In large part to EliteXC and Showtime, women's MMA is beginning to plant it's roots and get noticed and that is mostly due to one woman fighter in particular, Gina Carano.

Carano is a crowd pleaser with her background in Muay Thai. She is also charismatic and did I mention Carano was also a knockout in terms of looks as well as ability? In terms of exposure she was also the most looked up American Gladiator via the internet here in 2008 and, in addition, was a trainer for Oxygen's Fight Girls.

Apart from Carano there are very few other females who have gotten noticed but there is another and that women is, Kaitlin Young. Young earned her reputation as a vicious female knockout artist when she pulverized three female fighters in one night in an eight women MMA tournament. Not one opponent made it out of the first round.

Interestingly enough, Carano is scheduled to fight against Kaitlin Young on the CBS EliteXC debut on May 31, 2008 which should be anything but a catfight. Both women maybe attractive but both women are have vicious standup striking skills. If this fight goes the distance I will be shocked.

There are a couple of other women MMA fighter's out there trying to make some noise most notably, former Playboy model and pro boxer, Mia St. John. Now there is a lot of hype about St. John making the jump to MMA but let's be realistic. She has a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do and she did defeat an unknown women opponent in her first MMA bout but Mia has no real grappling skills that anyone is aware of and on top of that she will be 41 in a couple of months. Thats right, 41. Even if she learned some ground skills quickly one would have to ask; how much does 'The Knockout' still have left in the tank after 50+ pro boxing matches? I like the respect St. John is giving the sport of MMA but I don't think the transition would go to well from boxing to MMA.

In closing, besides the Gina Carano's, Young's and St. Johns there are a whole host of women MMA fighters cropping up. Women like Julie Kedzie (whose fight with Carano on EliteXC's first event was the fight of the night) and another pro boxer, Elena "Baby Doll" Reid are waiting in the wings to take women's MMA to a whole new level. I predict that within two short years, women's MMA will be bigger than women's boxing ever was. Having said that, I have been wrong before and may well be wrong again.

Learn more about this author, Matthew Soo.
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