As Female Wrestling Grows So May Female MMA

With the upcoming fight between Gina Carano and Cris "Cyborg" Santos drawing near, female MMA has never been so talked about. Still, once this big fight is over it's hard to see another one of the same magnitude coming down the pike anytime soon. Perhaps tied to this is the notion that the majority of Americans don't even know that female wrestling exists at the collegiate or high school level. And let's face it: You can make a strong argument that the best background to enter MMA from is one born of wrestling. Randy Couture, Mark Coleman, Matt Hughes, and Chuck Liddell, all UFC Hall of Famers or potential Hall of Famers, all came from just such a background, and every day more and more wrestlers make the jump to MMA. So when UFC President Dana White told The Edge that "there just isn't a big enough talent pool to keep it (female MMA) going. It's like in (women's) boxing, there was a run for awhile, but there wasn't enough talent to sustain it," perhaps we should draw a parallel.

A Scarcity of Quality Female Wrestling Programs is Limiting Female MMA

Imagine if we got rid of all of the MMA fighters with strong wrestling backgrounds in male MMA. What would we be left with? A lot less, that's what.

Reinforcing this, if one takes a quick look at the Collegiate Women's Wrestling Association website they'll notice that there are only 13 participating colleges, and digging deeper they'll find that only a few of those colleges have a significant number of female participants. Compare that with the sheer amount of opportunities that men have wrestling in college and a clear and highly significant difference becomes evident.

It's not an accident that fighters like the ever popular and skilled Carano and Santos come primarily from a kickboxing background. Beyond Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, what other choice is there?

Expect More From Female Wrestling in the Future

There's reason to believe that years from now the female wrestling landscape will look different. According to a New York Times article, a little more than a decade ago (1996-97) only 1,600 girls wrestled in high school. That number had increased more than threefold by 2006-07 to 5,000 girls. Why? Well, the difference almost certainly has something to do with the recent inclusion of women's wrestling in the Olympics (2004). In fact, since 2006-07 the amount of colleges that offer female wrestling as a varsity sport has also increased, albeit more slowly. Sure, the amount of colleges offering the sport for women is still painfully low, but as early as last year, USA Wrestling's women's national coach Terry Steiner was positive about recent developments.

"I think there's a future now," he said.

In the end, female MMA is growing right now thanks to pioneers like Debi Purcell (FighterGirls.com), and popular fighters like Gina Carano and Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos. That said, when Dana White notes that the talent pool isn't all that deep yet, he's not necessarily wrong. But that should change with time, just as it should with female wrestling. In fact, as female wrestling grows and women begin making the leap from it to MMA- which eventually started happening with the men and is now rampant- expect that talent pool to get larger and larger.

No, wrestling isn't the only reason that female MMA isn't at the peak of its popularity right now; there are many others. Still, wrestling and MMA are tied at the hip, are they not?

READERS RESPOND: Is Female MMA a passing fad or will it continue to grow beyond the Carano-Cyborg fight? Tell us your thoughts.