand-up. Now imagine Cyborg made weight and the rounds were extended to 5 minutes. Hitomi Akano (trained by Josh Barnett) would have undoubtedly had a better chance at working her submissions on Cyborg. In fact, everyone would.

The fact is, 3 minute rounds reward stand-up specialists and punish the ground experts. It’s a lot quicker to catch a person with a left hook than it is to set up and maintain a reverse triangle. Just check out the Meisha Tate vs. Sarah Kaufman fight. Tate was trying to work either an arm-bar or kimura throughout the fight, just when something started to develop…bell rings, round over. Now Tate, who just used an incredible amount of energy to get Kaufman to the point of near submission, has to regroup and use even more energy to even get close to that dominate position she had in the previous round. Reduce the time it takes to get something going in the cage and you’re going to have an army of frustrated fighters (an army that would be completely rawesome by the way). Give women the same amount of time it takes for amazing male submission specialists (like Masakazu Imanari) to set up a decent rubber guard and choke a chick out with their own neck (Shiyna Aoki style).

 

Let’s face it, guys are just disgusting. I’m speaking from experience. We hardly take showers, enjoy games like Edward 40s hands, fart incessantly and consider Conan the Barbarian the greatest cinematic achievement in modern history (because it is). If anything, they should limit guys to 3 minute rounds and give the chicks the extra two minutes. If you want to bring a little bit more class to the sport, let the chicks get more airtime and teach the guys how to be somewhat refined (just after we’re finished tagging our drunk friend’s face with a Sharpee as he’s passed out on the sofa).

Female MMA is host to some classy chicks. We know, we’ve interviewed some of them. They’re intelligent, calm, collective and say words other than ‘Dude, WTF man!’ and ‘Man, F*** That’ (which is exactly how I spent my entire freshman year communicating with my roommate). Ask any dude and he’ll tell you women are just more evolved. Maybe I should rephrase that, female MMA fighters are just more evolved (nearly forgot that chick at ‘The Gentlemen’s Club’ who’s using my $1 bills to fund her way through ‘college’). Ah, maybe I take that back. Look at someone like Ayn Rand…women are just more evolved than guys. But strippers, well they need to stop using their jedi mind tricks to force me to reach in my pocket and open my wallet. Maybe I should rephrase all of this. Women are just more evolved than guys and strippers have a high count of metachlorians running through their veins. Yeah, that’s about right.

 

Alright, I’m not even going to waste your time with this no brainer. The majority of MMA fans are guys. Guys like chicks (although there’s always that exception). Chicks will bring an audience of guys (go to a bar on any given Friday night, place a chick in the middle and observe the herd of guys offering her a drink…and some sleezy pick-up line). Now place that same chick in a sport that is already dominated by a plethora of male fans and you will get even more male fans (and more sleezy pick-up lines). Now reduce the time in which the chicks can fight and it will equal less television advertising dollars (and less PPV buys). Increase the time in which the chicks can fight and it will equal more television advertising buys (and more PPV purchases).

Longer rounds = More revenue

Shorter rounds = Less revenue

I’m pretty sure I can relax knowing that I just made my 4th grade math teacher pretty proud (and it justified all those detentions I got for showing everyone the proper way to do an ‘armpit-fart’). It really only takes a 4th grade education to gain this fantastic mathematical insight. Sometimes I wonder if these promoters who refuse women 5 minute rounds even graduated from elementary school. I know I did, I got the milk and cookies to prove it.

 

 

I learned a lot from my ex-girlfriend. Whatever they want, they will eventually get (even if it’s $21.95 Popcorn Shrimp and Strawberry Lemonade that you couldn’t afford so you overdrafted your account and had to survive on rice, butter and mustard for a week).

When interviewed, 100% of women fighters want exactly the same rules as men. It’s not even a question. The entire world of female MMA just wants to be treated the same as the guys in regards to…well everything. 5 minute rounds are something the women’s suffrage movement should have stamped out friggin 90 years ago (we don’t even care that mixed martial arts didn’t exist back then). Promoters and CEOs of MMA organizations should listen to their fighters instead of some misogynistic (big word alert) belief that women must be restricted certain privileges enjoyed by their male counterparts. Hey if they want it, give it to them (at least that’s what my ex brainwashed me with).

 

Really, the fact that two chicks are about to duke it out in the cage is reason enough to steal any card they’re on. But just look at the days of EliteXC (RIP), every single women’s bout stole the show. It wasn’t even a question. If you headlined a card and there was female mma on the ticket, it was senseless to even think about getting a ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus. I can’t think of a single moment in which I’ve watched an entire women’s mma fight and not be entertained.

Unless promoters have a fear of getting their entire card hijacked by an extraordinary female mma bout, then there’s no reason to not give them the full five minutes. If your audience is estatic and spilling Heineken all over their True Religion jeans and Affliction shirt, then why break that energy with shorter rounds? If they say God comes like a thief in the night, then Erin Toughill comes at you like an overhand right to the chin (and then takes your wallet when you’re convlusing on the ground). Don’t be afraid that women are going to rack ‘Fight of the Night’ honors everytime they step in the cage. Embrace it. Make money off it, do something…but just don’t rob them of two minutes per round.

 

 

Captain obvious just dropped off a note. It says ‘MMA’s audience is predominantly male’. We would tell him thanks for the breaking news, but he just threw us another note that says “Guy’s like chicks in hot shorts mounting each other in the cage”. It’s like the dude is reading our mind. It’s pretty hard to multi-task when Michelle Waterson is in north-south position with…well any chick. The fact is, chicks are hot. Chicks that fight are hot. The act of fighting grants all females a +100 point bonus on the official hot scale (established by Frank Trigg in 2002). It’s an undeniable fact. I can’t think of a reason in which anyone would stumble upon a female MMA fight on their TV, and then decide to change the channel to…Gilmore Girls.

You remember when you were in high school (maybe you don’t), the rumor of a girl fight after class would fill your life with meaning and purpose. You had something to look forward to. Learning about the Revolutionary War or turning in your Geometry homework that you copied had zero relevance in your life. Seeing those two girls scrap in the B-Hall near the lockers was all that mattered. That fuzzy feeling you had years ago is fully instilled when a person watches a women’s MMA bout. Note to every television producer out there, sex still sells. You assemble a card of exceptional female fighters and you can sell whatever ‘hair regrowth/male enhancement’ product you want to peddle on our impressionable minds.

 

There’s a blitzkrieg of up and comers in women’s MMA, perhaps even more so than men. Currently, Strikeforce is the only major organization that is giving female MMA any play with PFC and Bellator following closely behind (whatever happened to Bodog?). With a limited number of options, it’s difficult for some of the best female fighters (Roxanne Modafferi) and future up and comers (Angelica Chavez) to hop on cards and even tougher for them to display their talent with only a 9 minute time limit. If you give women enough time to shine in the cage, perhaps it would develop into an inherit fanbase that would resonate in the household of every young kid that wants to be an MMA fighter. Instead of that little kid rocking a poster of the Jonas Brothers on her wall, maybe she’ll have a Muhammad Ali-esque poster of Felice Herrig knocking a chick out. If any promoter would like to see this sport develop beyond something that people just casually tune in to whenever it’s replayed, then respect needs to be given to female MMA. It’s entirely too promising to ignore.

Take a look at the summer olympics for example. What’s the most talked about female competition? What’s that one sport that, regardless of time or location, that you will suspend all future activities if it’s on television? Women’s Beach Volleyball. During the Beijing (and Athens) Olympics, the names of Misti May and Kerri Walsh were spoken in every household like they lived next door. It landed them reality tv show deals, placed them on the cover of every gossip magazine and even President Bush was caught doing…something with Misti May’s badunkadunk (that word is so 2007). These chicks were insanely athletic, at the top of their game and rocked tight shorts. The formula is there for MMA. Misti May and Kerri Walsh developed their fanbase nearly overnight and they weren’t held down by the restrictions of the misogynistic society in which they live in. Their matches were not cut short…just look at them, why would it be?

 

There’s a doctor that recently claimed that women shouldn’t fight five minute rounds. We’re not going to give away names but let’s just say he looks like he should be Reggie Miller’s cousin. This doctor made accusations that women aren’t physically capable of handling those extra two minutes per round. It’s obvious that his evaluation was based more on sexism than it was on science. Hold up, what’s that echo? Ah, it must be history repeating itself. In 1961, Arthur Jensen published a report arguing that there are inherent differences in intelligence between “blacks” and “whites” and that these differences are impossible to overcome. Arthur had to wipe his paper off before publishing it in the Harvard Educational Review because it was dripping in racism and bigotry. Jensen came to this extraordinarily scientific conclusion by citing known racist Cyril Burt who came to his conclusion by filling the skulls of different races with pellets. Whichever skull held the most pellets won. No, we’re not making this up…this actually happened. An investigation by Princeton in the 1970s not only lifted the ‘retard’ veil from Jensen’s experiment, but discovered that Jensen used fabricated data. The dude was a racist all along, yet he (along with Cyril Burt) pushed their bias agenda on the entire scientific community for years. That’s until American paleontologist/biologist (and overall hero) Stephen Jay Gould published “The Mismeasure of Man” that completely collapsed that entire bigotry driven aspect of science. He’s probably the most important person of this century and you haven’t even heard of him.

Now we’re not accusing the doctor (the guy that looks like Reggie Miller’s cousin) of falsifying data. But if he continues to stand by his accusations that women can’t handle five minute rounds based on their physiology (the same vein of thought Cyril Burt and Arthur Jensen used) then we are accusing him of being sexist. Yeah we said it.

It’s not 1920. Woman can vote. We have internet. We are a globalized culture. In 1947, African-Americans couldn’t drink from the same water fountains as white people. Now that same country is led by a man who, just a few decades ago, would be forced to sit in the back of a bus. We’re citing this extreme example because it’s ridiculous that this list was even created in the first place.

I cannot believe that it’s 2009 and we’re still trying to prove that people are people. Five minute rounds for women. End of story.

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